Citizen Jane

Citizen Jane is a 1999 true crime non-fiction book by James Dalessandro about the real-life efforts of a woman to track down the con artist who murdered her aunt. In 2009, the book was adapted into a Hallmark Channel film starring Ally Sheedy, Meat Loaf, Sean Patrick Flanery, and Nia Peeples. Plot summary Jane Alexander was a sheltered, attractive widow living with her large, close-knit family in her small hometown of Truckee, California. For six years, she had been living with Tom O'Donnell, her charismatic and handsome boyfriend. He had used wit, charm, and tales of adventure to borrow money for extensive home business operations and investing. Gertrude McCabe, her favorite 88-year-old aunt, was gruesomely murdered in San Jose in 1983, a case that baffled San Jose PD. A break came from newly assigned police detective Jack Morris, whose investigative genius would soon solve the case. It was a difficult case to crack, but the motive was clearly something personal. McCabe was bludgeoned, choked with a bicycle lock, stabbed over two dozen times in her neck and back with a knife. Morris soon convinced Alexander that the killer was her boyfriend, and after O'Donnell disappeared with over $10,000 of her money and left her near bankruptcy, Alexander embarked on an epic journey to track down and outsmart the wily con artist. After 13 years of collecting evidence, Alexander and Morris managed to convict O'Donnell of first degree murder. Police believe O'Donnell killed Gertrude McCabe because Jane Alexander would then inherit her Aunt Gertrude's estate. O'Donnell was sentenced to life imprisonment; he died in 2010.