SoCal man sentenced to jail for killing spouse, tossing legs in trash bin

For greater than twenty years, Jack Potter had fooled individuals into believing his lifeless spouse, whose severed legs had been present in a Rancho San Diego trash container in 2003, was nonetheless alive, prosecutors say.

On Friday, one of many area’s most annoying chilly circumstances concluded when 72-year-old Jack Potter was sentenced to fifteen years to life in jail for the homicide of his spouse, Laurie Potter.

Potter pleaded responsible to second-degree homicide and admitted to smothering his 54-year-old spouse to demise in February, prosecutors stated.

For nearly 20 years, prosecutors say, Potter was residing massive and profiting off of Laurie’s demise whereas pretending she was nonetheless alive. He fraudulently opened bank cards in her identify and used household court docket to promote their residence in Temecula and pocket the income, prosecutors stated.

He met a brand new girlfriend at a strip membership and gifted her a Hummer SUV and a ski boat, leased her an condominium and gave her a bank card with a $30,000 restrict, prosecutors stated. The girlfriend eerily shared his spouse’s identify.

Potter expressed regret throughout Friday’s listening to, apologizing and saying he beloved his spouse.

“I let my feelings get the higher of me that one time,” he stated. “I don’t know why. It simply occurred and I’m sorry.”

A upkeep employee on the Nation Hills House complicated in Rancho San Diego had found Laurie’s legs in October 2003, however legislation enforcement was unable to determine her and the case went unsolved.

That was till 2020 when new DNA investigative strategies led to a breakthrough within the haunting chilly case. Detectives ran the crime scene DNA via a nationwide database and matched it to a distant relative.

Detectives then progressively requested nearer relations to share their DNA till — 20 individuals and 6 months later — they reached Laurie’s grownup son. His pattern allowed them to determine Laurie and a subsequent investigation yielded proof connecting her husband to the crime, in accordance with a 2021 information launch from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Workplace.

When Potter was arrested in 2021, Laurie’s household, although unaware of her whereabouts, thought she was nonetheless alive, in accordance with the Sheriff’s Workplace.

She was by no means reported lacking and with out genetic testing — the identical know-how used to id the Golden State Killer and crack scores of chilly circumstances — this homicide would have in all probability gone unsolved, the Sheriff’s Workplace stated within the information launch.

Laurie’s son, John Carlson, stated throughout Potter’s sentencing listening to that he’d misplaced contact along with his mom, however had tried to contact her and renew their relationship.

Carlson stated Potter instructed him his mom “simply wished to be alone, which sadly I believed. And this actually hurts to this present day.”

Laurie’s case marked the primary time the San Diego County Sheriff’s Workplace tried to determine a homicide sufferer utilizing investigative family tree.

“This case is a stark reminder that the pursuit of justice by no means stops,” San Diego County Dist. Atty. Summer time Stephan stated in an announcement Friday. “And neither does the grief of those that lose somebody to violence. At the moment, we honor Laurie’s reminiscence and stand together with her household of their long-awaited second of justice.”

Metropolis Information Service contributed to this report.