By Robert Riggs

LAPD Homicide Detective John St. John aka "JigSaw John" Badge #1

Legendary LAPD Homicide Detective John St. John walked among the dead for nearly a half-century.

Known as “JigSaw John,” he pursued monsters that had an insatiable appetite for blood and suffering.

Jane Howatt, a suburban housewife and aspiring writer, wanted to trade her tennis racket for something more meaningful.

St. John didn’t need company, and he sure didn’t want a young unpublished author in his way. 

But something about Howatt’s curiosity—earnest, unspoiled, insistent—broke down his guard.

St. John worked the evidence; Howatt worked the story. 

The result is “JigSaw and Jane: Thirteen Years of Murder & Mayhem with Badge Number One.” 

St.John empathized with crime victims because he was one of them.

As a young jailer, a prisoner ambushed him with an iron bar ripped from a bunk.

The prisoner savagely beat St. John to the brink of death, leaving him blind in one eye.

In another life, JigSaw and Jane would have barely noticed each other in a supermarket aisle. 

Instead, they found themselves peering into crime scenes of LA’s most brutal and sensational crimes together.

This is their story.