Uninvestigated, Uncounted: How Justices of the Peace Miss Important Clues in Death Investigations

Courtesy of the family

Clockwise from top left: Janice Lee Wilhelm with her granddaughter shortly before her death; Wilhelm in 2000; Wilhelm in the early 1980s; Wilhelm in the late 1950s; and Wilhelm in the late 1960s.

Janice Lee Wilhelm was dead in her blue recliner–that much was clear. The 63-year-old grandmother had leaned back as if to rest her legs, tucked under the afghan she’d crocheted. She appeared to be asleep, but blood had oozed from a bullet hole in her neck and created a patch of scarlet on the front of her pink T-shirt. She’d been shot in her Centerville home, but by whom?