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Is There Justice For B.J.?Part 2: The Suspect

Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
edited September 2001 in General Discussion
Is There Justice For B.J.?Part 2: The SuspectA Sierra Times Injustice Files ExclusiveReport by Wayne Hicks 09.11.01
On December 20th, 1999, B.J. Smith Jr. was killed. As we reported in Part 1 of this series of The Injustice Files, he was found by his father that afternoon, and almost immediately a man came into the story whose involvement seems simply too bizarre to be true. Billy Joe Smith, Sr. ran from his home after discovering his son's body, and looked frantically around for help. The first person he saw was his neighbor, Dennis Janes, who was standing in his garage. Several events occurred that afternoon that didn't penetrate the panic, fear and shock Billy Joe was feeling, but he was able to recall them later, and together with other information and events... they point, says Billy Joe, to Dennis Janes as his son's murderer!Dennis had lived next door to Billy Joe and DeLois and their son, B.J. for almost ten years. Considered an odd man, Dennis was often the subject of conversations around the neighborhood, such as when he seemed too often be the only adult home when thefts began occurring around the area. This fact was reported to police, but as far as anyone knows, Dennis was never questioned about the thefts.For Billy Joe, the limit was reached about two months before B.J.'s death. On this particular night, B.J. woke his father in the middle of the night to tell him that someone was in their driveway... firing a gun. Billy Joe slipped out into his garage to see, and sure enough, there under a light at the end of his driveway, stood Dennis Janes, holding what seemed to be a small caliber rifle. As Billy watched, Dennis raised the rifle, aimed at nearby woods, and fired. And then he noticed Billy Joe."Dennis came running towards me," Billy Joe says, "and I hurried back into the house, and told my wife and son to get down, 'cause if he came through that door, I was gonna shoot him!" The gun he held in his hand that night is the same .44 magnum that would be found in B.J.'s lifeless one only a few weeks later.He didn't come into the house. A few seconds later, they saw Dennis through windows as he ran around their house and across the yards between to his own. Billy Joe kept a watch for a while that night, and Dennis never came back out.The next day, Billy Joe went over to his neighbor's house and knocked. Dennis's teenaged son answered the door, and Billy Joe asked if they had seen someone running around with a gun the night before."Oh, yeah, that was just Dad," the boy replied, then slammed the door in Billy Joe's face. Dennis would later tell a policeman that he was shooting because "my dog was on point!" Billy Joe had seen no dog... and Dennis's dog is a cocker spaniel with no tail. No charges were brought against Dennis.On the day of B.J.'s murder, Billy Joe didn't really notice a few things that later came back to him."When we got back to my house," he told Sierra Times, "Dennis ran right in the door, through the living room, up the hall to B.J.'s room. As far as we know, he'd never even been in the house, so I don't know how he knew where my son's room was." Add to this the fact hat the only words uttered by Billy Joe were, "B.J... B.J...." and it seems curious that an acquaintance would not only know where the boy's bedroom was, but know exactly which part of the house to go to at that particular moment.After seeing B.J.'s body, Dennis exclaimed, "Oh, My God!" At this point, Billy distraught over his son's death, grabbed the pistol that was laying on... not in... B.J.'s hand, backed into the hall and placed the barrel against his own head. Dennis, grabbed the gun from him, and said, "Oh, Billy Joe, I heard your dogs barking about one o'clock, and I know I shoulda come over here and seen what was happening to your boy." This statement implies a belief that foul play had come to pass, that Dennis must have meant that some person was harming B.J. and causing the dogs to bark. However, there are two discrepancies here. First, Billy Joe and his family had only one dog, and it was asleep on the couch... inside the house... when he arrived home and found his son dead.Second, Dennis's very next action was to dial 911, and tell the operator that B.J. had committed suicide.When police arrived, Dennis told them that he had taken "the bloody gun" from Billy Joe, and hidden it in the garage so that Billy Joe could not use it to hurt himself. However, according to laboratory reports, the gun not only had no blood on it... but it had been wiped clean of fingerprints. Only one partial print was found, which apparently belonged to Billy Joe. Neither Dennis's prints, nor B.J.'s were found on the weapon, which was sealed into an evidence bag at the scene. By admitting to being the last person to touch the gun, Dennis is also most likely to have been the person who wiped the fingerprints away.That night, Billy Joe could not sleep, and he wandered around his house. Once, looking through a window late in the night, he saw Dennis through a window in his own house, also pacing the floor... and talking animatedly to an urn which contains the ashes of his own dead infant son. The next day, Dennis called Billy Joe on the phone, and said, "I can't sleep..." Billy admitted that he had not slept the night before either, and Dennis said, "Well, maybe when they put me in prison, I'll be able to sleep then."Three weeks after the murder, DeLois Smith was at home when Dennis came over to the house. He said he just wanted to tell her that he and his wife were getting a divorce, and would be selling the house, but that she should not mention this to Mrs. Janes if she should happen to see her. Later that day, he placed a For Sale sign in the front yard.The house was sold less than a week later, although no one in the neighborhood had seen anyone come to look at it.Dennis told Billy Joe and DeLois that he was moving to a particular address, and that if they needed him they could find him there. His wife had rented an apartment in town about the time he had said they were going to divorce, and had already moved in, but was seen several times that week driving rapidly into the garage at the house next door and closing the door... a practice that had only begun at this time. When Dennis move out of the house, he didn't move to the new address he'd given Billy Joe. He moved in with his wife.Aloha Janes filed for divorce a couple of months later... but the case was never finalized, and they continued to live together, apparently happily, throughout the entire time.Billy Joe had reached the point of considering Dennis a suspect in his son's murder... and since the police would not even question the man, he hired a professional investigator to look into his background. The investigator, who asked not to be named while his investigation is proceeding, told Sierra Times the following:Dennis Janes has two Social Security Account Numbers, one is in the name of Dennis Janes, another under Dennis A. Janes. These numbers are significantly different, which means they are not the result of a simple error on the part of the Social Security Administration or a Credit Reporting Agency. They were issued at different times.He has used numerous addresses over the years, many of which seem to not exist. Over the past ten years, while residing in Marion, he has also had addresses in Crawfordsville and Jonesboro.His wife, Aloha, is also a mystery. Investigators have learned that she uses four different names, apparently depending on what activity she is involved in at the time. She has been, at different times, Aloha Janes, Aloha Jane Janes, Brenda Janes, and Denise Troutman. No explanation for the multiple identities has been found.But perhaps the most perplexing thing about Dennis Janes is that despite all of this information, and more that cannot yet be revealed... Dennis Janes is walking around free, unconcerned, and has never even been questioned. His multiple social security numbers don't seem to bother anyone either... the FBI recently replied to the Investigator's request for information that they have no knowledge of Dennis Janes' existence. So difficult is it to get any information about Dennis Janes that the Investigator told this reporter: "Print anything you like about Dennis... the guy thinks he's untouchable, he has no fear."Why would police refuse to so much as question such an obvious suspect? Well go into that on Friday, with Part 3 of Is There Justice For B.J.? : The Cover-up.
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