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[starlight30]

Dee Dee did not know how to swim and was afraid of the water. On August 27th, 1994, at the age of 39, the mother of recording artists Taj, Taryll and TJ Jackson, known professionally as 3T, was found dead in the bottom of a swimming pool at the home of her companion, Donald Bohana. Bohana, told police that he and Dee Dee had been swimming, when he left for a short while to go to the store. He claimed that when he returned home, he found Dee Dee drowned in the pool. No one who knew the lady believed the story. Because the authorities were not doing anything, in August of 1995, a year after her death, the Jacksons filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Bohana. In 1997, he was arrested and charged with second degree murder in the death of Delores Jackson. In early 1998, Bohana was put on trial, found guilty and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. If not for the persistence of the Jackson family, Donald Bohana might have gotten away with murder.

This case took awhile to solve. What a tradegy.

here is a video of it happening on Marlon Brando's wedding day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf_kQQyjtwo

here is a video about trial verdict:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSnYGmnkZ5M

[the arabian nights]

the poor kids

[msteetee34]

Man I knew that Tito's ex wife died but I didn't know she was murdered.  Some guy was charged with her death that's sad.  3T must have been in their late teens when they lost their mother.  Jackie wife also died and so did Latoya's ex husband.  Man lots of tragedy.  However, Latoya's husband was abusive to her.

[AvaMarie]

I didn't know someone was convicted in her death. Man that's sad.

[Styloprincess]

How sad...I didn't know that they actually charged and convicted somebody with her murder. Poor Tito. Noone deserves somethig like that :(

[Grace]

This is the filed document about the case:
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/B128162.PDF

This started to lead to Bohana's financial disaster:

The Denny's "N" the 'hood, as it was called, opened in 1992 shortly after the riots and was the first full-service, family-style restaurant to open in the community since the 1965 Watts riots. At the time, it was the only black-owned restaurant in the Spartanburg, S.C.-based chain of nearly 1,500 eateries.

"I see a hospital across the street with 2,000 employees, a shopping center with 400 employees and a community with no place to sit down and eat," said entrepreneur Donald J. Bohana, who borrowed $800,000 to build and open the restaurant.

His Denny's would be different. Windows in the 150-seat restaurant were fortified with bullet-proof glass. And the owner deviated from the regular menu, offering soul food dishes: collard greens, chitterlings, oxtails and sweet potato pie.

Business was booming.

Then came the bust. Bohana was stripped of the franchise nearly two years after the opening for failing to make payments on his loan from Los Angeles County. (In 1998, Bohana was convicted of second-degree murder in the drowning of the ex-wife of Jackson 5 member Tito Jackson. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.)

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/31/local/me-dennys31

More details on Denny's Resto case:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/25/business/company-news-black-run-denny-s-unit-taken-over.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti was accused by Brian Oxman to not bring criminal charges against Bohana.

Oxman said Jackson's family has also asked state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren to assign one of his attorneys to prosecute the case and to investigate possible malfeasance on the part of Garcetti.

In a nine-page memorandum sent along with a letter dated Aug. 22 and other documents to Lungren's Sacramento office, Oxman alleges that a conflict of interest exists because Garcetti was embarrassed when accusations of sexual misconduct made by a teen-aged boy against Michael Jackson in the summer of 1993 turned out to be "unfounded."

The "wasted investigation [by Garcetti's office] does not justify allowing Delores Jackson's killer, who literally beat her to death, to walk the streets of Los Angeles," Oxman's letter argues.

"We are disturbed at the retaliatory actions of the Los Angeles County district attorney directed at the Jackson family in refusing to prosecute Bohana," Oxman wrote in the letter to Lungren.

http://articles.latimes.com/print/1995-08-26/local/me-39096_1_michael-jackson

August 27, 1994, the day Dee Dee died, was the wedding day of Miko Brando & Karen Hamilton at Neverland ranch.
http://mjjtimeline.over-blog.com/15-categorie-320024.html

Interesting that Bohana was mentioned in the news to have "fought for years" for the Jackson family.
I wonder in which context.

[RK]

Thankyou for digging this info up Grace.

[VeryLittleSusie]

" If not for the persistence of the Jackson family, Donald Bohana might have gotten away with murder."

Why aren't they persistent now when it comes to Murray???
Unless... nobody died... ;)