Jane Laut met her future husband Dave Laut in high school. She was the homecoming queen, he was a star athlete who become an Olympic athlete. (Dave Laut won a Bronze medal in Shot Put at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles). They later married and adopted a child, a boy named Michael. Jane and Dave were considered by many a perfect couple. One summer night in 2009, Jane Laut called 911 from their Oxnard, California home saying she heard shots outside the house. Months later she confessed to shooting her husband six times. She said she did it in self-defense.
According to her attorney Ron Bamieh, Jane Laut was battered and abused for years. After she testified in court, experts also testified that Jane Laut “suffered from a complex form of post-traumatic stress disorder or battered woman syndrome.” In 2016, Laut was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to 50 years-to-life in prison. A year earlier, Laut was offered a six-year sentence if she pleaded guilty to manslaughter, which she did not. Laut will tell her side of the story, from jail, on 48 Hours, Saturday, May 14 at 10pm.
