Janet Couture (Jack of Diamonds, Connecticut)

And every week on my podcast park predators, I take you into the heart of our world's most

“stunning locations to uncover what sinister crimes have unfolded in these serene settings.”

From unsolved murders to chilling disappearances, each Tuesday we dive deep into the details of cases that will leave you knowing sometimes the most beautiful places hide the darkest secrets. Listen to park predators now wherever you listen to podcasts. Our card this week is Janet Katoor, the Jack of Diamonds from Connecticut.

There is an old saying in law enforcement. A cold case is never really cold.

And today's story proves that because just last year there was a new development that closed this unsolved murder case from 1973, proving that it's never too late. And in some cases, the answers might have been in front of you all along. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. It was around 3 a.m. on Saturday, October 13. When 21-year-old Janica Tore turned to her sleeping boyfriend on the couch and uttered something pretty terrifying.

“Janet had said to him, "I think somebody might be in the house."”

That's detective Christina Johnston of the East Hartford Police Department. She spent years

pouring over the original reports from this case, including the accounts from Janet's boyfriend, Jay Lock. According to those reports, after Janet told him what she'd heard, Jay got up and took a look around. Now, where she lived was a single building that was comprised of four separate units. All these units were within the building, but had their own separate entrances. The front door that leads into the kitchen was unlocked in open, and the window was

unsecure. Unsecure and open, but Jay didn't find anyone hiding out when he went through the apartment

“room by room, making sure to close the open window as he did. The two bedroom duplex wasn't large,”

and Janet's roommate was away for the weekend, so he cleared the place pretty quickly. He said to Janet, "I'm going to leave because he had to work in the morning." So she says, "Okay, I'm going to go upstairs. I'm going to go to bed because she wasn't feeling good that day. She was sick." And then she let him out. He said she locked the door. That was about approximately three o'clock in the morning between three and three ten.

Jay made sure the front door was locked as he left, leaving Janet to sleep in the still house. In I kid you not, may be very village, but it was in these quiet moments that something happened. Around 8 a.m., Janet's next door neighbor, Paul Taylor, came out to warm up his car, and he noticed that one of Janet's windows was wide open, and the screen had been yanked out and was leaning against the building. Unmanounced to him, this is the same exact window that Jay had

secured just hours earlier. But still, this was concerning enough of a sight to Paul that he called out to Janet, but she didn't respond. So when the neighbor walked into the front door, which leads into the kitchen, he observed a telephone on the wall, the receiver had been removed, and put into a drawer. Whether it was the sight of this receiver, still connected to the wall mound, half peeking out of a drawer, or something else, Paul got the sense that he had to find Janet.

Something was off, and he knew he was right when he finally made it into Janet's upstairs bedroom.

Janet was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Paul rushed out and called the police from his place next door, and within a few hours, the place was an active crime scene, crawling with police and text and detectives, trying to make sense of what they were looking at, starting with that phone in the drawer. That particular drawer was where she kept all the silverware, and there were some knives in there as well. They proceeded into the living room, which was fairly neat. There was no signs

of a struggle. They then walked upstairs to the second floor. They noticed that there was two

they noticed her on the floor. She was lying on her side, closest to the wall in a night table.

“They observed that there was a knife still in her chest. She was not wearing any clothes and her”

night gown was in close proximity to her. There was also an unraveled wire hanger on top of the dresser, and judging by all of the marks that they saw on her body. In addition to the stab wound and the blood stains on the mattress and the wall, it seemed like Janet had been beaten with the hanger and stabbed with the knife while she was on the bed. And then from there, she had somehow moved or been moved to the floor where they found her. She didn't stand much of a chance fighting back at

whoever was torturing her because her face had been covered by a pillowcase secured with ripped

up pieces of her green bedsheet so she couldn't see. And then more of that bedsheet was later found

in her mouth gagging her. Her hands were also tied behind her back with a telephone cord. Though

“worth noting, it wasn't the cord from the phone in the drawer downstairs. But detectives quickly”

surmised that the knife that was used had likely come from that drawer, or if not that drawer, somewhere within Janet's own home. Oftentimes when a killer doesn't bring their own weapon, it's an indication that the murder was not the motive. Usually you'll see them pull a weapon from the house in a case of a burglary gone wrong where they get surprised thinking that no one was home and then it turns into a robbery and homicide. But that's not what they thought this was.

Nothing looked ransacked. Ballyable items like money and jewelry even a safety deposit box were all untouched. The motive wasn't robbery. It most likely was something else. They weren't there to steal anything of hers for monetary purposes. They didn't necessarily mean that they didn't

“take anything though. When detectives began asking questions to the growing crowd of neighbors”

and looking lose gathering outside, a man named Kenneth approached them holding something in his hands. A purse that he had found outside earlier that morning. He was returning home from work after working the midnight shift and there was a purse lying on the ground in front of his front door. He picked up the purse and brought it inside. He spoke with his wife thinking that it was one of their kids playpurses and she said no that is not ours. They then opened the purse and dumped

out the contents and located a birth control pack that had Janet's name on it. What seemed to be missing from the purse was Janet's wallet. And upon closer inspection they

realized that wasn't in the house either. And to this day, Janet's wallet has never been recovered.

So did the killer take money from her wallet? Was the wallet a trophy? Is it possible Janet herself lost her bag earlier in the day? It's so she never mentioned it to another neighbor who told police that he'd been overhanging out with Janet and her boyfriend Jay until like 1030 the night before. And this is when police learned that she had a boyfriend. A boyfriend who based on everything they knew at the time seemed like the last one to be with their victim

before she was murdered. But those suspicious high eyebrows lowered pretty quickly when they actually connected with Jay. He was instantly cooperative and took and passed a polygraph so police believe that he was being truthful about his month-long relationship with Janet. And, most importantly, about his last night with her. How she woke him up because she heard a strange noise. How he searched the place and closed the window but after not finding anything decided to go home.

A decision that I am sure ate at him for years to come. Now, out of all the other neighbors that they spoke to, no one else heard the noise that woke Janet up at 3 a.m. And there were no reports of odd cars or strange men lurking around the building at that time. But what if that's because Janet's killer wasn't a stranger? Because interestingly, in the same breath that neighbors would say they didn't hear or see anything, many of them also told police about one man in particular that they

were suspicious of. Someone who just so happened to be friends with Janet's neighbor. Hi everyone, Ashley here with some exciting news. The deck will not only land right here in your feed for you to listen to every week, but now we are also on camera for you to watch on YouTube. Now you can see the cards, the case files, and the people behind the coldest cases as I share these stories with you. So no matter where you get your podcast, whether you prefer to listen to watch

subscribe to AudioCheck Investigates on YouTube today. George Lager, that was the name that police

“heard again and again after Janet's murder. His friend Lee Albert also lived right next door to Janet.”

The police discovered that George had actually been at least the evening of Janet's death. A neighbor who had stopped bylies at around 7 p.m. had run into him there. And the neighbor remembered that there was some talk that came up about Janet's roommate being away that weekend. And the 25-year-old George had some history with Janet, based on what one of her sisters told police. The sister had stated that Janet expressed to her that he's creepy and he would knock on my door

from time to time and asked to use my phone. Janet's sister had told her "don't let him in anymore. If you don't feel comfortable, don't have him come in and use your phone."

If he ever was permitted to come in and use the phone, it likely would have been the one on the first

“floor. The one that police found off the hook and in the knife drawer. According to one”

news report, Janet's sister said that George had asked Janet out on multiple occasions. And George was on the radar of law enforcement, too. He had been arrested in the past for sexual assaults and incidents that were similar in nature. Nothing like murder or homicide, but other agencies had floated the name around. You might want to talk to this person. And for good reason. In the mid-60s, George had been arrested multiple times for violent assaults

on women when he was still a teenager. All four of these assaults took place in a two-year period.

Three of these were alleged sexual assaults. George was charged with rape, attempted rape,

and carnal knowledge of a minor. Now we know two of those were downgraded, and all of them only resulted in a fight. One as low as $35. In one non-sexual assault that he was arrested for, George punched a woman after she refused to go out with him. Now by the time East Hartford PD officers were able to get in front of George, it was Halloween 1973. In that conversation, George told police that he had gone to the Mayberry Village neighborhood on the night of October

12th for a party. He also confirmed what neighbors had previously told police that he had stopped by Lee's apartment twice, actually. Once earlier in the evening on the 12th, and then again between 130 and 2 o'clock in the morning on the 13th. And he knocked on the door. He said nobody was home, so then he just went to the party, Gray Hill Road. He said he arrived around 2 o'clock in the morning at that party. The party at Gray Hill Road was just a four minute walk from Janet's building.

George said that he stayed there until he left at around 5 a.m., then he stopped at a gas station on the way home, which police tried to confirm by talking to other people who had been at the party that evening. Now a few party goers remembered George, but they remembered him arriving later and leaving earlier. Although it was a party, so it's hard to know how reliable those accounts are. That said, one woman told police that she remembered seeing George leave. And then she

pointed out that he had driven away in a different direction than one might expect if he was heading towards the gas station, but he mentioned to police. The female witness then saw George drive away on Gray Hill and made a, she said he made a left-hand turn, which would have been onto Woodland Circle, which was the direction to go to Janet's house. But George told the tech does he had turned right. The opposite direction to head towards the gas station that

he mentioned he stopped at. So, police followed up on that too. They had showed the gas attendant who was working that evening of the early morning hours of the 13th of October.

“Picture of George's car, and I believe they also showed him a photograph of George, and the”

gas attendant did not remember the vehicle and did not remember seeing George. Again, this was a few weeks after Janet's death. It's totally possible that the attendant just couldn't remember the evening clearly. But either way, detectives were doing their due diligence with George, and they went beyond just a basic interview. They did take pictures of him, his body, they took pictures of him with a shirt off to see if he had

any type of wounds or bruising or anything like that. They also did take photographs of his car. There wasn't anything that came from the car, though. George didn't have any suspicious marks

murder? Well, that I couldn't tell you. Because Detective Johnston said there is no note

“in the case file of that question being asked. So it's hard to say how seriously the department”

was looking at the sky. But that didn't mean he was off their radar by any means. In fact, just eight days later, he put himself front and center for police. On November 2nd, 1973, Vernon Police received an incident report from a woman who claimed that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted from a shopping plaza in Vernon, Connecticut, in the daylight hours. And shortly thereafter, on November 8th, 1973, they arrested George

Gear for kidnapping in the first degree, a risk of injury of a minor in sex assault in the first

degree. A couple of things here. First, Vernon is just a little over 10 miles from East Hartford. And second, the risk of injury to a minor charge came because when George kidnapped this woman,

“her child was in the backseat of her car. But this time, George couldn't just pay a fine and walk away.”

He was convicted and sentenced to five to 10 years in prison. Now, George's conviction was a good news bad news situation for the East Hartford PD. Good news was that he was off the streets. Bad news was that this didn't move the needle in Janet's case. They still had nothing to connect George to Janet's murder. And by the end of 1974, there were still no new leads or new evidence. And nothing changed,

even after George was released on parole in 1978. Not even as decades passed by, and the department tried to go through old evidence that they collected at the scene to see what was maybe viable for this brand new thing that was all the rage called DNA testing.

“And pretty much everything was a mixture or a complex mixture. We did not have anything that was”

single-source DNA. So that made it difficult as well because we would have to get known DNA swabs from individuals to be able to compare it. That was pretty much where Janet's case stood through the new millennium. Police tried here and there to see if updated technology would help but every time no dice. But as fate would have it, in May of 2021, another case changed everything for Detective Johnston, who had inherited the case a few years before.

I was at my house. I was at home and I was watching the news and I had learned that George Aguirre had been arrested for a 1984 coal case out of Ivonne Connecticut. Ivonne is just under a half hour from East Hartford. The department had identified George after a hit on his DNA in Codis. It started in Massachusetts back in 2019. George was convicted of a salt with a firearm. That conviction is how his DNA ended up in the system, but not right away.

Just before he was released, he was swabbed and his DNA was entered into Codis.

So, in 2021 with George's DNA finally in that system, Ivonne PD was able to connect him to

their old case from 1984. Another sexual assault slash kidnapping. So George was eventually convicted of that in sentenced to 25 years for kidnapping. But because it had taken so long to connect him to the case, sadly the statute of limitations on the sexual assault had run out. The victim in his 1984 case survived. Without going into too much detail, there were a lot of similarities to Janet's case. So this case is what kind of like really blew the doors off this entire

thing, right? That's really got it going again. Once I saw this case, I dug even deeper into the case file and found the Vernon case and then the Vernon from 1973 case and then I found all the other cases from 60s that had been documented and that were sitting in the case file. Johnston was able to obtain a search and seizure warrant for George's DNA because they couldn't just use his profile and Codis for a direct comparison. On July 26th of 2021, myself and my lieutenant

at the time lieutenant Olsen went to the prison where George Gear was being held because this before he was on trial for the avon case. He was awaiting trial. We went there to get the known sample. George refused to talk. He didn't even ask why they were there. They didn't need him to talk. Just need him to open wide. They swapped his cheek, sent the sample off and he was not linked

inconclusive. So there was nothing we were at square one again. We didn't have any physical

“evidence still link him to the crime scene. I was absolutely devastated. I was upset because I was”

like, what do I do now, you know, because you hold onto that hope of you try to be hopeful. Like, yes, yes, okay, here we are, here we are, here we are. And then you're like, no, no, next, you got to figure something out. Like, what's next? In 2025 detective Johnston reached out to a colleague Michael Sheldon, a supervisory inspector for the state's cold case unit to see if he had any ideas. And he did. He goes, why don't you put posters up in the prison? Why don't you blow up

her cold case card? It said the date, it was a picture of her and the she had been stabbed in her apartment at 150 can of road in East Harford. Very, very short blurb. And at the bottom, it was a $50,000 reward offered by the state. So detective Johnston did just that. She blew Janet's card up. And by March of 2025, Janet's face was hanging in the Medieval Walker Correctional institution. And in roughly two months, detective Johnston had a new lead. May 9, 2025, I received a call

from investigator Sheldon informing me that an inmate had called the hotline from the poster saying that he had information pertains to our case. So that was like, oh my god. Okay, the wheels are turning

“again. So that was a really good phone call. I'll never forget that phone call.”

When detective Johnston spoke with the witness, at first, all the guy was interested in was the reward money. But eventually, over the course of three interviews, he started to talk. He said that a man he was in prison with was responsible for Janet's death. And he brought receipts. Handwritten notes that he said came from the killer that had details in them like the color

of the knife handle used in Janet's murder, which was brown. Something that was never made public.

By the third time detective Johnston talked to the witness, he came with a lawyer. And he brought something else, a diagram that the killer had drawn of Janet's place to prove that he had been inside. And a confession signed by none other than George LaJaire. Hi everyone, Ashley here with some exciting news. The deck will not only land right here in your feed, for you to listen to every week. But now, we are also on camera for you to watch on YouTube.

Now you can see the cards, the case files, and the people behind the coldest cases as I share these stories with you. So no matter where you get your podcast, whether you prefer to listen to watch

“or maybe both, I will be there with stories you need to hear. Join me for the deck on YouTube,”

subscribe to audio check investigates on YouTube today. After all the years and the disappointing DNA test results, detective Johnston could barely

believe that she might actually be able to finally close Janet's case. But that would only be

possible if she could trust the witness who had come forward. He provides us with a statement that is handwritten. He claims that the witness claims that he wrote the statement, but George told him what to write, George then signs the statement. And not only was it signed by George, but his signature was also notarized by a department of corrections employee. The deal George had made with the witness was that this confession statement would be turned over after his death. But guess what,

George was still very much alive. Now if you're not watching this, we do have a copy of this statement. We asked detective Johnston to read a short portion of it. I do want to know that after 1986, I did change my life and was productive to the community and family. Further, I am sorry for my actions while on drugs and for more drugs from partying at the Mayberry Village in East Hartford, in October 1973. I broke into an apartment of a woman I knew. I broke in looking for money to get

drugs while searching the bedroom. Janet woke up and noticed me and said my name. I believe

George goes on to admit that he stabbed Janet and threw her wallet over a bridge,

“which explains why it was never recovered. The details were all compelling and all credible,”

but hard to reconcile with the DNA result that had come back without a match. But it turns out there are legitimate reasons why George might not have left DNA the scene, like the quality of evidence for starters. Evidence in the 70s wasn't collected and stored the way that we would do it now, so who knows how many people touched the stuff back then. Plus, he could have worn gloves, that's actually one of Detective Johnston's personal theories. With his confession now, Detective

Johnston had the ammo to go after him. But the first attempt didn't go so well. George is kind of

danced around at all, suggesting things but not really admitting to anything, and then finally he asked for a lawyer. But Detective Johnston wasn't about to give up. At the urging of the state attorney's office, they went back at him. And this time, Detective Johnston changed tactics. Clearly, George wasn't fond of women, so she sent into men. One of them was my partner, who was familiar with this case and was working with me at the time through all this. And another

one was a detective I worked closely with, who was familiar with this case as well. And in that time, they were able to get a confession from him. George confessed to killing Janet. Despite George's claim that his motive that night was robbery, Detective Johnston believes that

this was ultimately a sexually motivated crime. She believes that George came into that house,

attempted to get in, which would have been when Janet first heard the noise. And then maybe he saw her boyfriend Jay with her or spotted Jay's car and then he left and returned later after Jay was

“gone. The truth is, that part didn't matter much anymore. What mattered is that detective Johnston”

now had enough for an arrest warrant. I couldn't believe that we had gotten this far, because there were so many times where, you know, it was like a balloon deflated, you know, like, we got a start from square one again. So it was, it was surreal. In September of 2025, Detective Johnston headed to the McDougal Walker Correctional Institution to formally arrest then 77-year-old George. Now he was already in prison, so all they had to do was process him,

you know, prints, mugshot, etc. When I went to arrest him, he states, quote, "Everything I said before, I said only because I could get some of the reward money." He continued to state, quote, "If that's happening, if I get some of it, then I'll plead guilty." And quote, "If I'm not getting some of it, I lied just to get the reward money." And quote, "Then stated, quote, "I need, like, maybe 10,000 of it. The other can go to the family, but I want some of it."

You heard that correctly. George was hoping to receive the reward money for a murder that he committed. Obviously, that didn't happen. No one ended up with the reward money, by the way. This arrest had been in the making for over 50 years. Before Janet's case was East Hartford PD's oldest unsolved murder. And now Detective Johnston could bring some semblance of closure to her family. This was a moment that her mother had hoped to be alive to see,

and she was so close. But unfortunately, she passed away in 2023. Before the press could get a hold of it, Detective Johnston reached out to Janet siblings.

“They were relieved. They were thankful. That's what I remember in particular. They were very thankful.”

I met with Janet's brother in person, and he was very, very thankful that it arrested and made.

But here's the thing about justice. Sometimes it can be elusive. A little over a week after his

arrest for Janet's murder, George passed away. When I found out that he died, I was like the balloon to flate it all over again, you know. But there was nothing I could do about it. I knew he was in bad shape. You know, he was old. And I knew it could happen. I was just hoping that we would get a maybe a little further in the court process before happened. With George now deceased, the East Hartford police have closed the book on Janet's case. But there are still questions

that remain. Specifically around George, a man with such a violent pass right across decades, it makes detective Johnston wonder, could he be involved in other unsolved or even unknown cases?

there may be other victims out there. There may be people that are missing and me have not been

recovered. I do believe that by getting this information out there, it also gives hope to other detectives who have coal cases that anything is possible with these cases, they can change

“at any second. If Janet were alive today, she would have been 73 years old. And I think that”

emphasize is how young she truly was when George decided to take her life. She deserved better.

And if there are other victims of George still out there, they deserve better, too. So if you're listening or watching this and you know something, please speak up.

“Let's not let another case go and solve for as long as Janet's did.”

So if you have any information about other crimes, George Liger might have been involved in

or if you believe you were a victim of his, contact detective Christina Johnston of the East Heart Report Police Department at 860-528-4441. Or if you'd like to remain anonymous, you can call 860-289-9134.

“The deck is an audio-truck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the”

deck in our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. I think Chuck would approve. Hi everyone, Ashley Flowers here. If you're like me, diving into true crime is about more than just the details of a case. It is also about giving a voice to the victims and understanding the lives behind the headlines. And this is what host Kylie Lowe does each week on her podcast,

Dark Down East. Every Thursday, Kylie dives into New England's most gripping mysteries uncovering stories in a way you won't hear anywhere else. And she digs through archives, connects with families and shines a light on the voices that deserve to be heard. From cold cases to moments of long-awaited justice, Dark Down East is the perfect blend of investigations and honoring the stories behind them. You can find Dark Down East now, wherever you're listening.