Detroit, Grosse Pointe Park

Attorney suggests possible suspect, motive in Jane Bashara murder

By K. Michelle Moran
C & G Staff Writer

Attorney David Griem expressed confidence that his client, Bob Bashara, was not responsible for the murder of Jane Bashara, and pointed to a more likely possible suspect: a handyman named “Joe” who was allegedly engaged in a financial dispute with Bob Bashara.

According to multiple reports, the handyman walked into the Grosse Pointe Park Public Safety Department voluntarily on Jan. 31 and supposedly claimed Bob Bashara forced him to kill Jane Bashara. The man is said to have still been in police custody as of press time, but police were expected to either charge or release him sometime Feb. 3.

In a press conference at his Detroit office Feb. 3 that was livestreamed on the Internet, Griem responded to media questions and outlined his own possible scenario as to what happened in the late afternoon/early evening hours of Jan. 24, when Jane Bashara went missing. She was discovered in her Mercedes SUV, strangled, in an alley in Detroit the next morning, after her husband reported her missing to police around 11:30 p.m. Jan. 24.

Griem said Bashara had named the handyman as one of only about three people who might be angry enough to hurt him or his family. Griem noted that Bashara provided this list to police well before the man showed up at the police station. Griem said his client, a real estate developer who rehabilitates and rents older residential and commercial properties, routinely hires handymen to perform repairs on his properties. Bob Bashara and Joe have known each other roughly two to three years, he said. Recently, Griem said Bashara and the handyman had a dispute over a payment, with the man alleging that Bashara still owed him money — around a couple thousand dollars.

In a personal interview with Griem Feb. 2, the attorney said Bashara wrote a personal check for a couple hundred dollars to the handyman the day before his wife was murdered. It was not, as some have speculated, a payment for him to serve as a hit man, Griem said.

“Who would write a personal check that could be recorded and traced back to (its author)… to a hit man?” Griem asked.

Griem said the handyman “threatened” Bob Bashara and that he reportedly has a history of violence, as demonstrated by disagreements he allegedly had with former female neighbors at a St. Clair Shores apartment in which the man is said to have threatened the women.

At the press conference, Griem suggested that the man may have come to the Bashara home in search of Bob Bashara Jan. 24, and encountered Jane Bashara instead because her husband wasn’t home at the time. Griem said it’s possible an argument may have ensued, and it could have resulted in a violent confrontation that ended in her death.

“(Bob Bashara) certainly wishes today he had (paid off) the full amount” of the disputed debt, Griem said. But, as a businessman in the field he was in, such disputes are not uncommon, the attorney pointed out.

“People in that business often fight over nickels and dimes,” he told reporters.

Griem cautioned that he had “no proof … whatsoever” of his theory as to what could have transpired, or if there even was a confrontation between the handyman and Jane Bashara.

The attorney also questioned the man’s credibility. Griem said the man has apparently changed his story to police at least six times while he’s been in custody.

Park Public Safety Chief David Hiller declined to make any comment on the case Feb. 2, including whether or not police had the handyman in custody.

From interviews that Griem did with Bashara, his two young adult children and his mother, Griem said he’s convinced his client didn’t murder his wife.

“I can tell you that based upon his relationship with his children and that first interview I did … I don’t believe he killed his wife,” Griem said. He added that the body language exhibited by Bashara’s children backed their defense of their father.

In addition, Griem commissioned a second polygraph test Feb. 1 with a certified and licensed tester who has worked for private and police agencies, and Bashara’s answers to two key questions — whether he killed his wife and whether he had anything to do with her death — came back negative.

Although police have been unwilling to confirm the results of a prior polygraph test Bashara voluntarily submitted to at their offices, reports have suggested that Bashara failed that test. Although Griem said these tests are “more subjective than objective,” he questioned the validity of the police test and testing method, saying he used a tester with the conventional machine while the police allegedly used a computer-assisted test that may not be as accurate and that requires far less instructional time for the test administrator.

Griem said Bashara “hopes and prays that this case is resolved today rather than tomorrow, and I’m speaking figuratively.” His client, he said, wants “justice for Jane.”

But his top concern, said Griem, “is so his kids can get on with their lives. So much damage has been done to (them)” as a result of the case.
 

You can reach C & G Staff Writer K. Michelle Moran at kmoran@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1047.