“We all will be linked by this tragedy forever.”
– Lisl Auman, Aug. 22, 2005
The first thing Linda Chin noticed was how much Lisl Auman had changed. A juror in the original trial, Chin had not seen Auman in more than seven years.
The transformation was striking.
“She was still like a girl at the time of the trial,” Chin said. “She was only 22. It was kind of sad to see an almost 30-year- old woman walk into the courtroom.”
It had been such a long, hard path to this awkward resolution of the tragic case that began Nov. 12, 1997, when Matthaeus Jaehnig killed Denver police officer Bruce VanderJagt and then put a gun to his chin and killed himself.
Auman, who had enlisted Jaehnig and three others to help her move from her room in Buffalo Creek, was held responsible for setting the events in motion that led to the officer’s death.
On Monday morning, Chin sat next to her husband in Court Room 16. One side of the room was packed with Auman’s family and friends. VanderJagt’s widow, Anna VanderJagt, and her family and friends filled the other side.
Chin recognized many of them. They’d all been through so much.
Chin had been the lone holdout for acquittal through hours of jury deliberations back in 1998. She tried to convince other jurors that the woman under arrest in the back of a police car at the time of the crime was not guilty of murder.
“All of us have made mistakes or done things in our lives that could potentially backfire on us in some way,” Chin said.
But the videotape of Auman lying to police the night of the crime was too much for the other jurors to overcome.
In the end, Chin gave up and joined them in voting to convict Auman of felony murder.
“I lost courage,” Chin said later.
She regretted her decision almost immediately, even wondering if she might say “not guilty” when the judge polled the jurors later in the courtroom. Then, when Auman was sentenced to life without possibility of parole, Chin was devastated.
“It has weighed heavy on my heart for years knowing that I was part of the reason she went to prison.”
So Chin was thrilled when the Colorado Supreme Court overturned Auman’s conviction in March. She said she was eager to see a new trial where the outcome might be different.
“I wholeheartedly feel she would have won if she had gone to trial again.”
For months, Anna VanderJagt also had urged prosecutors to retry Auman. She was determined to see her convicted. But on Monday she revealed her journey to accepting the plea bargain that will release Auman to a halfway house.
“I had to search deep and decide what I felt about it,” she said. “At a certain time, you have to have a change of heart, reassess and change your thinking.”
She was “very gracious,” said Colleen Auerbach, Auman’s mother.
Anna VanderJagt said she wasn’t sure what she wanted from Auman when she faced her across the courtroom.
But Auman had known for a very long time what she wanted to say. When the moment finally arrived, Auerbach said Auman was concerned about delivering her message effectively.
“I talked to her last night, and she was worried about reading the statement. She said, ‘I want it to come from my heart.”‘
Auerbach said she thought her daughter did just fine.
“I hope Mrs. VanderJagt got a glimpse of who Lisl is.”
For her part, Anna VanderJagt challenged Auman to make the most of her second chance.
“Take this opportunity to make a productive life for yourself,” she said as she looked into Auman’s tearful eyes.
It is a new beginning for Anna VanderJagt as well.
“Acceptance is a large part of healing,” she said, and she is “fully determined” to heal.
On Monday, that sentiment appeared universal.
“It’s a happy day,” Chin said as she left the courtroom. “I feel such a sigh of relief.”
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
