Jill Blackstone

A Los Angeles producer survives a harrowing brush with death. When the fart apartment assessed her, she thought she had had a stroke. Last thing I remember is we could help on the grass. But when police find a dead body in her garage, the case takes an unexpected turn. She was laying on her side with a dead dog behind her. As they search for the truth, detectives unravel a tightly wound mystery. I observed two trash cans. There were notes that were attached to the trash cans. The notes talk about what you're going to find, you're going to find two females. This is what you're supposed to do with the bodies. Possibly we had two sisters each of whom wanted to die. The investigation reveals evidence of a more sinister plot. There was no indication whatsoever that she wanted to end her life. So was this a tragedy or an expertly crafted murder? Did she accidentally survive? Or did she produce this scene and plan to survive the whole time? I kept telling the detective that there's no way that she did this. I get where you're seeing this from, I like to say, it's from the best person I know. It's March 2015 in Studio City, California, an LA suburb that's home to some of the world's best known TV and film lots. This quiet enclave of LA is disrupted midday when 911 hears from a concerned woman who just received a strange call from a friend. The last one's police department received the 911 call from Tracy. He's concerned about a friend of hers who lives in Studio City. She may have had a stroke, she doesn't know what's going on, but she's spoken to the woman in peril and paramedics need to get to that address. The fire department arrived and they went through the front door and when they went to the front door they found Jill Blackstone in a back bedroom. The woman Jill Blackstone is conscious but disoriented. She had stated she had crawled from the front yard to her bedroom. When the fire department assessed her, I believe her speech was a little slurred and she was talking slowly. Tracy said she thought she had had a stroke, but they did not find any evidence of a stroke. She really didn't give a clear explanation as to why. She didn't pull 911 herself. Though the woman's condition is not as dire as originally feared, those unseen sense that she is not alone. One of the paramedics notices that there's lots of dog balls and lots of dog toys, food balls and so he inquires. She tells them that they have three dogs. Those dogs may be in the garage with her younger sister Wendy Blackstone. One paramedic stays with Jill Blackstone as the other paramedic, walks over to a detached garage. It's completely dark. As I start to burn, you know, it's by just his experience that the burning of his eyes is probably some form of gas or something burnt inside the actual garage. So he opens the main garage door. The light reveals a tragic scene. He observed Wendy Blackstone to be laying on her side. He went and checked for vitals and found that she was deceased. As responders take in the scene, they discover charcoal smoldering in a grill and the three family dogs. One dog was dead next to Wendy Blackstone's body. Two dogs were still in movement. To see a dog deceased and dead like that and next to a body and the scene, the way that Wendy Blackstone was, I think it was very difficult to see that. Detectives are called to the scene as first responders tend to Jill and the surviving dogs. Tracy had gotten there right when they were taking Jill Blackstone out on a gurney to the ambulance. We didn't interview Jill at that time. No rag came out and took those dogs to a hospital. One of the dogs had sort of arch-shaped burns on his nose that were consistent with him trying to knock over the Weber Girl and it was knocked over. As detectives assess the scene for any signs that could have led to their deaths, they identify some troubling notes. I remember entering the garage, seeing Wendy on the ground and dot next to her. The barbecue's still on and a big culprit could be carbon monoxide. And then we see these notes. In front of a detached garage, there were notes that were attached to the trash cans. Then notes talk about what you're going to find inside the garage. You're going to find two females that do not want to be resuscitated. This is what you're supposed to do with the dogs. It seems like they wanted to both commit suicide, but someone's alive and someone's now dead. When you go to a scene like this, you're trying to interpret exactly what happened. Wendy Blackstone was born on August 2nd, 1965 in Bale, New Jersey. There were three sisters. There was Wendy, Lisa, and Jill. And Jill was the oldest, then Lisa, and then Wendy was the baby. In her early teenage years, Wendy found herself having trouble with the basics of life. Wendy did mention having problems at her bat mitzvah. She mentioned it was very dark and she was very uncomfortable at the celebration that may have been like the clue that got things rolling. Wendy was diagnosed by the same doctors I was. Wendy had something called usher syndrome, which combines retinitis pigmentosa with hearing loss. Retinitis pigmentosa is a degenerative eye disease that continues to degenerate all the way through life to the point where a person will become blind. I had the idea that possibly we could make a site for RP and usher people to be email pen pals. I met Wendy online in the 90s. We mostly didn't talk about vision problems. We talked about life. Wendy was a nice person who did her best with what was hand to her, very kind person. Wendy was determined not to be a do nothing person. Wendy went to a private school and then she also went to college and got her degree. Jill looked out for Wendy. Wendy was the baby sister and Jill was there every pretty much every step of the way helping her. Wendy worked after college while living at home before eventually receiving social security payments when her vision and hearing declined. Meanwhile, older sister Jill had gotten her master's degree in communications, got a job as an executive assistant at a TV station and really built quite the career for herself. She comes out to Los Angeles and she's doing reality shows. She got a job at Jerry Springer and several years later. She became an executive producer for divorce court. At one point, we produced the same talk show just at different times, so we both produced the Sally Jessie Raphael show. Jill, I think, had the reputation of having a high expectations she was successful. At one point in my career, I was managing editor and senior correspondent for a TV show called Crime Watch Daily. I remember one day Jill came in and sitting right next to me. This was a daily like news magazine show where you had to pound out scripts. She was making a lot of money and she had the big house in Hollywood Hills. Plenty of bedrooms for the family when they come out, everything was great. When we were producing talk shows together, Wendy would visit Jill in L.A. so she'd fly from New Jersey to L.A. on her own. Wendy would visit Jill in California frequently and she liked it. It was bright and sunny and warm. Jill took it upon herself to say, "Hey, Wendy would come with me." Jill has no kids and she's single for Wendy. This was paradise. It was great and Jill thought, well, why not? You know, come stay here. I've got plenty of space. And that's what Wendy did. Wendy, she had friends in L.A. Wendy was trying to have a more independent life. I think that Wendy found that she preferred to be in Los Angeles where she had friends her own age. And it was very fun to be with Jill. Wendy was Jill's biggest supporter. Wendy and Jill started an animal rescue together and settled into life on the West Coast. Wendy was a partner with something tells with Jill and they would rescue dogs. Wendy was very proud of Jill and the work she was doing and she was very happy to be part of the sort of the team. But now the sisterhood is broken in half when Wendy is found dead in the garage at their home. Detectives continue to analyze the apparent suicide notes left behind by the sisters. The notes were left in front of the garage on the trash cans. And there are two notes on the trash can. It sounded like a suicide note. One is enter carefully. The other one, it says, "Do not resuscitate." When it came to the situation at hand, we figured that maybe they both wanted to commit suicide and they wanted their dogs to go with them and somehow Jill Blackstone survived. It looked like it could have been a double suicide but only Jill Blackstone knows exactly what happened that night. In that garage. Coming up, Jill tells her story. She can't do anything with everything without being. But in the hands of a seasoned producer, the mystery deepens. Wendy is consuming my life. I don't know what else to do. After what looks like a failed dual suicide attempt, leaving Wendy Blackstone dead in the garage, but her sister Jill alive, Jill is taken to the hospital to be treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. Tracey Tweed contacted 911. Was there a police officer who had reported that he had overheard Tracey ask her, "Did you do this on purpose?" And Jill responded, "No." That was a weird statement to me. By no means to Tracey go inside the actual perimeter of the house. So that was important for us to talk to her. To find out why she asked that question. And exactly what it meant. Thinking Tracey will have additional insight. Investigators bring her to the station to give a formal statement. When asked about why she had stated to Jill, "Did you do this on purpose?" She stated that Jill was now getting tired of taking care of her sister. And was hoping that her sister could go back and stay with her family on the east coast and Jill could proceed on with her life. That didn't happen. So she thought possibly that Jill had done something. Troubled by this statement, police asked Tracey for more information about her relationship with the Blackstone sisters. She was a veterinarian for the dogs that Jill had notes that were attached to the trash cans said to please call the veterinarian Tracey to take care of their dogs. They were very, very good friends. To the point where when this incident occurred, the first person Jill calls is Tracey. Not the fire department or anything like that. When she had awakened outside in the front of the house in the sun and had called her friend to come and help her. Police learned there was one key detail Tracey left out of her initial 911 call. She said it was just silent when she was talking to Jill and said, "Where's Wendy and where are the dogs?" And Jill had stated to her, "Well, I think they're dead in the garage." Now that wasn't stated tonight when one at the time and it wasn't until we interviewed Tracey that she had advised us of that. I would think that would be something that you would tell 911. It was suspicious, but at the same time, I think she was also trying to evaluate how coherent and how well Jill was at that time. Because she, in my opinion, Tracey wasn't 100% sure that Jill was in the right state of mind herself. But those are flags to me that she thought that her friend Jill was capable of doing something. We wanted to know from Tracey what the dynamic was between these two sisters. Was there any type of issues when it came to threats or anything? And we didn't find that from Tracey. She simply said that it was very difficult for Jill to take care of her sister. She specified their ages. You know, we're older now. Jill wants to have a life. We asked her, do you believe that Jill could kill Wendy? And she said no. She didn't believe she could or the dogs. So we had to go from there and then go to the location and actually go and see what was there before we could go any further with it. Detectives return to the Blackstone residents where CSI has discovered additional notes left around the home. Everything around the house had sticky notes to it every piece of property, everything in when it came to Wendy's room, laptops, phones, medication, who to give it to and what to do with it. So an indicator that obviously Jill Blackstone and Wendy Blackstone were not going to be there to be able to tell somebody what to do. On Jill's desk was this binder that said last will and testament for Jill and Wendy. And there were keys to her cars and passwords to her computers. And a little neon pink when I was a little mini-posted notes that had in Jill's handwriting that had a really interesting phrase on it that I always thought was very curious that said, "Wendy is loved. Know that." I found that to be very suspicious in regards to why anybody would write that down about Wendy. Detectives on scene zero in, not just on what was written in the notes, but also who it was that wrote them. The first thing that struck me with the do not resuscitate letter that was next to Wendy's body was that it wasn't signed by both Jill Blackstone and Wendy Blackstone. I didn't find anything that had any signature by Wendy Blackstone that had stated that she wanted to commit suicide in any way. That sticky note of "No Wendy was loved" had the same handwriting that I found throughout all the posting notes. It appeared everything was done by Jill. And what do we have? We have Wendy dead Jill alive. And Jill is saying, "Wendy wants this too." Having at first viewed this as a failed suicide pact, police are now beginning to see things in a very different light. Based on the evidence that I had seen, a potential murder suicide and the fact that her best friend's asking her, "Did you do this on purpose?" Those are flags to me. We needed to have a conversation with Jill. Jill had all the answers. After processing the crime scene, the next day in the morning we went to go talk with and see if Jill Blackstone would be interviewed. She was at the hospital being taken care of for carbon monoxide poisoning and we had her on a suicide watch to make sure that nothing would happen to her. We engaged in a friendly conversation. She was answering questions in regards to her life, the fact that she worked for the spring or show. Oh yes, she did. She's still going. She's still going to testify in the world. She was just talking about her career. It's impossible not. not to realize that she's smiling and happy, delighted to reminisce about it. - When's the first time that you found out about your sister, that you knew that she, you know, died. I have a very amazing memory of somebody staying as I was getting into the ambulance, when did he stand? I'm trying to stay fresh for you for them in a little bit of soft. - For someone that had just gone through this event, who had lost his sister, I would have suspected to see someone that was more on the grieving side. - When detectives start to ask about what happened to Wendy, Jill quickly goes on the defensive. - Do you know why Bob could talk to you about what happened? I imagined because there was death at the home. - A little bit of a mistake might help you. Wendy is disabled. She can't do anything with everybody, without any. She can't drive, she can't go anywhere. She's so flashly, it can't work. - Jill really made it seem like Wendy was completely dependent on her. - The last few years is fine. Well, family worse. I've lived with so tired a lot. - I'm taking more time next than I should be. - Wendy is consuming my life. - I was just tired of taking care of her. - She appeared to just be tired of her and she didn't want her in her life anymore. - The day after finding Wendy Blackstone dead, police interview her sister Jill from her hospital bed. - Jill details she has housed and cared for Wendy for over a decade. - Jill really tried to give Wendy a nice life. I think it started to get burdensome for her, which seems like maybe Jill was sort of responsible for her. - Jill explains that on March 13th, the night before Wendy was found dead, the two held a celebration for her sister's beloved dog, Oli, who had died the previous year. Wendy's favorite dog of all the many dogs he had was a dog named Oli, and so they would celebrate him from time to time. - The choir and the big burgers. And we burgers for a while. And we talked. - Jill said that it was getting chilly out that night and they transitioned into the garage. Inside the garage, she says she burned charcoal not just in a newly purchased grill, but also in a large metal trash can. - Just making it seem like a really nice sister event, celebrating the life of a dog that Wendy loved. - And I said, "No, we have marshmallows." And she said, "Oh, those mid marshmallows?" And I said, "Yeah." She said, "That won't be good." - Jill said she was running inside to go get marshmallows in the kitchen, but then Jill tells officers that she passed out. - So, uh, that's the last thing you remember? - The last thing I remember is we can help on the grass. - She claims that she fell on her way into the house and then didn't remember anything until she woke up with the heat of the sun on her face. - She painted that picture to this horrific accident. - Jill begins to struggle answering detectives more pointed questions. - Well, at that point, that's when I asked her, "How about these notes?" Wait, wait, what about these notes at the scene? And then she goes on and says, "Those notes were placed there days before because I was really struggling and I was just trying to obtain the courage to possibly do this murder suicide plot. But she couldn't get herself to do it." - I just got my courage up and I stopped them on one day hoping that we'd get maybe. I thought if I saw them, I wouldn't have courage. So you're the one that actually pulled the barbecue and the tin garbage can't inside the glass. - So you close the garage door and the garage door was closed? - I don't. - Maybe I did it. And maybe I really did that. I don't remember that. - This was tape on your trash can in front of the garage. And since both parties have do not resist the tape orders. - Yeah, I didn't know what else to do. - When asked if Wendy ever wrote anything or write, said anything about committing suicide with Jill or wanting to be killed in their way she goes, she said, "Oh, no, absolutely not." She never wanted any of that. - And you just try to help us explain the pull that we're asking. - Well, part of it is that the obvious answer is that I'm not saying poison. - Part of it is taking part of it just now. I don't know. I don't know what that dude likes to say. - And then having this problem on the side, we bought that out fake. - I can't believe I never said that. I like people pick up those phones first of all. - The notes and complaints you're talking about in the beginning are all difficult it is to be with Wendy. Wendy had no idea of this murder suicide pack. So to now transform it into, you know, we were just having a really nice party and it was a horrible accident. That isn't consistent. - My partner advised her that she was going to be arrested for the murder of her sister when you blackstone and the situation with the dogs, the abuse and that we were going to present it to the district attorney. And after that, we pretty much knew there was going to be more to do. - But as the interview wraps up, Jill continues to maintain innocence. I get where you're seeing this from all I can say is one of the best person I know. I voted my life to save animals and saving people. I'm a good person. I voted my life to help it more in me. And I would never want a pregnant woman. Following a troubling conversation with police, Jill Blackstone leaves the hospital in their custody. We arrested her based on the probable cause and the artichable facts that we found at the time that we believe that she murdered her sister. That is something that we do on a felony if we believe that someone has committed that crime. Two days later, detectives present their case against the successful producer to the district attorney. Suggesting Jill may have used her knowledge as a TV producer to try to obscure her true intentions. - Some of the types of shows that she produced were crime shows. So I think she managed to throw a fair amount of darkness on the situation. I do think that the initial appearance of the case with the suicide notes and the deteriorating health of both parties probably made it seem that a jury might not convict. - The district attorney's office said we like the case, but we just need a little more, more information in regards to the autopsy, some more forensic work. - With no charges filed, Jill is released while investigators continue to bolster their case. At Wendy's autopsy, other than the effects of Usher's syndrome on her sight and hearing, the medical examiner finds no signs of ill health. - She was a 48-year-old woman in exceptionally good physical shape who worked out 45 minutes a day on a treadmill. She was slender, athletic, no disease-evident, no health issues. - The presence of Xanix with the car metamorphom oxide with her cause of death. I had spoken to her internist that taking care of her over a four-year period and he had stated to me that he had never prescribed Xanix for Wendy Blackstone. And anyway, he was shocked to find out that she had Xanix in her system and said, "I can testify to you that I have never heard or talked about being depressed or have any mental issues. We only knew of one person in the household that had Xanix, and that was Jill Lexon." With circumstantial evidence against Jill piling up, police talk to the sister's parents, hoping they can explain this baffling situation. - We wanted to see exactly what the dynamics were with the family. They wanted to be helpful with the investigation. We're talking about a family that's in in tragedy right now with this. We've got one sister that had been arrested and one sister that's now dead. When we advise the family of what had happened and what we believed to be intent on Jill wanting to kill Wendy, they absolutely did not believe any of that. They believed it was an accident. We left it at that time because there was still more to do on the case. With the story of what exactly happened in the garage still shrouded in mystery, Jill remains free. Next, police turned to Wendy's friends. We emailed basically once a week I was waiting for a reply and it was late but that wasn't completely unusual. I went online and went on Facebook to her Facebook page and there were people who had posted condolences and that's how I knew. I didn't even fully believe it at the time that something had happened and so I contacted Detective Jones of LAPD and spoke to her. John tells detectives what life was like for Wendy in Jill's home. Jill's description of Wendy is being kind of an inlet who was completely reliant upon Jill. It was upsetting when that wasn't the case at all when he could take care of herself. When I had heard that there was some evidence when he had tried to kill herself, I kept telling the detective that there's no way that she did this. Wendy was not a negative person she didn't like to dwell upon the bad things. She was mostly a positive, a forward-looking person. John is not the only one to tell police that Wendy was not suicidal. We went and spoke with approximately five or six of Wendy's friends. We found that she was a very capable woman. Her friends here in Los Angeles, they always found her very upbeat, supportive. She was always looking to the future, even though her future maybe wouldn't look so right to most people. She always found something positive to focus on, which I think is admirable. There was no indication whatsoever that Wendy wanted to end her life. Coming up, detectives pushed for evidence that will land Jill behind bars. The FBI got things out of the computer that we never could access and they were extremely valuable and learned the details of a disturbing, previous encounter. She felt like she was drugged and she said something was in that cookie. It's been six days since Wendy Blackstone was found dead in the garage of the home she shared with her sister, Jill Blackstone. After conversations with the sister's friends and family, detectives review Wendy's personal emails. We found an email with one of Wendy's friends that was a couple weeks before Wendy had died. The email reveals damning insight that Jill may have been planning Wendy's death for a while. Wendy is telling her friend in this email that, oh you know Jill and I had this black and white cookie and Jill cut it in half and I took a bite into it and it tasted. Terrible. Wendy had told her friends she went to bed that night and she couldn't get up. She felt like she was drugged and she said something was in that cookie and Jill said, oh well maybe when I cut the cookie in the kitchen, maybe some of the tramadol, which is a narcotic for dogs. Maybe some of the tramadol got on the cookie. What we think happened is Jill was doing a trial run of a potential narcotic to see what the effect would be on her. In March 2016, the FBI assists with an extensive data search on Jill's laptop. The FBI could do a great deal more. The FBI told them what front this is going to take six months and it did at least six months. But they got things out of the computer that we never could access and they were extremely valuable. What was discovered forensically on her computer was in her search engine. Three different topics, suicide by gun, carbon monoxide, poisoning. All searches done, which leads to premeditation, this just adds more evidence of something that she was planning, which is what we needed. As the evidence mounts, police also look at Jill's financial records to find a motive for killing the sister she spent years caring for. In the years before Wendy died, Jill's life went from active and doing all kinds of stuff to, "Oh, she got sick with lupus, so she couldn't work as much." She was very disturbed by having this disease that didn't enable her to continue earning as much as she had earned. She had to downsize and I think it made bothered her much more than it did her sister. When detectives receive Wendy's financial records, it locks in the final piece of evidence. Jill had filed bankruptcy several years before the incident. Wendy did get disability payments and Wendy saved her money. Wendy had loaned her $100,000 from her life savings. But the situation hadn't improved. Jill was about $1.4 million in debt. This included various loans, credit card bills, veterinary bills. So if you add up this horrible financial picture, plus the burden of Wendy is too much, murder suicide may have actually crossed her mind. In the days after Wendy's death, the DA's office decided not to press charges. Every time I went to the district attorney and submitted what I felt would be more or enough to have them file charge against Jill Blackstone, there was always something else they asked for. Now, after three years of gathering additional forensic evidence, detectives present their strengthened case to a new deputy DA, Gretchen Ford. For the earlier prosecutors, they found the suicide notes persuasive and they thought that possibly we had two sisters each of them wanted to die. I did not think that. She'd researched this mechanism of death and she had purchased the instrumentality with 24 hours in advance. That's more than enough group permutation and deliberation, and then really lied about the facts surrounding the death and certain other factors. Ball just made me very confident that this was the first degree murder. But I think that everybody was trying to figure out how this case would look to a jury. With a DA now on board and ready to prosecute, in March 2018, Detective John Eam Jones heads to New Jersey with a warrant to arrest Jill Blackstone. We knew that she was in the area in New Jersey by her parents' house, and we knew that by just following her on Instagram. I was able to torture her parents and they stated they had not seen her since April. The parents basically told us that they have a lawyer and didn't want to speak anymore. But Jill's lawyer gets word that detectives are looking for her and calls to give them her location. She's in Baltimore where she's being treated for migrants. Once that treatment is over, Jill Blackstone finds herself wearing handcuffs and she is subsequently extradited back to Los Angeles where she faces that murder charge and those animal parole to charges. Indicted for the murder of her sister, Jill Blackstone never faces trial. When I talked with prosecutor police officers and they were creating the plea deal, I think there was some thought given to the family that they'd already lost one daughter, now where they're going to lose another daughter. She pled no conscious to voluntary manslaughter and the three counts of animal parole teeth. Jill Blackstone is telling the world I'm not saying that I did it, I'm not saying that I didn't do it, but I will take the punishment to fit the crime. At sentencing, the judge considers the wishes of Jill and Wendy's parents. who have lost one daughter and are facing the imprisonment of another. The family stands was that she should be given as little time as custody as possible and that they would take care of her and that they needed her back. In the end, Jill is sentenced to eight years in prison. With this case, I think absolutely, that justice prevailed that Joe Blackstone was held accountable and Joe Blackstone will continue to live this for the rest of her life. At no point did I see any remorse from Jill. She convinced herself that this was an accident when she knew very well, very well. This was not an accident. This is exactly the result that Jill wanted. The mystery is did Jill Blackstone accidentally survive or did she produce this scene and plan to survive the whole time? She was struggling. I think Jill snapped because in her view there was no way out. The last thing that could be done for her sister and herself was to take her life and possibly take her own life. This idea of Jill being the caretaker who was nobly sacrificed her life to take care of Wendy when that's clearly not the case. Just because she has disability doesn't mean she's less of a person. Wendy should be remembered as very gracious. She was a really nice person. [Music]