- Female narrator: In April 2020, "snapped" told the story
of Jamie ballweg, who thought she had found lasting love
with 45-year-old John grachek.
- She was really sweet,
and she made my dad really happy.
They had a lot of fun times together.
- Narrator: Until a peaceful easter Sunday
turned into a horrific nightmare.
- John was shot twice in the chest and thigh.
- Narrator: What first appeared to be a random crime
revealed itself to be anything but.
- John and Jamie had separated,
and it was very difficult for Jamie.
- They think that she just turned into this crazy person
that wanted revenge.
- Jeffrey: She had made statements that if John grachek
got custody of their kids, she would kill him.
- Narrator: Today, Jamie sits down for an exclusive interview
to tell her side of the story.
- I did not want John dead.
I did not want that.
- You've got it all wrong.
This is not my mom.
- I was like terrified because they had guns draw on us.
I'm sorry about what happened.
I wish I could go back and change it but I can't.
- ♪
♪♪
- ♪
- Jamie: I'm Jamie grachek.
I came here to say my part, you know?
I have a lot of gr... regrets.
I regret what happened that night.
I made a mistake, a really bad mistake,
but we're not all perfect.
- My siblings and I have gone through a lot in our lives
just because of one simple mistake.
This big thing that happened turned into something that
really changed our lives for the worst.
- ♪
- Narrator: It was easter Sunday on march 31st, 2013,
in the sleepy town of riverside, Ohio.
- Holly: Riverside is a suburb of Dayton.
It's a working-class neighborhood, a lot of families
live there, you don't see a lot of crime in that area.
- Narrator: But at 10:30pm, the local police department
receives an alarming 911 call.
- [Gunshots]
- Narrator: After the cryptic 911 call,
riverside police officers rush to the scene,
where they find a woman crying over the body of a man
lying motionless in the front yard.
- Matthew: When they arrived, he was awake.
He was on the ground.
There was a towel that was being applied to his side.
We could see it was a gunshot wound.
- Jeffrey: He was shot twice.
He was shot in the chest and shot in the thigh.
- Narrator: The woman identifies herself
as 40-year-old Nicole price.
The man on the ground is her 45-year-old boyfriend,
John grachek.
- I'm thinking, you know, he's been shot,
he's gonna make it, he's gonna be okay.
And I kept telling him to hold on.
- Narrator: Born in 1967, John grachek grew up
in the lake erie suburb of fremont, Ohio,
the youngest child in a large family.
- Ashlee: He had a big booming laugh; He was a very funny
and loud, outgoing individual and he had a big heart.
- Narrator: In 1990, at 23 years old,
John started his own plumbing company.
- Danny: He was truly a god when it came to plumbing.
I've never seen a plumber as fast as him.
- Narrator: One year after launching his business,
John met and married a woman named Sylvia schauffler
and the couple started a family.
- Ashlee: My mom and my dad had three children together:
Um, my sister, Chelsea, me, and my brother, Jonathan.
- Narrator: But John and Sylvia's marriage didn't last.
- Ashlee: My mom and my dad were married for 13 years,
and they split up when I was 7.
- Narrator: John wasn't single for long.
In 2004, he met a young woman who would
change his life forever.
- Jamie: I was 26 and when I first met John,
I was attracted to him right away.
He had the prettiest blue eyes, and we just started talking.
And I could tell that he liked me, and you know,
I-I liked him, too.
And then it was like we were kind of inseparable
from there on out.
- Narrator: Like John, Jamie had been raised in a big family.
- Jamie: I was born and raised in Ohio,
and I lived with my mom and dad, and I have three siblings.
I had a good childhood.
I was loved a lot.
We didn't have a whole lot of money, but we were happy.
- Ed: Jamie, she had a mind of her own and she always did
what she thought she wanted to do no matter what I said.
- My sister dropped out of school in eighth grade.
She just stopped going to school and she just never went back.
- Jamie: I dropped out of school because I got pregnant
with my oldest son, and me and his father were together
for a little while and then we split up.
We were just young, and you know,
we just went our separate ways.
It was hard to make those kind of decisions, you know,
being so young, but I had my mom and she was right there with me
like holding my hand through all of it.
And I had my dad.
He was very supportive of me.
- Narrator: By the time Jamie met John in 2004,
she had given birth to five children.
- Between 20 to 26, it was like my life was crazy.
I was pregnant a lot.
Just going through a lot of different things.
My oldest daughter has a different father
than my two oldest boys.
And then I had two daughters that I gave up for adoption.
- Marlee: Life was really hard.
We just tried to stick together and love each other
and do whatever we could to survive, you know.
- Narrator: With none of the children's biological fathers
around, it made things even more special when John accepted them
into his life as if they were his own.
- I was so happy, like I just thought I finally have
a dad, you know, that... that's gonna be there, you know,
that's gonna love us.
- Daniel b: When we first met, he seemed like a real nice guy.
You know like he... he took care of us.
- Jamie: John was a very good dad to 'em.
The relationship that John had with my kids was great.
It was really good.
They all got along great.
- Precious: Jamie had a couple of failed relationships
at this point.
She wasn't really used to a man sticking around,
investing in her and wanting to take care of her.
So this was a really happy time in their lives.
They were a big "Brady bunch" type unit.
- Narrator: Despite their 14-year age difference,
the couple wasted no time cementing their relationship.
- We got married really quick.
We got married within like two to three months
of knowing each other.
- Narrator: John and Jamie had two more children together:
A son and a daughter.
And for the next five years, everything seemed perfect.
- Ashlee: They seemed great for each other,
and she was a little younger than my dad,
so I feel like she brought out that fun-loving side to my dad.
- Narrator: But by the fall of 2011, after 8 years
together, cracks began appearing in the marriage.
- They seemed to have argued more
and seemed to be getting along less and less.
- It was just really hard with five kids, and... and
John didn't know how to deal with his emotions well.
Sometimes he kind of took things out on me and the kids.
He was violent at times, yes.
- Daniel: He would change moods really, really quickly
on the fly for no reason.
He always had this like real bad anger.
- John was the sole provider.
He was a self-employed plumber.
He made really good money and Jamie didn't work.
- Danny: He was the only person
that was bringing the income into the house.
So, that put a lot of stress on him.
- Things went south with Jamie.
Jamie was using drugs and being very neglectful to her children,
and my dad stepped in and decided that that wasn't going
to be the life that they were going to live.
- Narrator: It's an allegation Jamie denies.
- No. Drugs weren't really a problem.
I didn't have a drug problem.
- Narrator: But by the summer of 2012,
the couple decided enough was enough.
- John and I tried to work things out for about
a year and a half, but we just kind of separated.
- My mom was very heartbroken.
She would sit in her room and cry when he was gone.
- I just felt so defeated.
Like, my whole world was turned upside down.
It was really hard because John was all I knew.
- Narrator: Without John to support her financially,
Jamie struggled to make ends meet
and eventually lost custody of her children.
- The house we were staying in, at that point,
didn't have power.
A case worker pulled up with three cop cars,
and she was like, "I'm taking the kids."
That's about all I remember.
- The day that my siblings and I
got taken from my mom
was really one of the hardest days of my life.
- Jamie: I was upset that they were in foster care.
It was really rough for me.
But I was trying to get back custody,
and children services wasn't really helping me.
- Narrator: With Jamie unable to provide for the children,
John began applying for custody.
Then, later that same summer,
he met 39-year-old Nicole price.
- Danny: He went out drinking one night,
and he winked at Nikki and it went on from there.
- Nicole: We seen each other every single day after that.
So, then we moved in together in riverside in 2012,
the day before Thanksgiving.
- ♪
- Narrator: Just four months later, tragedy strikes when
a mysterious shooter attacks John and Nicole at home,
leaving him clinging to life.
- John was struck two times the altercation.
One bullet struck his leg, the other struck in his rib cage.
- And he was removed by our medics
to a level-one trauma center.
- From what the officers and the medics were telling us initially
it didn't look good.
- Narrator: Coming up: As doctors fight to save John,
riverside police begin to piece together what happened.
- A lot of witnesses saw these two men run away.
But there was a driver sitting there waiting on them.
- When the police pulled us over I was like terrified.
I didn't do it to hurt anybody.
I'm just struggling.
I thought this was the end of my life.
I'd never see my kids grow up.
- ♪
- Narrator: March 31st, 2013.
In riverside, Ohio, 45-year-old John grachek is fighting
for his life after being shot at his home.
- Emergency services personnel arrive
to find John in the front yard.
He's bleeding.
They realize that he was struck twice, but he's still alive,
and they rush him to a nearby hospital.
- Narrator: Meanwhile, riverside detectives begin
combing through the crime scene.
- Matthew: We're able to see inside the house
that there was clearly a struggle, because things
were moved out of place and disheveled
and items were kind of strewn.
- Jeffrey: We found bullet holes in the wall,
through the closet door, drywall dust, blood spatter.
- Narrator: To try and determine exactly what happened,
detectives speak with John's girlfriend, Nicole price.
Nicole tells the detectives that her and John's evening
had started out like any other.
- Nicole: We spent easter together.
John was relaxing on the couch, and I was in the kitchen.
John got up to use the restroom,
and that's when I heard a knock at the door.
- Narrator: Nicole says the person at the door
was a man she didn't recognize.
- She described that a dark-haired man
had entered the home with a gun.
- Narrator: And he was pointing the gun right at her.
- I just turned around and screamed
and ran towards the family room.
- John starts coming down the hallway to intercede
and to protect Nicole.
- Nicole: The man was telling John to, "get on the floor,
get on the floor,"
and then I start hearing the gunshots.
- [Gunshots]
- Michael: After the shots were fired,
she saw another man running away, along with
the dark-haired man, towards the street.
- Nicole: I didn't know there was a second guy
until after they were running from my house.
- Jeffrey: She described the taller of the two white males
had the handgun.
The white male with the handgun had a buzz haircut
and some facial hair.
- Narrator: Nicole tells police that after the men fled, John
tried to chase after them, but he collapsed in the front yard.
- I ran over to John and then he's like
holding his side and then i'm yelling, "help, help."
I don't know why they were there.
I didn't know if they wanted money or to kill us,
I mean, I didn't know.
- Michael: They didn't ask for anything.
They didn't make any demands.
- Jeffrey: Something's very wrong here.
This was not a home invasion.
This seemed to have a purpose to us.
- Narrator: Detectives speak with neighbors to see if
anyone saw in which direction the suspects had fled.
As it turns out, several had.
- Michael: They said these two men
got into the passenger side of the car.
They said it was a dark-colored car.
And that really clued detectives in, okay,
there was a driver sitting there waiting on them.
So, there was a third person involved in this incident.
- Narrator: Detectives put out a bolo with the description
of the suspects' car.
And within minutes,
officers have the vehicle in their sights.
- Matthew: Our officers on our road patrol
encounters a car leaving the area at a high rate of speed.
So, he follows the vehicle
and conducts a traffic stop on it.
They start ordering people out of the vehicle.
Driver is a white female.
She follows orders.
She was very nervous, very upset.
- When the police pulled us over, I was like terrified,
'cause they had guns drawn on us.
They had us walk backwards and lay on the ground,
and then they handcuffed me
and put me in the back of the police car.
- Jeffrey: When they stop the vehicle,
there are two white males.
One is taller than the other, one has facial hair
and the one with the facial hair has a buzz haircut.
- That's when the decision is made
to bring them back to the scene to conduct
a live ID with Nicole.
- Narrator: To detectives' surprise, Nicole immediately
recognizes the female who had been driving the vehicle.
- She identifies the woman as John's ex-wife, Jamie.
- I remember the police drove me back over to John's house
and they shined like a flashlight on my face.
And then I saw Nicole there,
and she looked at me and shook her head.
But they didn't tell me what was going on.
- Narrator: Nicole also recognizes the two men
as the assailants she saw running from the scene.
- Police are able to identify the men
as 29-year-old Gary webb and 24-year-old Jacob gipson,
Nicole remembers Gary webb as the person who held
the gun and fired the shots into John.
- Jeffrey: I said, "is that the man that shot John?"
She said, "yes, it is."
- Narrator: Investigators haul Jamie and the two male suspects
back to the police station for questioning.
At the same time, Nicole price heads to the hospital
desperate to know John's condition.
- Nicole: I was really worried about John.
The detective told me I could finally go to the hospital
and see him.
- Narrator: But when Nicole arrives at the emergency room,
she's met with devastating news.
- Nicole: The doctor came in
and said he worked on him for a long time.
He couldn't save him.
It was terrible.
It was the worst day of my life.
- Narrator: As the sun came up over riverside, Jamie's kids
were also reeling from the news of John's death.
- All of us kids were with my grandpa, Greg,
so that is my biological dad's dad,
and he got a call.
And about 30 minutes later,
he said, "your stepdad, John, he has passed away.
And your mom was involved."
And I'm sitting there like, "what in the actual heck
"is... is happening right now?
"Like you've got it all wrong.
This is not my mom. My mom would not do this."
- It was April first so I thought it was a joke.
John seemed like this invincible guy you know because of how
big he was, it seemed like no one could take him down.
- Narrator: Meanwhile, at the riverside police department,
investigators separate their three suspects...
Jamie grachek, Gary webb, and Jacob gipson.
- John has passed; This is a murder investigation.
It's now a homicide.
- Matthew: The first person we spoke with was Gary webb.
He's been arrested before.
He understood his rights.
- Jeffrey: He had some crimes of violence,
aggravated burglary.
- Nicole had told investigators that Gary webb
was the shooter, but during the interrogation,
he tried to play dumb.
- Narrator: Gary also reveals what he claims is the real
reason the trio had visited the gracheks' home that evening.
- Gary told detectives that they went to John's house
to buy drugs and a fight ensued.
- Narrator: Detectives aren't buying Gary's story.
- They had no history of John grachek
as being involved with drugs.
There were no incident reports of drug activity at his house.
It didn't make sense to them.
- Narrator: But in talking with their other suspects,
the truth behind this heinous crime would soon be revealed.
- Jamie says, "well, I never wanted anyone to get hurt,"
but what did she think was going to happen?
This is a really dark plan.
- Narrator: Coming up: Investigators question the woman
at the center of it all.
- Narrator: And her reaction to her ex-husband's death raises
red flags for police.
- I remember even turning to sergeant trego,
and I'm like, "she's not crying."
- You know, they did say that I cried with no tears,
but everyone deals with grief differently.
Yes, I did love John.
I still love John.
- ♪
- Narrator: After John grachek was gunned down in his riverside
home, police have arrested his ex-wife, Jamie grachek,
and her companions, Gary webb and Jacob gipson.
- Michael: Investigators interviewed Gary webb.
He told them that it was Jake who was the shooter, even though
Nicole had already told investigators she knew
for a fact it was Gary webb who had shot John.
- Narrator: When investigators question Jacob gipson,
he gives a very different story.
- As we're talking to Mr. Gipson,
he's basically claiming that Gary webb's the one
that brought the firearm over.
He's the one who went to the door first.
- Holly: Police believe that Jacob gipson
is being fairly truthful about what happened that night.
- Matthew: His version of events is matching up
with what we've learned at the scene from Nicole price.
- Narrator: But while it's clear to investigators
who pulled the trigger, the motive behind the shooting
remains a mystery.
Just before daybreak, detectives turn to Jamie grachek,
the only suspect with a clear connection to the victim.
- Michael: According to Jamie, she had
no idea that John was dead when investigators
first brought her in for questioning.
- When I was in the interrogation room,
I was just confused, kind of a little scared.
I didn't know what was going on.
I thought we were in trouble just for, you know,
going over there and them going inside the house.
When they told me that they were investigating a homicide...
Then I was just like, you know, really shocked about it.
And I was like, "who... who died?"
- Narrator: Detectives tell Jamie that her ex-husband
has been killed.
- I didn't wanna believe it.
I told them that I didn't believe them
and that I wanted to see him.
[Crying]
- The one thing that I noticed that was really interesting
in interview, she was wailing to the point that it seemed forced,
and I noticed that there were no tears.
And I remember even turning to sergeant trego,
and I'm like, "she's not crying."
- Jeffrey: When people have genuine reaction
to a traumatic event like that, it's genuine, there's tears.
- The police were a little limited
in their assessment of Jamie's grief.
There was an assumption
that, "grief looks the same way in every person,"
but much like trauma, grief can show up in many different forms.
There must have been so many things going through Jamie's
head at that point, it's likely that she really truly was just
in shock and the body does strange things
when you're in shock.
So Jamie very well could have been have
having a natural emotional reaction.
- Jamie: You know, they... they did say that I cried with
no tears, but everyone deals with grief differently.
And I've had plenty of time to grieve, you know, since then.
And there's been a lot of tears shed.
And I do miss John a lot.
And I do wish that I could go back and change it.
I did love John.
I still love John.
- Narrator: Detectives tell Jamie they've already gotten
statements from both Gary webb and Jacob gipson.
- Jeffrey: I don't know if there's a connection
between webb and Jamie grachek.
But gipson was the common denominator.
They each knew him.
Gipson also was a liaison or romantic interest
of Jamie grachek.
- Matthew: There's a string of text messaging
that we are able to discover from downloading
their phones that connect Jamie grachek and Jacob gipson,
romantically.
- Narrator: However, Jamie denies any sort
of romantic relationship with Jacob.
- Jamie: He was not my boyfriend.
He was just my friend.
Me and Jacob lived in the same apartment complex,
and he did maintenance there.
I was living with a friend of mine.
- I wanted the truth to be known.
I wasn't trying to hide anything.
I told the police exactly, you know, how it happened.
- Narrator: According to Jamie, it all started
when she got a call from Jacob gipson around 9pm...
- Jamie: It was easter Sunday, and Jacob was calling my phone,
and he was talking about, "we've got to get some money somehow."
It was kind of like a spur of the moment, you know, thing.
- Narrator: Jamie says both she and Jacob were strapped for cash
at the time, and on the brink
of becoming homeless.
- Jamie was in and out of shelters
and, I mean, I don't even know what she was doing for money.
- Kelly: She needed to support a drug habit,
um, and just to earn money to stay afloat.
She wasn't working anywhere.
- The original plan was to Rob a drug dealer
that Jacob knew.
- Narrator: Jamie admits she agreed to the plan, but Jacob
decided they would need some extra muscle.
- He wanted me to drive him to go pick up
this guy named webb that was a friend of his.
I went and picked him up and then we swing
by this drug dealer's house.
Jacob had a gun in his hand.
They told me to wait there in the parking lot,
then they came running back to the car.
He said that the drug dealer jumped out the window.
- They tried to execute this plan but it didn't work.
And so, you know, that's when the talk transitioned to,
"okay, who else can we target?"
- I took like a couple Xanax's,
so I was kind of like out of it.
He was like, "so who can we Rob?
Because we need some money."
- Jamie: I thought maybe John might have had
some money on him.
Jacob acted like it was a good idea to do that.
And I was kind of hesitant but I just... i went along with it.
And I wish I wouldn't have.
- Narrator: The trio arrived at the home around 10 pm.
- I pulled up and I pointed to which house it was.
They said, "just be ready to drive."
I didn't think anyone was going to get hurt.
I didn't even think about that.
I knew he had a gun.
But I didn't know if it had bullets in it.
- Jamie: They got out of the car and ran up to the door,
and... like, there was something inside of me that was
like screaming like, "tell them to come back!
Tell them to come back!"
But i... i didn't.
I wish I would have.
[Sobbing]
- I think that her guilt is compounded by the fact
that she had an opportunity to stop this.
But she wasn't able to do that.
- ♪
- [Gunshots]
- Jamie: I heard the gunshots.
And then they came running back to the car.
And I didn't know what was going on.
I didn't know what had happened.
They were just screaming at me like, "go! Go! Go!"
And I was like, "what happened?"
And they wouldn't tell me anything.
- Narrator: Panicked, Jamie hit the gas and the three of them
sped off into the night.
- I didn't have my lights on in my car or anything.
I was just driving all crazy,
because they were screaming at me.
Jacob threw the gun out the window
when we were driving away.
- [Siren wailing]
- There was no plan to kill anybody or hurt anybody.
I... i would have never went along with something like that.
- Narrator: Despite her account of the night,
police would soon discover holes in Jamie's story,
suggesting John's murder was no accident.
- I think it came all at once for Jamie.
It was too much losing John.
- Jamie was spiraling... spiraling out of control.
- Narrator: Coming up: A chaotic love triangle
is revealed... One that police believe culminated in murder.
- She was jealous he was moving on with his life
and that it was without her.
- Honestly, I was angry at her.
The fact that she did something so stupid.
- I understand why you hate me, because if I was you,
I would hate me too.
- ♪
- Narrator: April 1, 2013.
Riverside, Ohio.
Detectives are sitting down with 33-year-old Jamie grachek,
who claims her ex-husband John grachek was killed
in a robbery plot gone wrong.
- Precious: When Jamie gets arrested,
she essentially sees her whole life flash before her,
and it end at this moment.
All of Jamie's aspirations of having a life with her children,
having a loving home felt like they were completely
and utterly over.
- It seemed like it was like a split second
that everything happened.
I'm just thinking about my kids and I was basically in shock.
- Narrator: When Jamie is finished giving her statement,
she gets a rude awakening from detectives.
- Honestly, I was angry at her.
Um, the fact that she did something so stupid.
But it didn't feel fair that, you know,
she was taken away for a stupid mistake, you know.
- Narrator: But as investigators continue to build
their case against Jamie, they begin to uncover evidence
that suggests John grachek's death was no mistake.
- In secondary interviews with Nicole price, we're finding out,
too, that there were some other
underlying incidents that happened.
- Narrator: Even though John and Jamie had technically
separated in 2012, they hadn't completely cut ties.
- Danny: John and her still dated off and on
through the whole time of the separation,
up until the point he met Nikki.
- Narrator: With Nicole in his life, John had decided
it was finally time to cut Jamie off completely.
- My mom was pretty upset about the whole ordeal
with him leaving.
- It took my mom and John
a long time to separate.
And finally, it got to the point
where he had left for the last time.
She cried a lot.
She would be in her room a lot just really sad.
- She was jealous he was moving on with his life
and that it was without her.
She lost her support system.
She lost... she lost everything when John left her.
- Jamie was spiraling...
And spiraling out of control.
- Narrator: Nicole says it wasn't long after she and John
started dating that Jamie started to harass them.
- He got his phone number changed
and then she started messaging him on Facebook.
Blocked her from that one and then she'd make up fake ones
and try to contact him through there.
- Narrator: Jamie disputes Nicole's claims
and says John was the one harassing her.
- After we broke up, he would, like, stalk me and
just... like, he would be sitting in my driveway at like
6 o'clock in the morning, just sitting there and like... like
he didn't want to believe that it was over,
even when he was with Nicole.
- Narrator: But according to Nicole, Jamie's erratic behavior
escalated one evening in January of 2013.
- Kelly: Jamie had taken a vehicle and drove it through
the front yard of their home, cutting up the grass
in front of their home as a threat.
- Nicole: It was like 3:00 in the morning
and he heard a real loud car, 'cause this is a cul-De-sac.
John seen her when he opened the door.
We did call the police, and they came.
- Uh, yes. I did do that.
I was just out driving around with this boyfriend I had, and
we just happened to be in the vicinity of where John lived.
And I wasn't driving; My boyfriend was.
And we just kind of like drove through the front yard.
It was really childish and dumb.
- Narrator: That's when Nicole reveals another reason
Jamie may have wanted John dead.
- It was decided that he was getting his children
a week before easter.
- The courts ruled that John would get custody.
- ♪
- Narrator: Coming up: Investigators uncover
a tumultuous custody battle that tested Jamie's limits
and may have ended in murder.
- Holly: The thought of losing children,
I think, just pushed her over the edge.
- They were the most constant source
of love and affection for her.
- She had made statements at a prior hearing that if
John grachek got custody of their kids, she would kill him.
- ♪
- Narrator: Within 24 hours of John grachek's murder,
investigators are learning that his ex-wife, Jamie grachek,
may have had reason to want him dead.
- She's been the only one harassing him, you know,
and constantly and,
"i... i know where you live," you know.
- Narrator: By the time of the threats, Jamie's unstable
lifestyle had already caused her to lose custody of her children,
including the children she shared with John.
- At this point in time, I didn't have anywhere to live,
and I did not have the financial means to even, you know,
support the children.
- Precious: It was very difficult for Jamie
when her children were being taken away from her.
She started having children at a very early age.
So, they were the most constant source
of love and affection for her.
- Narrator: But after their children were placed
in temporary foster care, it was beginning to look like
John would be awarded full custody.
- John was going to visit his kids weekly.
And then eventually, I started going too
to get to know the children.
- He was doing everything he needed to do to work
his case plan and get reunified with the kids.
And Jamie just wasn't doing anything.
- Narrator: The final custody hearing was scheduled
for April 8th, just 8 days after John's murder.
- Nicole: The children were going to move in April 9th.
It had been decided that he was getting them
a week before it happened.
- She had also made statements at a prior hearing
at Montgomery county family courts
with children's service present
that if John grachek
got custody of their kids, she would kill him.
- I think it came all at once for Jamie.
It was too much losing John.
And, you know, the thought of losing children, I think,
just pushed her over the edge.
- Narrator: Investigators surmise that Jamie had her ex
killed to prevent him from obtaining custody of the kids.
- Now, it was all piecing together
what the real motive for this crime was.
And it was to get rid of John grachek.
- Michael: I think she not only wanted to take his money,
I think she was looking for a little bit of revenge.
- Narrator: It's a claim Jamie vehemently denies.
- I did not want John dead.
I knew that he was gonna get custody.
I mean, what... what did I think?
That my kids were just gonna stay in foster care
or get adopted out?
I did not want that.
I wanted them to be in a home with people they knew.
- They think that she just turned into this crazy
person that wanted revenge, and I was, like,
"I don't think that's it at all."
I know that's not it because that is not who my mom is.
- Narrator: On April 1st, 2013,
police charge Jamie grachek with complicity to commit murder,
aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery,
and felonious assault.
- They charged me with murder.
I thought this was the end of my life.
I'd never see my kids grow up.
- Narrator: Although Gary webb and Jacob gipson also deny
investigators' claims of a premeditated murder plot,
they face the same charges as Jamie.
- Michael: Gary and Jacob said this was
a robbery gone horribly wrong.
- Precious: They said that there was no plan
for John to be murdered that night.
- Narrator: With her trial date looming,
prosecutors decide to approach Jamie with a deal.
- I had been in the county for almost a year.
And they came at me with the 21 flat time,
and I said that I was okay with that.
- Michael: Jamie ended up pleading guilty
to involuntary manslaughter, complicity
to commit aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary.
- I knew if I took the deal that I wouldn't get
a life sentence and that I would have an out date and that
I would still have a chance at a life with my kids.
- Narrator: Gary webb and Jacob gipson
also plead guilty to murder.
- Michael: For being the one who pulled the trigger,
Gary webb received the harshest sentence,
18 years to life, Jacob received a sentence
of 15 years to life for his part in the crime.
- I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that your dad's gone.
I'm sorry about what happened.
I wish I could go back and change it but I can't.
And I understand why you hate me
because if I was you, I would hate me too.
[Crying]
- Narrator: Today, Jamie is trying to make the most
of her time behind bars and prepare
for her eventual release in 2035.
- Jamie: I will be 54, so I'll still be so young,
and I'll have lots of life left to live.
I got my ged in January of 2020, and I was so excited.
I called my kids and told 'em.
And I'm in here, you know, just trying to better myself
so I can be a better person when I walk out of here.
I... i feel like, you know, I deserve the time I got.
- ♪