'Till Death Do Us Part: Love, Marriage, and the Mind of the Killer Spouse Read Online Free PDF Page A

necessarily mean that the man they care about is in love with his other partner. (Researchers have also pointed out that women and men who are struck by jealousy are often correct in believing that infidelity is taking place.)
    The killers in this sort of crime, who are experiencing intense emotions, often view themselves as the doomed protagonists in a love tragedy gone terribly wrong where the saying “If I can’t have you, then nobody can” is the theme song.
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    S UCH was the case of CLARA HARRIS , who wanted to “have it all” but instead gave it all up when, in July 2002, the married mother of two killed her husband David. Her weapon of choice was her Mercedes.
    Clara had caught David, age forty-four, cheating with his assistant, and, following an ugly confrontation Clara repeatedly ran him over. The horrific act was caught on video and shocked a nation.
    Up to that time theirs was, by most accounts, a perfect marriage. Both were dentists, having met in dental school in 1991. They married a year later, on Valentine’s Day.
    “I found the one God had reserved for me,” Clara, age forty-four, once said.
    They worked side by side, building a very successful practice in the suburbs of Houston, Texas, which allowed them to live in a palatial home in a gated community. They owned property in Colorado and vacationed often, usually to tropical locales. By 1998 they decided to start a family and Clara gave birth to twin sons. Life for David and Clara couldn’t have been better. Or so everyone thought.
    In reality, something was terribly wrong.
    By 2002 David had taken a lover, Gail Bridges, a divorced mother of two and one of his dental assistants. The affair had continued for several months when David, confronted by Clara, finally admitted to his infidelity. He even described the affair to his wife in intimate detail.
    Angry but resolute, Clara wanted to remain in the marriage and demanded that David end the affair. He said he would, but Clara didn’t believe him and hired a private investigator, who tracked David and his lover to the luxurious Nassau Bay Hilton in the suburb of Clear Lake. It was the same hotel where the Harrises had married ten years earlier.
    Tipped off by the private investigator, Clara arrived at the hotel with David’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, Lindsay, age sixteen. They phoned upstairs to David, who came down minutes later. As he exited the elevator accompanied by Gail, they were surprised by Clara, who lunged at Gail, tearing at her shirt and screaming, “You bitch—he’s my husband!”
    Clara then turned to David and cried, “I hate you” before calling out into the lobby for everyone to hear that her husband was sleeping with another woman. Embarrassed and upset, David had heard enough. He took Gail’s arm and headed for the front doors but was stopped by Clara and Lindsay. Enraged, David put his hand on Clara’s forehead and pushed her down onto the floor, humiliating her. He then walked outside into the parking lot and escorted Gail to her car.
    Clara quickly got back on her feet. Somewhat disoriented, she collected herself and was guided by hotel personnel to the parking lot and her Mercedes. She calmly got in the car, turned on the engine, and, as Lindsay slid into the passenger seat, pressed her foot on the gas, aiming the car for David, who was comforting Gail as they stood next to her Lincoln Navigator.
    David didn’t see Clara coming until the last moment. He pushed Gail inside her car as Clara plowed into him at forty miles per hour. He was catapulted twenty-five feet into the air and into an adjacent parking lot, where he lay motionless on the pavement, moaning from intense pain.
    Clara, however, wasn’t finished.
    To the shock and horror of all watching, Clara sped her car over a concrete median into the adjacent parking lot, once again aiming directly for her husband. With Lindsay still in the passenger seat screaming for Clara to stop, she