by On a summer Monday evening in 2001, Bruce Koklich called the police to report his wife Jana missing.
Bruce said he kissed her goodbye at 6am after a quiet weekend together, the two planning to meet at their Long Beach office, where they maintained a real estate business. But by 10.30am, Jana, 41, was nowhere to be found – not at home, not in hospitals, not near friends or family.
But there were a few signs that something was amiss. Jana took advantage of her social plans. Disturbing voicemails were still coming through on the couple’s answering machine. Police were interested in questioning Jana’s longtime personal trainer and the couple’s business partner.
And then there was Bruce. After investigators found traces of Jana’s blood in her car and in the couple’s bedroom, they turned their attention to her grieving husband.
But for a long time what happened August thwarted investigators, who spoke candidly about the case in the fifth episode of Netflix’s true crime docuseries Murder: Los Angeles.
‘It’s like she’s gone off the face of the earth’
After 11 years of marriage, everything seemed to be going well. Bruce and Jana lived in a beautiful home on top of a golf course, were preparing to launch an internet business and planned to adopt children.
And then, Jana was gone. “It’s like she’s gone off the face of the earth,” her father said.
Bruce told investigators his wife went to a concert Friday night and returned shortly after midnight. The couple spent the next two days together at home, Bruce said.
LA County homicide Detective Karen Shonka found voicemails from an unknown male voice claiming to know Jana. Bruce said the couple did not answer any calls because Jana was disturbed.
Shonka said the voicemails may be related to Jana’s father, Paul Carpenter, a former California state senator who was recently released from prison on corruption charges. Did one of Carpenter’s enemies kidnap his daughter, seeking revenge?
Investigators turned to the media for help, but no ransom note or claims turned up.
Suspects chased
Chris Botosan was a business partner helping the couple launch a software company, and he accompanied Bruce in their search for Jana.
With Jana gone, Botosan could absorb more of the company’s profits. But his alibi that weekend showed he was hanging out with a girl, which made him suspicious.
Another person in question was Dean, Jana’s personal trainer for four years. The two had an appointment on Saturday morning when Jana, who was never late, suddenly left. But friends told detectives there was never anything unprofessional about the relationship between Jana and her PT.
Jana also missed a massage appointment with a friend on Saturday afternoon.
Bruce beamed as he explained Jana’s aloofness: “We just wanted to blow everything off for the weekend.”
So detectives questioned the couple’s housekeeper, Consuelo Lopez. The week after Jana went missing, Lopez noticed that the bed sheets she had placed were gone, leaving only a flat sheet on the bed. Was Jana abducted at home – perhaps by the unknown male voice that left terrifying voicemails?
It seemed unlikely: there were no signs of forced entry into the house.
Then, Jana’s Nissan Pathfinder was found abandoned four miles from the couple’s home. And in the trunk: a feather and a large splotch of blood.
If Jana had been murdered, her body would surely turn up nearby. A 140-member search team scoured the area but, again, found nothing.
Investigators began to look much more closely at Bruce.
‘Every road leads to Bruce Koklich’
Bruce refused to take a lie detector test, but continued to plead on TV: “I’m doing anything I can to get my wife back.”
His statements attracted the attention of several women, who claimed that Bruce had made sexual and romantic advances towards them. A neighbor said she found a note on her windshield from Bruce shortly after Jana went missing, which said: “Would your granddaughter be willing to go out with me?”
Police found traces of Jana’s blood on the couple’s master bedroom carpet, which they matched with DNA from her hairbrush.
Residents had also seen Bruce on Sunday, the day before she went missing, sitting alone in Jana’s car in a much less pleasant neighborhood than their own. But in his evidence, he said he was spending a peaceful weekend with Jana at their home.
Police wondered if Bruce had deliberately left the vehicle with the windows down and the keys in the ignition, hoping someone would steal it and take the blame.
“He was very ambitious, money-driven and goal-driven,” Titchenal said.
They began to treat her disappearance as a possible homicide.
Investigators learned that Jana had a $1 million life insurance policy. And while the couple was considering adoption, a friend said those plans fell through just one month before Jana’s departure. Titchenal said Bruce “needed control” – of the couple’s finances and relationship – and now their marriage was on the wane.
Shonka suspected a financial motive: “Bruce wanted to be a real estate mogul, the man with the money and the property, and Jana was in the way. So he made a plan to get rid of and murder his wife.”
‘no body’ case
Bruce was charged in Jana’s death and the trial began on February 18, 2003. Prosecutors had to prove that Bruce had a financial motive for Jana’s disappearance. But there was one problem: her body was never found.
The jury deliberated for 6 days, but deadlocked 7-5 and a mistrial was declared. “I couldn’t believe Bruce pulled it off. He killed Jana and he walks away,” said Jan Baird, a friend of Jana’s.
But that didn’t stop prosecutors, who pursued a different approach eight months later: a visual test that would show the circumstantial evidence that showed Bruce was responsible. This time, jurors only had a few hours to deliberate – and they quickly rang the buzzer, unanimously declaring Bruce guilty.
Bruce was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Full justice could not be achieved for Jana’s family: “It is extremely devastating not to know where her body is so that we could have the last comfort,” said her father.
Koklich was denied parole in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2023. In April, a court he denied his appealfound ineligible for a new sentence.
Shonka said: “He’s an egotistical manipulator and he thought he could cheat out of this somehow and it didn’t work.”
