SoCal man sentenced to jail for killing wife, tossing legs in trash bin

For more than two decades, Jack Potter had fooled people into believing his dead wife, whose severed legs were found in a Rancho San Diego trash container in 2003, was still alive, prosecutors say.

On Friday, one of the region’s most disturbing cold cases concluded when 72-year-old Jack Potter was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the murder of his wife, Laurie Potter.

Potter pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and admitted to smothering his 54-year-old wife to death in February, prosecutors said.

Laurie Potter, whose legs were found in a trash container in 2003.

(San Diego County Sheriff)

For almost 20 years, prosecutors say, Potter was living large and profiting off of Laurie’s death while pretending she was still alive. He fraudulently opened credit cards in her name and used family court to sell their home in Temecula and pocket the profits, prosecutors said.

He met a new girlfriend at a strip club and gifted her a Hummer SUV and a ski boat, leased her an apartment and gave her a credit card with a $30,000 limit, prosecutors said. The girlfriend eerily shared his wife’s name.

Potter expressed remorse during Friday’s hearing, apologizing and saying he loved his wife.

“I let my emotions get the better of me that one time,” he said. “I don’t know why. It just happened and I’m sorry.”

A maintenance worker at the Country Hills Apartment complex in Rancho San Diego had discovered Laurie’s legs in October 2003, but law enforcement was unable to identify her and the case went unsolved.

That was until 2020 when new DNA investigative techniques led to a breakthrough in the haunting cold case. Detectives ran the crime scene DNA through a national database and matched it to a distant relative.

Detectives then progressively asked closer relatives to share their DNA until — 20 people and six months later — they reached Laurie’s adult son. His sample allowed them to identify Laurie and a subsequent investigation yielded evidence connecting her husband to the crime, according to a 2021 news release from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.

When Potter was arrested in 2021, Laurie’s family, though unaware of her whereabouts, thought she was still alive, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

She was never reported missing and without genetic testing — the same technology used to identity the Golden State Killer and crack scores of cold cases — this murder would have probably gone unsolved, the Sheriff’s Office said in the news release.

Laurie’s son, John Carlson, said during Potter’s sentencing hearing that he’d lost touch with his mother, but had tried to contact her and renew their relationship.

Carlson said Potter told him his mother “just wanted to be alone, which unfortunately I believed. And this really hurts to this day.”

Laurie’s case marked the first time the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office attempted to identify a murder victim using investigative genealogy.

“This case is a stark reminder that the pursuit of justice never stops,” San Diego County Dist. Atty. Summer Stephan said in a statement Friday. “And neither does the grief of those who lose someone to violence. Today, we honor Laurie’s memory and stand with her family in their long-awaited moment of justice.”

City News Service contributed to this report.