Bob Bashara's personal life, exposed to the nation after the body of his wife, Jane, was found murdered in Detroit in January, gets heavy exposure tonight when Dateline NBC airs a report on the man from Grosse Pointe Park and the murder case in which he has not been charged.
In an interview with Dateline's Dennis Murphy that was excerpted on WDIV-TV last night, Bashara did an about face on one of the biggest topics in the homicide investigation: Whether he was having an affair that could have served as a motive for the killing.
After denying it for months, Basha acknowledged he was having a relationship with Rachel Gillett, a middle-aged Grosse Pointe woman.
"You know, I do not want to get into a lot of this because of my children," Bashara said. "But I will tell you that I did have, I had a relationship with one other woman."
He said that woman was Gillett.
"But it has nothing to do with this case," Bashara said. "Anything to do with the death of Jane ... nothing at all."
Bashara has complied with police on several occasions, giving statements, DNA, even hand-writing samples. A handyman, whom Bashara knows, Joe Gentz, has been arrested and charged in connection with the murder. Police said Gentz confessed to being involved in killing Jane.
Jane Bashara was found dead in the back of her SUV in a Detroit alley on Jan. 25. She had been reported missing the night before by her husband. Bob Bashara has been named a person of interest in his wife's murder.
Other reports, most notably by WXYZ-TV's Scott Lewis, tied Bashara and Gillette to an S and M lifestyle, and Murphy asked Bashara about that aspect of his life.
"It was a private part of my life," he said. "It was nothing, had nothing to do with Jane. And people talk about that dark side. They don't even know about what that ... what's involved with that. They think of the terrible notion of different things. But they don't know. They don't know what was going on. And I really don't feel like I can discuss that at this point, knowing that there may be an impending case."
