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February 19, 2008
Posted: 02:57 PM ET
ELKHORN, Wisconsin –- After six weeks of dramatic testimony, the jury is deciding whether Julie Jensen was murdered with poison slipped to her by her husband or took her own life. 
Mark Jensen is accused of poisoning wife Julie with antifreeze.
 Closing arguments in Wisconsin v. Mark Jensen were an all-day affair. The jurors intently listened to both sides without showing any emotion or bias toward either the state or the defense. Special prosecutor Robert Jambois began the final arguments by telling jurors that now they can understand why Julie Jensen began telling her next door neighbors, Tad and Margaret Wojt, her thoughts and emotions, why she believed her husband was trying to kill her. The prosecutor argued his points for about an hour and a half pointing to an email exchange on October 16, 1998 between Mark Jensen and Kelly LaBonte, the woman with whom he was having an affair. They discussed taking a cruise and getting problems out of the way along with “details.” That same night on that same home computer were Internet searches for poison, botulism, mercury fulminate along with an intranet search of Mark’s employee directory. The name researched: John “Jock” Joseph, one of Kelly LaBonte’s previous lovers. Finally the prosecutor argued that Mark left a sleeping Julie to go to the doctor on December 2 1998 to get the sleeping pill Ambien. That sleeping pill truly immobilized her, Jambois told the jury, so Mark could get her to drink the antifreeze. He was her only caregiver at that point. The defense spent much of its time focusing on con man Aaron Dillard, a key prosecution witness. Attorney Craig Albee portrayed Dillard as a professional at making things up. This was ticket out of a seven-year prison stint, Albee argued. Mark Jensen had reports and transcripts of his April 1999 interview with the lead investigator. Dillard easily could have read that and made up his story, Albee reasoned. Besides Dillard, the thrust of the defense argument centered on Julie herself — that she was sick, mentally depressed and did many things that were unknown at the time to Mark. Craig Albee told the jury Mark never knew Julie had called her next door neighbor on December 2, never saw her getting up to go to the bathroom and never saw evidence she had vomited. Julie could have gotten on the computer during those final days – something else Mark just didn’t see, Albee said. Mark Jensen’s loyal mother and father were in court for closing arguments but his sister, Laura, wasn’t. Nor was his wife, Kelly Jensen. Julie’s four brothers continue their united front of loyalty to their sister. They have come from various parts of the country to sit here in this courtroom for the last seven weeks. And finally the Jensen’s next door neighbors, Margaret and Tad Wojt are sitting in the back row on the prosecution’s side quietly listening to a death they have waited so long to understand. They told me we just had to come today, that the wait for answers has been too long. – Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent Filed under: Jean Casarez • Verdict Watch |
 
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