Divorcing her abusive husband, the beautiful director Jacque Waller thought her life would turn a new page. Little did she know, as she awaited a bright future, her cowardly husband had devised a horrifying scheme.
Shocking News
The tragedy of the beautiful female director Jacque Waller (39 years old) was reported to the police at 7 p.m. on June 1, 2011, by her sister – Cheryl Brenneke. Perhaps, the Jackson Police Department in Missouri state will never forget that evening, the day Cheryl Brenneke rushed into the office with dozens of police officers, shouting that her sister had been murdered, and the perpetrator behind that horrific crime was none other than her brother-in-law, Clay Waller.
As Cheryl shared, on the morning of June 1, 2011, Jacque Waller’s sister and her brother-in-law, Clay Waller, went to the lawyer’s office to complete the divorce proceedings. After signing some required papers, Jacque excitedly called Cheryl, informing her sister that she could finally live a life of her own.
At the age of 39, Jacque seemed to have everything in her hands except for love and family happiness. In her career, in 2011, Jacque was a high-ranking director for an insurance company and had 3 beautiful children. However, despite her successful career and the respect of many in society, at home, Jacque always silently endured physical and emotional pain. The one causing such deep wounds to Jacque was none other than her spouse, Clay Waller. To close the dark chapter of her life and open up a new future for herself, Jacque bravely struggled, decided to divorce, and fought for custody of her children.
It can be said that Cheryl’s firm assertion about her sister being murdered right in the police station that day was an extremely bold statement. Because at that time, Cheryl had no evidence to prove what she said was true. Additionally, at the time of the report, Jacque had only been away from home for a few hours, and the case could not even be concluded as a missing person, let alone murder. Therefore, investigators believed that Cheryl’s suspicion and negative assumptions about her brother-in-law were due to her excessive worry for her sister. However, when Cheryl recounted the reasons she suspected Clay Waller, investigators realized that her concern was not unfounded.
Threatening words in the diary
According to Cheryl, after many years of love and living together under the same roof, the relationship between Jacque and Clay, the couple, began to show signs of cracks. Finally, the conclusion of that marriage was a divorce decree on June 1.
When they no longer shared the same voice, Jacque decided to pave her own way despite her husband’s clinging. Perhaps, the only thing that Jacque and Clay still had in common was the love they had for their three lively children. However, despite their love for the children, Clay could not do much in terms of caring for them, as he himself did not have enough financial means to support himself.
Moving from one job to another, from one company to another, seemed to leave Clay without any stable income. It was for this reason that Jacque’s parents, Stan and Ruby, did not love their son-in-law.
That day, on June 1, after completing the divorce proceedings, Jacque planned to go to Clay’s house to pick up her son Maddox. Jacque also told her sister that she would go home right after that. However, she didn’t go home, and even a phone call to inform her family was not heard.
Worried, Cheryl believed that Jacque had encountered something unfortunate. Even more frighteningly, she discovered her sister’s diary. In it, Jacque meticulously recorded her own fears through the terrifying threatening words of her husband.
Specifically, Clay had threatened Jacque that if she was considering leaving him or actually leaving him and taking the children, he would kill both his wife and children. He would take the children fishing, drown them, and “happily” report that terrible news to his wife.
However, the words made everyone shudder, believing that Jacque was really in trouble, was another sentence that Clay had for his wife:
“My dear, the divorce decree will be your death sentence” …
The Car on the Side of the Road
Immediately after hearing Cheryl’s story on the night of January 6th, the Jackson Police Department sent a police officer to Clay Waller’s house to investigate the matter. Here, they only met Clay Waller, but Jacque, the female director, was nowhere to be seen.
According to Clay, that morning, the couple met at 11 a.m. at Walgreens to have lunch and discuss some issues in the divorce proceedings. Afterward, around 3 p.m., they went to the lawyer’s office to sign some papers, completing the divorce process. Clay admitted that afterward, he and his wife argued and a physical altercation occurred. However, nothing too serious happened, and Jacque just left for home.
Comparing Clay’s statement with what Cheryl shared at the police station, many discrepancies were found. Clearly, according to Cheryl, after completing the divorce procedure, Jacque excitedly called her, informing her sister that she would pick up her son Maddox and go home. Meanwhile, in Clay’s story, Jacque was very angry after the altercation with her husband and had no intention of going to her husband’s house to pick up their son.
Although Clay seemed to be the one lying, investigators had no evidence to charge him. Furthermore, when searching around Clay’s house, they found no sign of Jacque’s car or any evidence that Jacque had ever driven there. However, not long after, a report of an abandoned car by the roadside was reported to the police. Surprisingly, it was Jacque’s car.
According to observations, Jacque’s tire had burst. Therefore, investigators believed that the tire burst while Jacque was driving, and that incident caused her to stop the car in the middle of the road to seek help and hitch a ride with someone else. Perhaps, the person who gave the female director a ride then kidnapped her.
Shockingly Attitude
Based on the hypothesis that the person who gave Jacque a ride was the perpetrator behind the director’s disappearance, the police launched a large-scale manhunt without any clues. However, upon closer inspection of the tire, investigators discovered that it was not punctured while driving. Instead, it had been punctured while stationary. Therefore, their suspicions once again fell on the prime suspect in the case, Clay Waller. However, the police problem was that they did not know what had happened to Jacque or where she was.
The most shocking thing for investigators was Clay’s behavior after his ex-wife went missing. Clay showed no concern or sympathy for the woman who had once been intimate with him. Instead, he drove around town, mocking the police and Jacque’s family. Clay laughed, saying that investigators would never know where Jacque was, and every time he passed by his ex-in-law’s house, he honked the horn provocatively.
Clay was vengeful, and arrogant, and always wanted Jacque’s family to suffer humiliation. After his wife went missing, he brazenly demanded custody of their children from the court. However, due to the terrifying threats he had made to Jacque and recorded in her diary, authorities revoked Clay’s custody rights. Eventually, four months after Jacque disappeared, Clay Waller’s three children were allowed to be cared for by Jacque’s sister, Cheryl.
Enraged by the court’s ruling, Clay wrote threatening letters to kill his ex-wife online and demanded her to return the children to him. It was this arrogant act of Clay that led him to be charged with terrorism, threatening human life, with a sentence of 5 years in prison. However, the story did not end there. After Clay was taken to prison, the police had more time to interact with him and find a solution to the strange disappearance of Jacque…
Suspicious Discovery
Two years after the disappearance of director Jacque, the police finally gathered enough evidence to prove that Clay Waller, her husband, was the perpetrator.
The police reviewed the CCTV footage around Clay’s house on the day Jacque disappeared. In one recorded segment, investigators could see that after meeting his ex-wife at Walgreens at 11 a.m., on the afternoon of January 6th, Clay suddenly returned home to clean his boat. Moreover, at some point, he managed to change into a completely different outfit from what he wore at noon.
The case against Clay was extremely complex with no guarantees. When the police searched Clay’s house, they found that a carpet seemed to be missing, and there were traces of something like dried blood in the hallway. Eventually, a higher search warrant was established. Investigators found the missing carpet carefully hidden under a dust-covered basement, cut into several strips. Notably, there were many brown stains as if the fabric had once been stained with blood.
Although these clues were highly valuable, they were still not enough to convict Clay of murder. Surprisingly, after a private conversation with his ex-parents-in-law, Clay proposed a plea deal. Specifically, this plea deal was made with the consent of Jacque’s parents. Two years of uncertainty about their daughter’s whereabouts had left the elderly couple devastated. Now, the most important thing to them was to bring Jacque home, whether she was alive or dead. Therefore, with this agreement, if Clay really killed his ex-wife, he would be charged with second-degree murder instead of first-degree murder and would only face a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Finally, after two years of steadfast denial, Clay admitted that he was the one who killed Jacque. When asked where he had buried his ex-wife’s body, he led investigators to a surprising discovery. Through this, the police also understood why on the afternoon of January 6th, Clay had to go clean the boat. He had used that same boat to take his wife to Devil’s Island, to dispose of his crime.
Law Enforcement Executed
When the investigation team and Clay arrived at Devil’s Island, he could not remember where he had buried his ex-wife’s body. However, thanks to geological knowledge, a police officer excellently found the burial place of the unfortunate female director’s body.
Accordingly, Clay confessed to investigators that he had used a type of fertilizer to bury his wife’s body, and the special officer knew that this type of fertilizer would kill the roots of a certain plant on the island. Therefore, by finding the dead plants, they would find Jacque’s body.
Finally, after two years of painstakingly searching for the missing wife, the police found the conclusion to the case. Jacque died at the hands of her brutal husband Clay; however, they still wanted to know the deeper reason.
Clay told the police that on January 6th, Jacque enticed him to have sex while they were in the kitchen. During the “intimacy,” Jacque banged her head against the kitchen wall, causing her nose to bleed, and then ran hastily into the hallway. It turned out Jacque had plotted to stage herself as being assaulted by her ex-husband and physically abused so that she could be more certain about her custody rights in the future.
After hearing his ex-wife recount the above scenario, Clay was very angry and felt he was “trapped.” He grabbed Jacque, and brutally beat her to death. Furthermore, Clay asserted that he had no intention of killing his wife beforehand; it was all the consequence of a moment of uncontrollable rage.
Comparing Clay’s testimony with the results of the forensic examination, investigators believed that he was telling the truth because Jacque was determined to have died from a strong force impacting her skull, resulting in serious injuries. However, whether the story about Jacque enticing him was true or not, no one could verify that.
Finally, with the pre-agreed sentence with the victim’s parents, in 2013, Clay Waller was officially convicted of second-degree murder, with a 20-year prison sentence.
