Sisters sent to prison in 2008 strangling of family friend who offered ‘safe haven’

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SALT LAKE CITY — Even as she and her sister were ordered to prison in the strangling death of a family friend in Midvale more than a decade ago, Jerah Jean Santos-Ramirez’s telling of why she killed the man differed from what law enforcers say her reason was.

A crying Santos-Ramirez, 31, read from notebook paper in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court on Monday, apologizing for the death of 62-year-old Lester Janise, who was remembered as a spiritual leader with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and a Purple Heart veteran.

“At the time, I was scared for my sister and I didn’t want her to experience the pain I had, because of being molested,” Santos-Ramirez said. When she saw her then 18-year-old sister engaged in a sex act with Janise, she was reminded of her childhood in South Dakota, when her mother’s boyfriend had abused her in their home on a Native American reservation, according to her defense attorney Samuel Hanseen.

Prosecutors disputed her telling of events on Thursday, saying Santos-Ramirez decided to kill Janise after he told her that she and her children could no longer stay at his Midvale home, where she had left her kids in his care for days at a time.

“He was essentially kicking her out,” said Salt Lake County prosecutor Morgan Vedejs. Moreover, her sister, Victoria Bigcrow Clown, has not alleged any sexual misconduct on Janise’s part, Vedejs said.

Santos-Ramirez and Clown, now 30, were originally charged with murder, a first-degree felony, aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony, and obstructing justice, a second-degree felony. They pleaded guilty to reduced charges in January as part of an agreement with prosecutors.

Janise was found dead in January 2009 when police arrived at his Midvale home after newspapers began collecting on his porch. Inside, officers found two belts around his neck.

Family members told police that Janise, who previously had dated their mother, traveled to South Dakota in December 2008 and returned to Utah with the sisters and their children. When officers tracked down the sisters in 2009, they said Janise had allowed them to drive his van back to South Dakota on Christmas Day.

The investigation languished for another five years until Unified police absorbed the smaller Midvale police force and took a new look at the case.

Then in 2018, Clown told Unified detectives a new story, saying she had heard her sister and Janise arguing and struggling in another room more than a decade earlier. Santos-Ramirez told her they needed to leave and she saw Janise lying on the couch, court records say.

Victoria Bigcrow Clown speaks at a hearing on Thursday, March 5, 2020 in Salt Lake City. Clown and her sister, Jerah Jean Santos-Ramirez were ordered to prison in the strangling death of a family friend in Midvale more than a decade ago. (Photo: Ray Boone, KSL TV)

“I’ve learned a lot from this whole situation,” Clown said Thursday, sobbing. “But overall, I don’t have to live with the guilt I’ve lived with for 10 years.”

A statement from Janise’s sister Helen Bernice Crow was read aloud in court, describing how she cries every time she thinks about him and struggles to understand how he was killed in the U.S. after earning two Purple Hearts in Vietnam, where he was injured by a landmine explosion that nearly took his life.

Judge Linda Jones said Janise offered the women a safe haven, but “it ended in a frightening, cruel, tragic death.” While she agreed Santos-Ramirez’s life has not been easy, Jones said “none of that is an excuse.”

Jones sentenced Santos-Ramirez to concurrent terms of five years and up to life in the Utah State Prison for aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony, and manslaughter, a second-degree felony.

Clown was ordered to concurrent sentences of at least one and up to 15 years in prison for manslaughter and robbery, both second-degree felonies.

A photo of Lester Lloyd Janise, who was killed in Midvale in 2009, is pictured during a press conference at the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office in South Salt Lake on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, KSL)

Unified police detective Ben Pender, who worked to solve the case for several years, told reporters outside the courtroom that he hopes Janise’s family can now be at peace.

“He was trying to do right and help them, and unfortunately by doing a good deed, he lost his life over it,” Pender said.