Widow Is Again Denied Bail in Husband’s Slaying

A woman who allegedly beat her husband to death with a baseball bat at their Sylmar condominium and told police they had been the victims of a home-invasion robbery, was again denied bail by a judge Monday.

Richard Plotin, a defense lawyer representing Jean Adair in San Fernando Court on murder charges, had requested that his client be released on bail, asserting that he had evidence indicating someone else killed 40-year-old Robert Adair.

He said police had identified two more likely suspects in the 1997 slaying. One of the men, a known felon, matches Adair’s description of her attacker; the other resembles a man seen by workers at the gated condominium complex the day of the slaying.

Those workers, Plotin said, heard possible sounds of a struggle coming from the condominium around the time Adair says she was attacked and tied up.

“They focused on Jean and they were looking at evidence to try to confirm she was guilty,” Plotin said. “They were just lame.”

In November 1997, Adair, 38, ran to a neighbor’s home, her face bruised, tape hanging from her wrists. She said an intruder had beaten and bound her, then attacked her husband when he arrived home. The attacker, she said, took jewelry and other items.

Adair was arrested in January, after a two-year investigation in which authorities said they researched the woman’s version of events and found it didn’t make sense.

Police say Adair killed her husband in order to collect on life insurance policies. Prosecutors may ask for the death penalty.