Top inset: Laurie Diane Potter (San Diego County Sheriff’s Office). Bottom inset: Jack Dennis Potter; and background: dumpster where Laurie Potter’s legs were found (KFMB).
Following the disposal of his wife’s legs in a dumpster, a California man audaciously applied for credit cards in her name, sold their home, and kept all profits while fixated on a woman he encountered at a strip club. Justice was served for Jack Dennis Potter, 72, on Friday in a San Diego County courtroom after he admitted guilt in February to the second-degree murder of his wife, Laurie Diane Potter, 54. He received a sentence of 15-years-to-life in prison. Now aged 72, even with the minimum sentence, he will be in his 80s.
The case remained unresolved for years. On October 5, 2003, a maintenance worker at an apartment complex in Rancho San Diego discovered a pair of legs in the dumpster. Authorities confirmed they were from a woman, but her identity remained unknown. This changed when cold case investigators reevaluated the case in June 2020, employing new DNA technology to trace her relatives. Laurie Potter had never been reported missing. Jack Potter had been the sole person knowing Laurie’s fate, head investigator Detective Troy DuGal stated when the case was cracked in 2021: “Nobody knew except for one guy.”
Defendant Potter harbored an obsession with a woman he met in a strip club, according to authorities. Incidentally, she was also named Laurie.
Jack Potter blew loads of cash in this time period, opening credit accounts, buying a pickup truck, a ski boat, and gifting his new girlfriend a Hummer SUV. He even got her an apartment and a credit card with a $30,000 limit. He financially took advantage of his wife’s death and even successfully filed for divorce.
“In the years that followed, Potter maintained the deception, opening credit cards in Laurie’s name and fraudulently filing Family Court documents claiming he had contacted Laurie about the proceedings — years after she had been murdered,” prosecutors wrote. “He utilized the Family Court to sell their family home in Temecula and pocket all profits. ”
