than an aunt.”
The way Tina would later tell it, Callie ran a low-grade 76 / Kathryn Casey
fever during the beginning of the visit. She’d diagnose it as a minor influenza. And Piper was suffering from exhaustion and more. “Her spirit had been beaten down,” says Tina.
“She was so dependent on Fred, by his design, she couldn’t do anything. I worked with her, told her she was strong and inde pen dent, that she needed to get out of the situation. Before long the old Piper returned, the spunky Piper. Fred was undermining her self- esteem.”
After his week at Disney World with Jocelyn and Paxton, Fred flew to Piper in Texas—as he had seventeen years earlier when he flew to Germany to convince her to return to him. He brought both the older children with him, in his bid to reclaim his youngest daughter and his wife and re unite his family.
Days later he and Piper returned to Virginia, Fred would say later, with the agreement that he would find a teaching position that would bring them back to Texas. That winter he did, in fact, apply for a position at UT, in the communications department where he’d once worked with Daly. Perhaps Piper intended to do the same, to make changes and to try to keep their family together. Later the evidence would suggest otherwise, and that what was on her mind that winter was money.
Months earlier Fred had taken nearly all Piper’s credit cards away, but that December she maneuvered to get them back. When Fred’s Purdue MasterCard disappeared, he reported it lost. Later he’d charge that Piper then intercepted the replacement card in the mail, along with a new CitiBank card she ordered on his account. In less than thirty days Piper would charge more than $9,000 in cash advances and purchases of $10,454.77 on Fred’s credit cards, along with transferring $3,000 from his paycheck into an individual account she opened at a Wachovia bank. What Piper bought on the cards would later make it seem that she was building DIE, MY LOVE / 77
a nest egg for her future, including clothes, tennis equipment, three years’ worth of prepaid hair salon services, and $7,000 in prepaid moving services, more than enough to move her home to Texas.
It would be nearly a month before Fred would learn of the new debt, but the strained marriage still barely lasted through the holidays. To Fred’s great sadness, just after the New Year, on January 6, 2001, Piper packed her bags and moved out of the Hearthglow house. By then her friend Loni was in the midst of a divorce. Piper took advantage of having a refuge to flee to and moved in with Loni.
For the next few months it seemed Piper wasn’t sure what she would do, as she moved back and forth between Loni’s home and the house on Hearthglow Lane. Loni would recall that period as great fun, saying that she worked while Piper stayed home and kept the house and cooked dinners. During the week, Fred had the children, but on weekends they joined Piper at Loni’s. On her days off, she and Piper took the children to Richmond’s Maymont, a parklike setting on the James River, with Japanese and Italian gardens, a Victorian mansion, and a petting zoo. There, they picnicked, the children played, and Piper painted. In the eve nings the women drank wine and talked. “We did bubbles, putting the kids in the tub together,” says Loni. “It was fun, and everyone got along. It was a wonderful time.”
When Piper circulated back home with Fred, the scene wasn’t as tranquil. Instead, on January 11, Piper called the police, complaining that during an argument Fred pushed her into a wall. She did, in fact, have a small cut on one hand. Yet when the officer asked if it was from the argument, Piper said she didn’t think so.
Later, Fred, who’d grown so thin he appeared only slightly larger than his diminutive wife, would tell others that Piper had pushed him, and that it had shocked him that she could be 78 / Kathryn Casey
physically aggressive. But that day, to
The way Tina would later tell it, Callie ran a low-grade 76 / Kathryn Casey
fever during the beginning of the visit. She’d diagnose it as a minor influenza. And Piper was suffering from exhaustion and more. “Her spirit had been beaten down,” says Tina.
“She was so dependent on Fred, by his design, she couldn’t do anything. I worked with her, told her she was strong and inde pen dent, that she needed to get out of the situation. Before long the old Piper returned, the spunky Piper. Fred was undermining her self- esteem.”
After his week at Disney World with Jocelyn and Paxton, Fred flew to Piper in Texas—as he had seventeen years earlier when he flew to Germany to convince her to return to him. He brought both the older children with him, in his bid to reclaim his youngest daughter and his wife and re unite his family.
Days later he and Piper returned to Virginia, Fred would say later, with the agreement that he would find a teaching position that would bring them back to Texas. That winter he did, in fact, apply for a position at UT, in the communications department where he’d once worked with Daly. Perhaps Piper intended to do the same, to make changes and to try to keep their family together. Later the evidence would suggest otherwise, and that what was on her mind that winter was money.
Months earlier Fred had taken nearly all Piper’s credit cards away, but that December she maneuvered to get them back. When Fred’s Purdue MasterCard disappeared, he reported it lost. Later he’d charge that Piper then intercepted the replacement card in the mail, along with a new CitiBank card she ordered on his account. In less than thirty days Piper would charge more than $9,000 in cash advances and purchases of $10,454.77 on Fred’s credit cards, along with transferring $3,000 from his paycheck into an individual account she opened at a Wachovia bank. What Piper bought on the cards would later make it seem that she was building DIE, MY LOVE / 77
a nest egg for her future, including clothes, tennis equipment, three years’ worth of prepaid hair salon services, and $7,000 in prepaid moving services, more than enough to move her home to Texas.
It would be nearly a month before Fred would learn of the new debt, but the strained marriage still barely lasted through the holidays. To Fred’s great sadness, just after the New Year, on January 6, 2001, Piper packed her bags and moved out of the Hearthglow house. By then her friend Loni was in the midst of a divorce. Piper took advantage of having a refuge to flee to and moved in with Loni.
For the next few months it seemed Piper wasn’t sure what she would do, as she moved back and forth between Loni’s home and the house on Hearthglow Lane. Loni would recall that period as great fun, saying that she worked while Piper stayed home and kept the house and cooked dinners. During the week, Fred had the children, but on weekends they joined Piper at Loni’s. On her days off, she and Piper took the children to Richmond’s Maymont, a parklike setting on the James River, with Japanese and Italian gardens, a Victorian mansion, and a petting zoo. There, they picnicked, the children played, and Piper painted. In the eve nings the women drank wine and talked. “We did bubbles, putting the kids in the tub together,” says Loni. “It was fun, and everyone got along. It was a wonderful time.”
When Piper circulated back home with Fred, the scene wasn’t as tranquil. Instead, on January 11, Piper called the police, complaining that during an argument Fred pushed her into a wall. She did, in fact, have a small cut on one hand. Yet when the officer asked if it was from the argument, Piper said she didn’t think so.
Later, Fred, who’d grown so thin he appeared only slightly larger than his diminutive wife, would tell others that Piper had pushed him, and that it had shocked him that she could be 78 / Kathryn Casey
physically aggressive. But that day, to
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