2 High-Profile Murder Cases Compared

Three weeks after the arrest of Jean Adair on charges she killed her husband to collect insurance money, detectives from the LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division are investigating whether another high-profile Valley murder case may have been inspired by the slaying of Robert Adair.

The case detectives are looking at is the unsolved slaying of Joel Shanbrom, a 32-year-old police officer for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

As in the death of Robert Adair, Shanbrom was killed during an alleged home-invasion robbery.

Like Jean Adair--who has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder--Shanbrom’s wife, Jennifer, was the beneficiary of a significant life insurance policy on her husband. And Joel Shanbrom was a patient of Dr. Michael Shapiro, the Encino surgeon who was the doctor and onetime lover of Jean Adair.

“We’re looking into whether she got the idea from the Adair case,” Robbery-Homicide Det. Ron Ito said.

John J. Moura, Shanbrom’s attorney, dismissed the notion his client was involved in her husband’s killing.

“It’s nonsense. My client is a very petite and sheltered individual. It’s absurd to think she could be a suspect in this thing,” Moura said. “I don’t think the police have any evidence of this.”

Joel Shanbrom was shot to death March 18, 1998. Jennifer Shanbrom told police she had hidden in terror in an upstairs bathroom of the couple’s Northridge home after hearing a shot fired. Detectives were almost immediately skeptical that the killing was the result of a home invasion, and began investigating Joel Shanbrom’s business dealings and personal relationships. Ito declined to discuss details of the investigation.

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Mark Supic, a spokesman for Primerica Life Insurance Co., said Jennifer Shanbrom is the beneficiary of a $300,000 policy on her husband that was issued in April 1996, two years before he was killed. Supic said the company has withheld payment because police have identified Jennifer Shanbrom as a suspect in the killing.

A source familiar with the case, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there were two other insurance policies on Joel Shanbrom’s life, one of which was paid and another that was not. The source said there were “major inconsistencies” with Jennifer Shanbrom’s account of what happened and what physical evidence reveals about her husband’s killing. The source declined to elaborate.

According to legal documents obtained by The Times and police, Matthew Fletcher, a former Primerica agent with whom Jennifer Shanbrom is romantically involved, is also a suspect in the case.

Supic, the Primerica spokesman, said Fletcher was terminated from the company in January 1997. Supic said the termination was unrelated to the Shanbrom case. Fletcher was not immediately available for comment.

Moura said Jennifer Shanbrom is now involved in a “romantic relationship” with Fletcher, but was not at the time her husband was killed.

Moura said Jennifer Shanbrom and Fletcher met when Joel Shanbrom was working for Fletcher, selling insurance as a side job to his career as a police officer.

The slaying of Robert Adair--the case being compared by detectives to the Shanbrom case--resulted in the arrest earlier this month of Adair’s wife, Jean.

Adair, 38, was charged with the November 1996 slaying of her husband, Robert. She told police that a man dressed as a gas company employee talked his way into the couple’s Sylmar condominium and beat them both with a wooden baseball bat, killing Robert.

After more than two years investigating the case, detectives concluded Adair’s account did not make sense and that she was the killer. She is being held without bail, pending a preliminary hearing.

Shapiro said detectives came to his Ventura Boulevard practice about a week after Adair’s arrest and began questioning employees on whether they knew Joel or Jennifer Shanbrom, and whether either of the Shanbroms knew Adair.

Shapiro, who said he was not questioned by police, said Joel Shanbrom was referred to him by another school district police officer who was a patient. He said he did not know Jennifer Shanbrom, and has no knowledge that she and Jean Adair had ever met.

“The information I got is that they [detectives] came in trying to link this lady to Jean,” Shapiro said. “It’s kind of a long shot, sounds like to me.”

Times staff writer Evelyn Larrubia contributed to this story.