Geraldine murder subject of ‘Dateline’ mystery
This story was originally published Jan. 7, 2016.
The cold case murder of a veterinarian in the small town of Geraldine is the subject of this Friday’s “Dateline” episode on NBC.
“Mystery in Big Sky Country” explores the puzzle that was Bryan Rein’s shooting death and Thomas Jaraczeski’s three-week deliberate homicide trial held in Fort Benton last September.
Jaraczeski was acquitted of the murder he’d been accused twice of committing. He provided an interview for the “Dateline” team at some point after his trial.
The first case was filed in 1998, two years after Rein’s death, and later thrown out when a judge ruled that evidence obtained by the use of a bloodhound could not be used against Jaraczeski. He was arrested again in spring 2014. No new evidence was found, but a review of the case prompted the murder charge.
“This case is why we have juries,” presiding District Judge Greg Pinski said. “It was a made for a ‘Dateline’ story from the very beginning.”
PREVIEW: Mystery in Big Sky Country - NBC News
That’s apparently what “Dateline” producer and Conrad native Shane Bishop thought, too. He pitched the story to the network and led the effort to piece the episode together.
The episode’s host, Keith Morrison, calls it a tale with “deep roots” involving “fascinating people.”
Many of those people were presented as potential suspects by the defense during the trial, boosting the level of reasonable doubt the jury faced during deliberations.
“The defense had so many alternate theories about who did this that were plausible,” Pinski said. “People in Geraldine and Fort Benton have been sitting around discussing this case for decades, and it’s important for people to understand why the jury came to their decision.”
Jaraczeski jury to begin deliberations Wednesday
The jury’s not guilty decision is the reason Pinski can share his thoughts on the case with the press, and that includes “Dateline.” Morrison interviewed Pinski for the episode, one of only three times a judge has done so, the host recalled.
“How they portray it will be very interesting,” Pinski said of the two-hour episode.
The trial told Jaraczeski’s tale as that of a brokenhearted young man who acted questionably as he watched his former love, Ann Wishman, move on with Rein during the summer of 1996. There was no question, based on testimony and evidence, that Jaraczeski stalked Wishman and Rein, making numerous hang-up calls and spying on them both on numerous occasions.
Jaraczeski admitted to investigators and no fewer than a dozen others that he entered Wishman’s home without permission and read her diary entries about Rein. He also confessed to feigning car trouble to access Rein’s trailer home, the scene of the crime, during that string of questionable behavior. Evidence suggests Jaraczeski watched the trailer from nearby bushes.
Jaraczeski says he has nothing to hide in taped interview
But, despite all the evidence presented, some potential forensic evidence was lost through the cleaning up of the crime scene by Chouteau County sheriff’s deputies, which in this case was either the result of a common practice by the department in the old days, or a cover up, depending on who is asked. Other types of evidence that could help solve a murder charged today simply weren’t available in 1996.
“There may be things we just don’t know, and we would change our opinion entirely if we knew those things,” Morrison said.
Don’t ask Morrison to tell you who he thinks committed the unsolved murder, the host says he makes a habit of reserving judgment when it comes to the cases he follows.
Still, the whodunit theories were a hot topic for the NBC staff as the episode was crafted.
“The debate rages on,” Morrison noted, explaining that is one reason the story is so interesting.
Perhaps the “Mystery in Big Sky Country” will remain unsolved, even after the two-hour “Dateline” treatment, but one can never be sure.
“Stranger things have happened,” Morrison said.
‘Dateline: Mystery in Big Sky Country’
8 p.m. (9 p.m Eastern) Friday on NBC