Jane Howatt’s Jigsaw John L.A. Detective Book Optioned

EXCLUSIVE: Fifty years on from NBC series Jigsaw John, a new TV show is in the works telling the story of one of L.A.’s greatest detectives through the woman who unexpectedly found herself alongside him.

Jane Howatt’s Jigsaw & Jane: Thirteen Years of Murder and Mayhem with Badge Number One has been optioned by UK indie Golden Possum Productions.

Jigsaw John, real name John St. John, was one of L.A.’s greatest detectives, having for decades led huge cases like the Freeway Killer investigation and the Black Dahlia case. He was with the LAPD for 50 years and ultimately carried its coveted Detective Badge No. 1.

In 1982, Howatt was a 35-year-old suburban mother and aspiring writer when she read about St. John receiving the LAPD’s Distinguished Service Medal. With no background in policing or journalism, she picked up the phone and asked one of America’s most formidable homicide detectives if she could write a book about him. What followed was a 13-year journey she took with St. John into the darkest corners of L.A., and Golden Possum’s adaptation tells that story.

The project comes 50 years after NBC’s Jigsaw John, a crime procedural based on St. John’s life and career starring Jack Warden. The TV show is currently in development, with further creative attachments to be announced. Last week, we revealed Golden Possum, which is run by UK producer Naomi Harvey, had found a writer for its TV pilot of John Ryan’s non-fiction book America’s Trial: Torture and the 9/11 Case.

Harvey said: “True crime is an evergreen but I am not in the business of IP that glorifies or fetishizes the criminals. What interests me is the people who spend years standing in their shadow the detectives, the families, the witnesses and, in this case, this extraordinary woman who decided she was going to document it all.”