State v. Jensen

In July 1999, Vicki Jensen’s (defendant’s) husband left her and moved into an apartment with his new girlfriend and the girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter. Jensen was severely distressed at the thought of her marriage ending, and she decided to kill her husband’s girlfriend. Jensen, who was a registered nurse, used her medical knowledge to devise a plan to kill the girlfriend by injecting her with a fatal dose of insulin and methamphetamine. Jensen paid two accomplices to help her carry out the plan, she purchased disguises for herself and the accomplices, and she and the accomplices repeatedly practiced how they would commit the murder. On September 9, 1999, Jensen and the accomplices broke into the girlfriend’s apartment. Jensen injected the girlfriend with insulin and methamphetamine and waited in the apartment for an hour to watch the girlfriend suffer. Once Jensen was convinced that the girlfriend would die, she and the accomplices left the scene, leaving the girlfriend alone with her young daughter. The murder investigation took several months, during which Jensen stalked her husband and her husband’s new roommate. When Jensen’s husband told Jensen that their marriage was over, Jensen threatened that if she could not have her husband, then nobody would. Jensen was eventually arrested for the girlfriend’s murder. She pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. She subsequently appealed to the Idaho Court of Appeals, claiming that her sentence was excessive.