00:00:06
hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this is morbid [Music] yeah I feel like we should have body
00:00:26
slammed at the end of that like a a dude bro W yeah I like that like metaphorically metaphorically I don't
00:00:34
know I like that so overtook me what's up so lots is up um Lots is up lots is down let's Lots is all around we that's
00:00:46
what I was going to say I was going to finish it and I was going to say lots is you even did the all around with your
00:00:51
head bring it around so once again very cool thing that happened was hanging out with Ander
00:00:57
McMahon wild um 16-year-old me screaming literally can't handle it screaming um but he's very rad and it was very nice
00:01:06
of him and we appreciate him uh and so a really really cool thing as well has already happened for you guys if you're
00:01:15
on wonder plus yeah the no everyone we just can't say who it is because we'll never understand it but when we're here
00:01:23
everyone got it it's a bonus episode it was on top of your regular episodes um it already happened for you but guys it
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hasn't happened for me yet so can you tell me how it went everyone just commenting on the
00:01:39
eventual post that comes up it was great El it was a great Elena you had so much
00:01:44
fun I did I know I did and as you had fun too you know what right now I I feel it now and I'm like wow you feel it com
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I had so much fun it was an it was fun it was lovely it was exciting it was Grand it was so Grand it was
00:02:01
incredible it's something I it was meteoric it was meteoric I like that yeah I it was great I think like a
00:02:10
religious experience um you know I hope you guys [ __ ] loved it hi I know you did of course cuz I know you guys and I
00:02:20
know this is like right up your wheelhouse I don't think it's up your wheelhouse I think it's in your
00:02:24
wheelhouse I think that's how it goes could be both I got weird with it which is kind of on brand right now for what
00:02:31
what is going on careful so back it up I'm not I'm not yeah I think in I think in like a week or so I can properly like
00:02:38
talk about it you know and and mention what it actually is and actually to make sure that I can because I want to like
00:02:46
be excited with you guys and like you to be able to hear the excitement in real time we're going to record the intro to
00:02:53
that episode that comes out after it right after we record this that exciting bonus episode into the episode so that
00:03:00
we can properly capture the state I'm in it's going to be interesting it is I don't know if
00:03:07
you'll be capable of recording I know anything after that I'm very excited in case you couldn't tell uh but it's going
00:03:13
to be really fun you guys can look forward to it I swear and yeah and I we have some good cases coming up we got
00:03:19
some good stuff coming up yeah it's all good well right now we're in part two of
00:03:24
Jean Harris and the murder of Dr Herman tarau this has been a ride so far just in terms of everything how the ups and
00:03:35
downs and the turns and the yeah this feels this is like an epic drama it is an epic drama it's it's giving like soap
00:03:44
opera a little bit it for sure is you know so in part one we heard all about Jean's upbringing and how it would
00:03:49
obviously later affect her man picker um her man picker her man picker her picker
00:03:54
how her first marriage didn't work out how [ __ ] everybody hated Jim yeah and how she was so close to a second chance
00:04:00
at marriage with Dr Herman High tar hour but how that all ultimately unraveled then of course we got into how she
00:04:07
started relying on daoxin a prescription form of methamphetamine you know the one
00:04:12
that was for her chronic back pain and how that was really starting to change her personality and shift her way of
00:04:18
thinking yeah and then of course we got into Dr tarnower's relationship with his
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uh girlfriend Lynn and how that kind of lined up with some pretty scary and strange harassing phone calls that were
00:04:29
leaving Jean quite paranoid yeah understandably yeah now let's get into part two at the same time that her
00:04:37
relationship with Dr tarau seemed to be basically reaching a pretty Bitter End Jean was at the peak of her career which
00:04:44
you you would have hoped would have kind of Taken taken all that energy I know but it's not always that easy no and I
00:04:51
think where she was in a mental state it just wasn't possible for her to really like Relish in that sometimes it's hard
00:04:58
to disengage it exactly so as the head Mistress of one of the nation's most elite private schools like I was saying
00:05:03
in part one she regularly attended Galas and dinner parties with some of the nation's wealthiest families and she was
00:05:10
invited to speak at education conferences around the country in a letter to hi uh in 1977 she wrote my
00:05:17
work day begins at 8:00 a.m. and lasts until I drop damn so it's like she was at the peak of her career but it was
00:05:22
also really taxing on her physical health and her mental health and her relationship was with high is taxing on
00:05:30
her mental health so yeah and it's like sometimes having that busy of like a professional life can like distract you
00:05:37
oh a little bit but it doesn't you know the second you come out of it it all comes crashing down and you're burning
00:05:43
the candle at both Ides it's not healthy precisely so like the Thomas School the
00:05:47
madira school had also been struggling in the mid '70s including an incident this is [ __ ] awful um where a
00:05:54
mentally ill man abducted and sexually assaulted one of the students he left her died to a tree on campus and she
00:06:02
died from exposure holy [ __ ] yeah it's something we're definitely going to look
00:06:06
more into that's horrific yeah well it was this incident that eventually led the previous head mistress to retire you
00:06:12
can imagine why opening the job for somebody new who could re you know Revitalize the school one of the board
00:06:18
members later said of their search for a replacement we wanted someone womanly like a woman is that what like
00:06:27
what are you what are you talking about cool that's we wanted someone womanly what what that's all I guess that's the
00:06:34
requirement Well jean was womanly she met all the board's criteria for an ideal head mistress wow but the job
00:06:40
proved far harder and like I was saying way more emotionally taxing than she had
00:06:45
anticipated and adding to her stress was the additional work that she had taken on in order to help hi with a diet book
00:06:51
that he was actually contracted to produce about his popular Scarsdale diet this is like a high protein low carb
00:06:59
method of weight loss and despite its immense popularity at the time the diet the Scarsdale diet has since been
00:07:05
labeled a pretty good example of a fad diet where you would lose a great deal of weight when you first did this but
00:07:12
you would once you stop dieting you just gain the weight back cuz it's not sustainable yeah I have feelings about
00:07:17
diets for the most part I do too it's a very unhealthy industry I don't care don't come at me nevertheless it's my
00:07:24
opinion it's my opinion nevertheless though in the late 1970s Dr tau's diet was extremely
00:07:31
profitable and Publishing houses across New York were just clamoring to publish his first official book yeah diet book
00:07:38
so in late 1978 his diet really wasn't more than just a one-page eating plan that he was giving out to patients who
00:07:45
wanted to lose weight but his publisher hired Ghost Writer Sam Sinclair author of more than two dozen self-help books
00:07:52
to develop that one single sheet into a several hundred page book damn I feel like you're going to find this part
00:07:58
interesting yeah Sinclair was given 6 months to produce the entire book W but when Jean read the first draft of what
00:08:05
he' produced she was shocked by really how unethical and actually poorly written the book was oh no her opinions
00:08:12
LED obviously she's a woman with opinion so that's not great in this time no not
00:08:16
in that time a lot of tension started to you know unravel between herself Dr tarau and the Ghost Writer Sinclair to
00:08:24
the point where she offered to rewrite the entire manuscript herself wow she was like this is so bad that
00:08:33
like I'm going to do it all and make it better and I'm not she wasn't like she wasn't a writer damn you know like
00:08:40
obviously she's a very she's a trained professional when it comes to like being a teacher and that kind of thing so she
00:08:45
can write I'm sure she proves herself holy [ __ ] yeah under any circumstances rewriting Dr tau's book would have been
00:08:53
um a huge time commitment but considering that Jean also had a very demanding full-time job it seemed pretty
00:09:00
unrealistic and unnecessary and unnecessary yet somehow she managed to pull off the impossible and produced a
00:09:07
respectable final draft for the publisher on time wow yeah wrot the whole thing over I'm just like why' you
00:09:15
do that like that that's very impressive but like I think she just was like this
00:09:20
is [ __ ] and it can't go into the world with High's name on it and I love him so
00:09:24
much so I'm going to help here and I think she probably thought like I'm going to do this for him and prove 100%
00:09:32
that's all it is it's like but girl she's in a constant Loop of trying to prove is I feel it's so the complete
00:09:39
Scarsdale Medical diet by Dr Herman tarau and Sam Sinclair we miss the name there think
00:09:47
y'all mean Jean Harris but okay came out in late December of 1978 and it was an immediate success of course all the
00:09:54
credit really went to Dr tarau alone instead of the group of doctors who had really created the book at the Scarsdale
00:10:00
Medical Group or Jean Harris who literally wrote the entire [ __ ] book that's gross yeah yet for Jean writing
00:10:07
the book was never about money it was an opportunity to prove to hi that she was
00:10:11
still of use to him and worth keeping in his life so when he offered to pay her $2,000 for her work she was deeply hurt
00:10:21
and immediately left New York and returned to Virginia me I would have taken that cash yeah get the [ __ ] away
00:10:27
two weeks later she received a check from Dr tarau along with a note that read for reasons that I cannot explain
00:10:34
it is imperative that I make all book dispersements at this time I am enclosing a check for $4,000 that I hope
00:10:41
you will accept so he wanted to pay her for this this was a professional Exchange in his mind and for her it's
00:10:47
like it was proving her love for him yeah exactly her her work on the book was a labor of love yeah something to
00:10:53
show him how much she valued him and he basically dismissed that and treated it like it was a service that could be
00:10:59
bought which it is technically but that's not that that was not her intent and why she did it I also and just to
00:11:08
just to flip this on its head did she tell him this is a labor of love for me uh I I don't know because if you don't
00:11:17
express that to someone then they are going to look at it as a professional thing yeah treat it as such if you don't
00:11:24
express things to people they can't read your damn mind that's the thing so there
00:11:28
is that whole thing where like yes I'm sure it was a labor of love for her but if you do not express that no one's
00:11:34
going to know it yeah that's so you got to say it just to look at it from both sides he was paying her for the book
00:11:40
because she did a service yeah and I don't know if she did I don't think they were great communicators that's the
00:11:46
thing I don't think there's a lot of communication so it's a lot of assuming somebody's going to understand my
00:11:50
intention here yeah and that never works out no it doesn't you got to be pretty upfront with people well and this was
00:11:57
this was a pretty big Turning Point in their relationship imagine she wrote to him you have said to me so many times I
00:12:03
never ask anything of you I never ask anything of anyone but my dear that isn't true for starters you ask every
00:12:09
woman to be as incapable of love as you are wow that was a good line reads upon reads upon in here and giving her a
00:12:17
check for the work H reminded Jean yet again that their relationship had become purely transactional but still she
00:12:24
couldn't let go of their relationship it was almost like she became addicted to oh 100% almost as addicted as the pills
00:12:32
that he'd been prescribing her and now she was stuck in this terrible position of being totally emotionally reliant on
00:12:38
a man who really didn't want anything to do with her pretty clearly yeah and at that point it's like if he is being
00:12:43
clear that like nothing is coming of this yeah you got to walk away yep then it then it does become on you that that
00:12:50
you're not letting it go and I do think it got to that point and that's the thing it's like there there's there's
00:12:55
times when and again I don't know what the interactions were anything like that he was because it's shitty when
00:13:02
someone's pretending that they're still eluding that there might be something there of course that's going to leave
00:13:08
you with a little string of Hope of course and when you're in that position of desperation and you love someone and
00:13:13
you're you know all that you're going to take anything as a little string of hope
00:13:17
so you don't know what kind of things were dangling in front of her but it does sound like he was at least
00:13:22
attempting to communicate that this is a transactional relationship now and at that that point you need to do the work
00:13:30
to get away yeah to like walk away yeah cuz it's been made clear you know yeah it really has it's it's it's just one of
00:13:37
those things if he's not making it clear I I get why you're hanging on to Hope because when you're in that position
00:13:43
nothing's logical yeah but none of it kind of sounds like it's being made clear it yeah none of this is logical
00:13:50
well that's I was going to say and even that's not logical so yeah well throughout the later years of the 1970s
00:13:55
Jean's relationship with Dr tarau began to crumble at a pretty rapid rate he was
00:14:00
just seemingly replacing her with his younger lab assistant Lynn by the end of the decade her emotional distress and
00:14:07
her drug dependency at this point had really started to distort her thinking she was profoundly depressed very lonely
00:14:15
she was struggling with anxiety on a daily basis and it was all showing and not only in her personal life but her
00:14:21
professional life too that makes that's so sad she unraveled cuz outside of this
00:14:27
man she has so much worth it she does you knowes yeah absolutely one colleague said sometimes she was a very beautiful
00:14:35
woman at other times she looked like a Haggard skinny old woman all hunched over and she also started having quote
00:14:41
unquote spells of anger and other bizarre behaviors where she would lash out at people for like a lot of the
00:14:48
times no reason her coworker said anything could set her off it needn't be a major crisis she really didn't like
00:14:55
the girls meaning the girls at the school where she was head mistress that's not cool in fact at one point she
00:15:01
became so irrationally frustrated with their lack of uh respect for cleanliness that she banned oranges from the campus
00:15:08
because the girls always left their peels their orange peels laying around instead of tossing them so she was like
00:15:13
okay no more oranges on campus that's some head mistress [ __ ] which I'm also like who like isn't there
00:15:21
somebody above you that you have to get like approval from can you ban oranges from a school don't oranges fall under
00:15:27
like free something yeah you know free Something Free orange free Citrus you know but but that just shows like howal
00:15:36
bizar and irrational her thinking was yeah by the end of 1980 the entire Affair had started to take a toll on
00:15:42
actually everybody involved and of course Jean and particular at the end of January her contract with the school was
00:15:48
renewed and she received a substantial raise which was good wow but in private she told her secretary she quote felt
00:15:54
like packing a bag and getting the hell out of there yeah it sounds bad yeah the
00:15:59
comment was understood to indicate that she was burning out but in truth things were far worse than really anybody even
00:16:05
knew in late February she spent uh Jean spent 10 days traveling on the west coast in a fundraising and recruitment
00:16:12
effort for the school and during that trip she ran out of dooin oh when she got back to Washington in the first week
00:16:19
of March she immediately called hi who promised that he would send more but any relief she felt was quickly undermined
00:16:26
when he also told her that he had decided decided not to bring her as his companion to an upcoming Heart
00:16:32
Association banquet he said she was still invited to attend but Lynn was also invited to
00:16:38
attend see and here it's like he's being clear yeah this is clear it's cruel to say it's it's very clear what he's
00:16:47
saying but it's also like but so you were bringing her yeah he had asked her so it's like and then said that's un
00:16:52
clear like you know like it feels like it's flip-flopping I think revoking the invitation probably came from her
00:16:59
State at that time I think he was like you are clearly not doing well and like I don't like you can still come if you
00:17:05
want like I think he was trying to let her down easy it was probably one of those things where it was like you can
00:17:09
come if you want cuz I invited you but like you don't up to you yeah when and like I said when ha had initially asked
00:17:16
her to accompany him to the banquet like he did Jean took that invitation to mean
00:17:20
that things between them were returning to normal of course so his decision to attend the banquet alone now not only
00:17:27
felt like a rejection of her as a companion but also an indication that she was now on equal ground with Lynn
00:17:34
because Lynn he wasn't going with Lynn but she was invited to come if she wanted to oh yeah and she always
00:17:41
believed that Lynn was nothing more than ha's mistress which meant that she probably like Jean herself probably was
00:17:47
at this point too damn you know so his rejection was an absolute shock to Jean which is interesting but rather than
00:17:54
react in the moment she simply said she'd call him back and she abruptly hung up the phone
00:17:59
in the days that followed she seemed to operate on autopilot meeting with difficult parents and students a lot of
00:18:05
whom were confrontational it's a very you know elite school and by then dis oxin had completely left her body and
00:18:12
the symptoms of withdrawal were starting to set in oh no among other things she was feeling even more depressed and
00:18:18
despondent and her ability to cope with her declining mental health pretty much evaporated oh this is really sad it's
00:18:24
very sad on the evening of March 9th after spending days unable to reach chai and he hasn't sent a prescription he's
00:18:30
basically just like ghosting her oh [ __ ] she sat down to write her lover a letter
00:18:35
she said I am distraught as I write this your phone call to tell me you preferred
00:18:39
the company of a vicious adulterous psychotic was topped by a call from the dean of students 10 minutes later and
00:18:45
has kept me awake for almost 36 hours what I say will ramble but it will be the truth and I have to do something
00:18:51
besides shriek with pain this is a quote I haven't played the slave for you I would have never committed adultery for
00:18:58
you but I have added a dimension to your life and given you pleasure and dignity
00:19:01
as you have me I've watched you grow rich in the Years where we have been together and I have watched me go
00:19:07
through moments where I was almost destitute and now that thieving [ __ ] has the Run of your home and you accuse me
00:19:13
of stealing money in books the many things your [ __ ] does openly and obviously you now have the cruelty to
00:19:19
accuse me of wow yeah which if you think about the letters that we read between them in part one obviously they're like
00:19:27
love letters and this is not a love letter but even just like her way of thinking you can tell is completely
00:19:33
distorted oh 100% like she is angry this is Rage coded this is like that thieving [ __ ] calling her a whole
00:19:42
it's like what I'm not a doctor but she seems a little manic here yeah she seems
00:19:47
like there's I mean clearly because she's going through withdrawal symptoms this
00:19:52
is in her right mind like she is not in a normal state of being like her homeo stasis here exactly and that's scary in
00:20:01
the end she's talking about Lynn basically like she thought that I it's a little unclear cuz it almost seems like
00:20:07
she saw like cuz he was saying Lynn is invited to the banquet and so are you and I think she thought they were on the
00:20:13
same playing field and then I don't know if there was like another call that happened where he was saying like no I'm
00:20:18
still with Lynn yeah or like I am taking Lynn kind of thing it's a little unclear
00:20:23
but she she's focusing a lot of anger at Lynn yeah and it's like don't focus it on the girl focus it on the guy but not
00:20:31
how you do apparently no no well that's like a small excerpt because this letter
00:20:36
went on for pages and Pages as Jee poured out every ounce of anger and resentment that she felt toward hi and
00:20:44
Lynn over the previous 5 years she had a lot to say but she still indicated that
00:20:48
all she wanted was to spend as much time with high as she could which is very sad
00:20:53
no now she planned to send the letter by registered mail to ensure that he would
00:20:57
receive it but then she got got a better idea she would drive the 5 hours from Washington to New York to deliver it to
00:21:03
high in person yeah this has gone far beyond yeah what it should have way far beyond by the morning of March 10th Jean
00:21:12
had been withdrawing from methamphetamine and painkillers for days and she was severely sleep deprived as
00:21:17
well so to say that she was not in her right mind would actually be a serious understatement oh yeah she's dangerous
00:21:23
right now she is to herself I was going to say to herself and everyone around her yeah she had spent 14 years devoting
00:21:31
everything she had to her job and to her Manar hour and now she was just starting
00:21:35
to feel like she was being pushed out of both it felt to her she later said that
00:21:39
quote the last of her support systems had now been knocked out from under her so that morning she called her secretary
00:21:46
and told her to cancel all her appointments for that afternoon and then she called hi and actually managed to
00:21:51
get through to him and she said hi it's been a bad few weeks I'd like to come up
00:21:55
and talk to you for a few minutes and he said he was having dinner that night and
00:22:00
that it would be better if they could chot the following day but she insisted and he relented and said fine come see
00:22:06
me tonight oh boy neither Herman tarau nor anybody else knew it but Jean Harris had come up with a plan and I just want
00:22:13
to give a trigger warning for suicide here she purchased a 32 caliber handgun a few days earlier after seeing hi one
00:22:21
last time she planned to walk a short distance to a little Park that she liked near High's house and there was a pond
00:22:27
in the park that she actually always like to sit by and she decided that would be the place she wanted to go to
00:22:32
end her life oh man that's sad very very sad before leaving she actually finalized her will and she wrote a
00:22:39
letter of resignation addressed to the board of directors at the madira school and then she got in the car and left
00:22:44
Washington Bound for New York so it was late almost 11:00 at night when Jean finally got to Dr
00:22:51
tarnower's apartment a student had actually given her flowers earlier that day so she thought hi might like to have
00:22:58
them so she grabbed that b of flowers and the gun before exiting the car and going up to the apartment inside it was
00:23:05
dark and it seemed that high and his housekeeper uh Suzanne had already gone to bed so Jean climbed the stairs called
00:23:12
softly out to hi but got no response and quietly she entered the bedroom where she found him sleeping and she whispered
00:23:18
to him as she fumbled with the wall switch to turn the light on this this is already very scary that she just like
00:23:24
walked into his bedroom yeah while he's sleeping and it's just going to flick the light on that's literally my worst
00:23:30
nightmare immediately jarring yeah so when the light came on hi was just waking up so he was rubbing his eyes and
00:23:36
he's like what the [ __ ] and despite his giving into seeing her that night he told her at that point that he was tired
00:23:41
and he didn't want to talk in the middle of the night like yeah probably smart yeah but jean just sat down on the edge
00:23:47
of the bed hoping that her continued presence would Rouse him but hi was like yeah cool I'm going to go back to sleep
00:23:53
yeah so she just started C chatting casually and according to her he said Jesus Jee just shut up and go to bed
00:24:00
which like I can kind of understand I'm going to be honest that I probably wouldn't be as nice like that it I'd be
00:24:08
pissed I'm a horrible person when I just wake up like Drew is like you're so mean
00:24:13
when you first wake up or like you're not quite awake I I think I would say worse possibly I definitely and if
00:24:19
you're saying I'm going to like I was asleep and you woke me up by walking in my room and flicking the light on and
00:24:26
then just talking at me and I tell you to leave I'm going to sleep and you just keep talking yeah I'm gonna say shut up
00:24:33
and go to bed and like talking about nothing like just casually sitting there on the edge of my bed talking come on
00:24:38
stop it that's also how you know that she is very much not clearly here cuz this is
00:24:44
not logical behavior and it's not logical and it's not characteristic for her no like from based on everything you
00:24:51
know just seems over the top yeah so not wanting to sleep Jean went into the primary bathroom to gather a few of her
00:24:57
things that she intended to give her daughter-in-law it had always been the responsibility of hi's housekeeper
00:25:03
Suzanne to remove Jean's things when she left and replace them with Lynn's clothing and vice versa when Jean was
00:25:09
coming that's [ __ ] up which like think of that job being like oh let me let me
00:25:14
take this woman's clothes one mistress's stuff out like and that's [ __ ] up yeah
00:25:18
that's super [ __ ] up that's really [ __ ] up it's [ __ ] up of him to do that and it's [ __ ] up of him to have a
00:25:23
woman that works for him do that to two other women yeah like that's that's a lot of manipulation again it reminds me
00:25:29
of Richard and his housekeeper that was in love with him yep so not saying that his housekeeper was in love with him she
00:25:35
wasn't but jean was surprised when she switched on the light and found the room filled with somebody else's clothing the
00:25:42
realization that that clothing and that jewelry all around belonged to Lynn seemed to cause something to snap inside
00:25:49
of Jean yeah so now she was irrationally angry like I rap and grabbed a handful of clothing and other items and stormed
00:25:57
back into the bedroom room she threw the items at at high on the bed but overshot
00:26:03
and ended up sending several of the heavier items crashing through one of the bedroom
00:26:09
windows yeah this this is escalated to a point also I'm like what did you throw between clothing and jewelry that it
00:26:18
crashed through a bedroom window was it like shoes or something maybe shoes you got to hum those shoes out a window to
00:26:26
get them to go through yeah like thing I don't I don't know if this was simple overshooting of the bed I think it was
00:26:33
humming as hard as you can I think so too yeah and uh this whole version of events is Jean's version of events
00:26:40
obviously so we're going to have to kind of step in every now and again and say like she said that happened but we
00:26:46
probably think this so by that point hi was um out of bed and very angry and apparently slapped Jean hard across the
00:26:53
face which sent her retreating into the bathroom [ __ ] up she said yeah super [ __ ] up she said he was angrier than
00:26:59
she had ever seen him and when he entered the dressing room adjacent to the bathroom he hit her again just as
00:27:05
hard as he had the first time during the 4-Hour drive to New Y or the 5H hour drive to New York Jean had envisioned
00:27:12
one last romantic moment with high where she would say goodbye and then go to the
00:27:16
park according to her and in her mind the whole thing had been so romantic and peaceful but now things had fallen apart
00:27:23
so quickly and none of it was going according to her plan yeah so she said later that she yelled at him and this is
00:27:29
this is so [ __ ] Bleak and sad and awful hit me again High make it hard enough to kill me oh this is awful yeah
00:27:37
but rather than hit her again he just looked down at her with disgust and told her to get out so she hesitated for a
00:27:43
moment and then she stood up and started walking toward the bedroom door she said
00:27:47
intending to start her walk to the park but when she reached the edge of the bed
00:27:51
she said it occurred to her that her entire plan had already unraveled so it made no difference whether she went to
00:27:57
the park to end her life or if she just simply did it right there and then in his bedroom so she said to him according
00:28:03
to her never mind hi I'll do it myself and she grabbed the gun from her handbag and placed the barrel to her
00:28:11
Temple again given the outcome of this incident we only have her description of the events to go by but until her death
00:28:18
in 2012 she did maintain that what happened next was entirely accidental I'm just and obviously
00:28:25
there's a little bit of a reason I guess I don't I don't know why you would have
00:28:31
the gun on your person yeah why you would even take it in there if you were planning just to go
00:28:36
to the park yeah I don't know if maybe she was planning to leave her car and and walk there and walk over but even
00:28:43
still you could walk out to your car and grab your grab the gun yeah I just think
00:28:46
unless she had to valet possibly I think I just think walking into his home with a loaded gun
00:28:54
the way things have gone and the the 10 moments you have had together and and you know this being oh the middle of the
00:29:05
night where you're going to flick on his light and wake him up I don't know if having a gun with you is sending the
00:29:13
right message you know I would say probably not so I feel like it's strange that she was able to just grab that gun
00:29:19
out of her purse but who knows it gets stranger okay so apparently according to Jean when hi saw the gun in her hand he
00:29:29
jumped toward her from behind which knocked the gun away from her head and caused it to discharge when she turned
00:29:35
around hi was standing there with a shocked look on his face and he shouted at her look what you've done while
00:29:40
holding up his bloody hand in the webbing where his thumb connected with his right hand there was a bullet hole
00:29:47
where blood was just pouring out so they stared at each other for a few seconds and then hi walked to the bathroom and
00:29:53
Jean could hear the water running which makes my hand radio I literally my whole
00:29:57
body body I was like like starting to rinse that off I'm just like oh that makes my legs hurt for some weird reason
00:30:04
that's interesting I don't know maybe it's like a thing in your brain I think it is but also this guy's a doctor and
00:30:09
he just got shot in the hand yeah like he's going to be insanely angry yeah or you would assume yeah so with high out
00:30:16
of the room Jean said she began frantically looking for the gun on the floor hoping that she'd find it and end
00:30:21
her own life before he came out of the bathroom so she dropped to her hands and knees and she could see the gun under
00:30:26
the bed and she said she just reached it and was Raising it to her head again when hi's arm came at her from the side
00:30:33
and wrenched it out of her hand for the second time they sat across from each other just staring at each other for a
00:30:38
short time and then hi reached over for the phone to call his housekeeper Suzanne okay so for the most part Jean's
00:30:47
recollection of the nights events appear to be pretty clear and somewhat supported by the evidence like some of
00:30:53
them but when it comes to what happened after high reached for the phone her of events became cloudy and left
00:31:00
investigators with a lot of questions okay according to Jean she must have tried to reach for the gun again because
00:31:06
she recalled physically fighting with high and during that attack she was struck in the face again and during the
00:31:12
struggle she fell back on the bed with high on top of her and she felt something poking her stomach she assumed
00:31:19
it was the barrel of the gun so she squeezed the trigger and heard a loud bang as the gun went off but to her
00:31:25
surprise she didn't feel any pain hi then slid off of her and without thinking she jumped off the bed and ran
00:31:31
toward the bathroom knowing that she needed to shoot herself again or he was definitely going to get the gun from her
00:31:36
for a third time so hi was on his knees by the side of the bed and when Jean stopped and looked at him she didn't
00:31:43
understand why he stopped chasing her but without giving it much thought she raised the gun to her head took a deep
00:31:48
breath and pulled the trigger she said she said the gun made a clicking sound but nothing happened and then she looked
00:31:55
down and saw that all of the chambers were empty she ran to the bathroom and she started
00:31:59
rumaging around in her pocket for more bullets which so she had more bullets which is strange to me also how many how
00:32:08
many chambers are in this G she Two Shots have gone off correct according to Jean we'll get there cuz like yeah you
00:32:19
just threw two in there no no so she R and again why do you have more bullets if if you were planning on just shooting
00:32:26
yourself you would have taken that loaded gun in my opinion you would have just taken that loaded gun with you I
00:32:33
would have left it in the car probably like I'm not I don't want to put myself in these shoes but I don't think I would
00:32:38
have brought the loaded gun in to say goodbye to hi and I definitely wouldn't have extra bullets that I brought with
00:32:43
me as well no that the extra bullets makes no sense but when she found the extra bullets it occurred to her she
00:32:49
didn't know how to load or unload the gun she said which that so how like do I don't do you buy a loaded gun does that
00:32:56
make any sense I I'm not positive about this but I don't think you do I don't think so
00:33:03
either I'm fairly certain you don't I'll look it up just to be sure but I'm I'm like what I would think you wouldn't
00:33:09
I'll keep going while you look it up feel free to interrupt me so she banged the gun on the side of the bathtub
00:33:14
hoping to dislodge the empty shells but all she succeeded in doing was breaking the cylinder from the gun which meant at
00:33:20
that point it was useless you cannot buy a loaded gun I didn't think in the United States I that makes sense that I
00:33:25
didn't think so either but I was like I don't want to claim that I know this for
00:33:28
sure I don't you never know if maybe like she said to the person I don't know how to load this can you load it up for
00:33:33
me and like they did something illegally but I don't know it's I'm going to go with no on that I would go with no on
00:33:39
that too but at this point she remembered exiting the bathroom and telling hi that the gun was broken and
00:33:45
she said it's probably dead and he she said he replied you're probably right and he slowly climbed into bed and
00:33:51
covered himself with a blanket then according to Jean it was then that she realized hi was injured his in was off
00:33:58
and he looked absolutely exhausted so she decided she needed to go get help so she ran down the stairs into the dark
00:34:04
and she could hear Suzanne talking to someone in the dining room but she paid no attention to what she was saying
00:34:10
outside she said that she remembered there was a pay phone down the street about a quarter mile away so she jumped
00:34:15
in her car and raced in the direction of the phone which is strange to get in your car and leave the scene uhhuh as
00:34:22
she neared the phone a police car sped up behind her with its lights flashing so she made a u-turn and started heading
00:34:28
back toward the house with the police car obviously following very closely behind her and when she reached the
00:34:32
driveway she jumped out and shouted to the officer hurry up he's been shot when they entered the house Suzanne was
00:34:39
standing by the stairs and she when she saw Jean she shouted she's the one she did
00:34:44
it Jean Suzanne and the officer went upstairs to the bedroom where they found Herman tarau on his knees beside the bed
00:34:52
slumped against the side table one bloody hand still reaching for the phone so when she said he got into bed and he
00:34:58
put a blanket over himself I don't think he's kneeling on the yeah I don't think
00:35:02
that happened with Suzanne's help the officer laid High down on his back and then went down to his car to get an
00:35:08
oxygen tank Jean lay across the bed just caressing hi's face as he lay on the floor struggling to breathe and asked
00:35:15
him oh hi why didn't you kill me a short time later Dr Herman tarau died from a severed artery caused when a bullet
00:35:23
entered his chest so he just bled out I I have some question several questions uhuh so Jean never denied that she had
00:35:35
shot high but from that point forward her story about the nights events would change a number of times that does not
00:35:42
Shock me because it needs a little work from that first one MH mhm At first she told detectives at the scene quote there
00:35:49
was a fight and the gun went off and his testimony in court officer Daniel O Sullivan recounted his questioning of
00:35:56
Gene for the jury according to a Sullivan Jean quote asked the doctor to kill her meaning Dr tarau and the
00:36:02
struggle then resumed and several shots were fired several means more than two yeah in fact Jean had told the officer
00:36:11
he wanted to live I wanted to die I've been through so much hell with him I loved him very much he slept with every
00:36:17
woman he could and I've had it the next morning the news of the murder broke on the front page of the New York Times and
00:36:24
in the article Police Chief William Harris has quoted us saying we found a revolver in the glove compartment of her
00:36:29
car and she made certain admissions okay so she put the she threw it in the glove compartment yeah okay in
00:36:37
her frenzy of going to get some help again that doesn't make sense to me yeah uh he stopped short obviously of
00:36:43
providing any details as to what jean had admitted to later that day she was booked on a charge of second deegree
00:36:49
murder a charge which her lawyer strongly objected to the lawyer Joel AR now told reporters nothing I've heard
00:36:56
would would apply to intent homicide okay which it's gray yeah I don't know yeah the story of High's
00:37:05
murder though obviously was one of the most scandalous things to hit the front page in a long time he was one of the
00:37:10
most well-known and well-respected doctors in the country at the time and it seemed like he'd been killed by a
00:37:16
jealous lover who also came from high society now like I said earlier Jean stuck to her story and she sort of she
00:37:25
stuck to her story in the way that she maintained that it was an accident but the other aspects of the story didn't
00:37:31
make sense like you and I have kind of touched on according to Jean she did shoot high in the hand and one time in
00:37:37
the stomach thinking that she was shooting herself but when Dr uh I think it's Lewis row performed the autopsy the
00:37:45
next day he noted that Dr tarau had been struck by four bullets yeah four yeah one in the upper AR uh interior chest
00:37:53
wall one in the hand one in the right arm and one in the shoulder yeah so that doesn't even really make
00:38:00
sense for if he's on top of her and she feels the gun poking her stomach that was my M shot in the stomach if they if
00:38:10
they're belly to belly like you would imagine they would be yep or even really like they could have been groined to
00:38:15
belly if he's a bit taller than her yeah you know like but for his chest to be at
00:38:19
her stomach that doesn't make a lot of sense that doesn't make any sense if he has climbed on top of her like she said
00:38:25
yeah no none of that makes sense and the amount of bullets that were shot yeah I
00:38:31
don't I I don't believe her story I don't I don't either yeah so it it was the bullet that entered near his
00:38:37
shoulder that likely killed him according to the autopsy the bullet had entered the right chest cavity
00:38:42
fracturing three ribs the fractures had caused the laceration of the plural lining the bullet had traveled in a
00:38:49
downward trajectory on the surface of the lung causing a great deal of hemorrhaging in lung tissue it continued
00:38:55
downward Perforating the diaphragm and the front part of the right kidney where it was recovered damn so he it really
00:39:03
banged around in there yeah the autopsy directly contradicted Jean story like yeah to me it's I mean it's black
00:39:13
and white there it is not only had ha been shot two more times than she had even told police but he'd also been shot
00:39:19
in multiple locations including one wound that indicated the shooter had actually been standing over him downward
00:39:26
trajectory exactly Dr row concluded Dr tarnower's wounds are not consistent with a struggle over
00:39:32
a gun between a left-handed woman and a right-handed man ah yeah I mean I believe that forensic pathologist mhm
00:39:41
when Jean finally went to trial in late November of 1980 the prosecution and the
00:39:45
defense immediately ran into problem selecting a jury not only had a lot of people heard about the scandal in the
00:39:50
paper or on the news they were also familiar with the Scarsdale diet and many prospective jurors had even tried
00:39:56
it oh man so that really puts a rch things at all then there were the details of the case itself in 1980 a
00:40:04
love triangle between three Society people wasn't really something a lot of Americans understood or condoned for
00:40:10
that matter and just as important was the fact that Dr tarau was Jewish and Jean was not as her lawyer put it this
00:40:19
relationship crossed religious lines and there was a good chance that some jurors
00:40:23
might seek to punish Jean for that wow which it's like even know why that would come to play I didn't even think of that
00:40:31
as a possibility I was more like oh it was in the papers and then people have tried the diet that's all I thought is
00:40:36
like he's a really popular doctor a lot of people know him the diet high society
00:40:41
but the fact that he's Jewish and she's not plays a role in this is like get a grip we got to do better fck G touch
00:40:49
some grass everybody I'm like how about she's a person and he is two and one of them got murdered yeah how about like we
00:40:56
look at the facts here so when the trial began in Earnest a few weeks later the prosecutor George uh
00:41:02
George Bolan presented the case to the jury as one of simple jealousy and rage and you know I kind of agree with this
00:41:09
case unfortunately he theorized that quote Mrs Harris desperately unhappy over the loss of Dr tarnower's
00:41:14
affections and resentful of his relationship with a younger woman entered his home unannounced and
00:41:19
unexpected and intentionally shot him causing his death I mean that's pretty much what
00:41:26
happened yeah support of that theory one witness after another was called to testify as to Jean's psychological state
00:41:32
in the days leading up to the shooting tar hour's housekeeper Suzanne vanderen which that's a really fun vanderen
00:41:39
vanderen that's a great last name she kept meticulous Diaries documenting all the drama that went on in the house we
00:41:47
love a girly who keeps a diary for us that's a receipts Queen yeah to me that screams Gemini I love that that does
00:41:56
feel like a Gemini move we love a goddamn drama and we love a godamn receipt we love it she told the jury she
00:42:03
quote maintained the Diaries to keep track of what she served at the doctor's dinner parties but they also contained
00:42:08
information about who was staying at the house on particular evenings because it
00:42:12
was her job to keep track of that what she had to know when to switch things over I love that and I think she just
00:42:18
liked the tea I think she just liked the tea yeah but the defense argued the opposite telling the jury that Jean
00:42:24
shooting of Dr tarau was accidental I don't know how you accidentally shoot somebody four different times at least
00:42:32
one of them being in a downward trajectory I yeah you're going to have I don't think I can be convinced that you
00:42:39
can accidentally shoot someone four times and to lie about the amount of times yeah that's shady it's
00:42:46
Shady so they argued though that she had gone to his house to say goodbye and had
00:42:51
fully intended to take her own life after that but the situation escalated and the two ended up in a physical
00:42:57
struggle the Press hung on absolutely every word of every witness but none were more captivating than Jean herself
00:43:05
oh boy yeah she proved to be a crucial if somewhat problematic witness for the defense on one hand she was able to
00:43:11
adequately explain the stress that she had been under the multiple stresses at the time and her state of mind leading
00:43:17
up to the shooting and when she managed to get her version of events out in a way that supported everything she'd
00:43:23
claimed and which I I you do have to take into account that there there's clearly some psychological break yeah
00:43:30
chemical imbalance happening here which obviously does not make it okay but it does need to be taken into consideration
00:43:37
with like what her State of Mind was here I I don't know necessarily think she had a fully laid out plan for
00:43:44
anything that was going to happen that night I think she probably thought that she would take her life at some point
00:43:50
because she wrote her resignation letter to work and finalized her will yeah that
00:43:56
that's telling to me but then on the flip side of that she came with a loaded gun and extra bullets you only
00:44:03
presumably need one bullet if you're going to kill yourself I wonder if this was um always going to be a murder
00:44:10
suicide yeah and then she just didn't get to the other part yeah I think that's highly possible either backed out
00:44:16
of it or didn't have the time to do it yeah because the whole jealousy angle of like if I can't have you nobody will and
00:44:23
I can't live without you to me this looks like a pretty C suicide that was watched yeah yeah I
00:44:30
think I think you're very much onto something there but on the other hand many observers found Jean to be quote
00:44:36
sad humorous and cutting she had spent so many years yeah humorous is an interesting adjective there I'm like sad
00:44:43
and cutting totally yeah but humorous okay that's interesting but she had spent a lot of years among the
00:44:50
wealthiest of society and had adopted a lot of their behavior she was very cold very distant on the stand and her
00:44:57
Behavior as she described it was often difficult for many people to empathize with equally challenging was the
00:45:04
so-called Scarsdale letter which Jean had written to high before driving to New York among other things the letter
00:45:10
made jean look pretty uh Petty and vindictive yeah which ultimately then supported the prosecutions theory that
00:45:17
she killed out of jealousy unfortunately yeah it does it very much does cuz remember I read an excerpt of that that
00:45:23
was pages and pages long yeah so when the case finally came to an end in mid-February of 1981 the jury was
00:45:31
instructed that they were to decide whether Jean was guilty or innocent and if they decide the former they could
00:45:37
choose between a charge of manslaughter or second deegree murder according to one of the jurors Marie Jackson she said
00:45:44
we never considered the Lesser charges we stuck on the murder charge and that's all we talked about whoa which you can
00:45:50
kind of understand yeah I mean it does seem like she came there with a gun that's the thing a loaded gun at that
00:45:55
yeah the defense had BAS their argument largely on the fact that Jee was suffering from mental illness at the
00:46:00
time but the jury actually found that difficult to believe and remember this wasn't a time where they would have been
00:46:05
like oh my God she's on meth they would have been like oh she's on a prescription that you know like we don't
00:46:11
know a lot about you know Jackson told a reporter we thought some people might have thought that she was crazy when she
00:46:17
did it but there was no psychiatric testimony about that so we couldn't do it yeah they should have brought
00:46:22
something in I know I don't know why they wouldn't yeah in the end though it was a reenactment of the shoot that
00:46:27
ultimately brought the jury to a unanimous decision after 48 Hours of deliberation the jury emerged and found
00:46:34
Jee Harris guilty of second degree murder ultimately it was her own testimony and of course like I just said
00:46:40
the Reconstruction of those events that night that swayed them juror Mary and Steven said if her intent was suicide
00:46:47
the actions that took place that night should have worked out yeah which I agree with it doesn't make sense to the
00:46:52
jury exactly it didn't make any sense that Jean would have had multiple opport unities to end her own life but somehow
00:46:59
ended up killing Dr turn tarau four after shooting him four times exactly that's the thing it doesn't add up
00:47:06
another juror said if she never would have got on the stand I guess I would have had to reconstruct in my mind what
00:47:11
happened but here I had Jee Harris telling me what did happen oop so it's like she kind of sealed her own fath
00:47:17
there yeah on March 19th she appeared in court for sentencing where she was given
00:47:21
15 years to life for the murder of Dr Herman tarau and when asked if she had anything to say on her own behalf she
00:47:28
told the judge I did not murder Dr tarau I loved him very much no one in this world feels his loss more than I do I am
00:47:35
not guilty you and Mr Bolan the prosecutor have arranged my life in such a way that I'll be in a cage for the
00:47:41
rest of it and with irons on my hands every time I get out that's not Justice it's a travesty of Justice whoa I that's
00:47:49
a pretty heavy statement like if you kill someone you should go to jail for it yeah made for a little while big old
00:47:55
mistake girl uh despite the anger and bitterness that she felt around her sentencing she did
00:48:01
ultimately she was said to have made the most of her time at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility uh she was there
00:48:07
for 12 years she worked in the Parenting Center while she was incarcerated uh teaching parenting class classes to the
00:48:14
inmate mothers and helping them build skills that they would need to get their kids back after they were done with
00:48:19
their sentences W and she also worked in and started programs that would help uh
00:48:24
other inmates learn skills to help them find work when they were released including getting a high school diploma
00:48:29
or college degree damn and in the meantime she appealed her sentence and applied for clemency until she was
00:48:35
eventually paroled in 1993 waa she died of natural causes on December 23rd 2012 at the age of 89 damn and that is the
00:48:46
story of the murder of Dr Herman tarau and Jean Harris who said murder what a twisty
00:48:55
turny damn It's just sad it's just really really sad it's really sad because I think I think she snapped a little bit
00:49:05
but actually I didn't even think about I don't know why that didn't occur to me that it was probably a murder suicide I
00:49:10
that that I completely agree like that's what it reads to me when I first went through this I I was like I think she
00:49:17
snapped when she got into the bathroom and Lynn's clothes were there yeah and that's when she killed him mhm but I
00:49:23
think you're right she that could have been her plan all along that's why she had all those bullets yeah cuz she was
00:49:29
like who knows how long how many bullets it's going to take to kill him yeah and
00:49:34
then I need one left over yeah so it just makes sense you're not going there to take your own life with a purse full
00:49:42
of bullets no I I just don't and a loaded gun yeah yeah I think that makes a lot of sense I think I think you're
00:49:49
pretty right there yeah it's just really sad it's really sad case and it's like none of this really ever had to happen
00:49:57
you just moved on from him yeah you know like it was just and he was I think he was somewhat of a womanizer but I don't
00:50:06
think he deserved that ending no I don't think he deserved to die I think it's like he he was doing what he had always
00:50:13
done and that's people had let him do it for a long time so she let him and then
00:50:19
she kind of let him do it as well until she didn't yeah and yeah it's really it's sad none of that had happened no
00:50:27
liter none of it at all and it started like so sounded like such a like a great meat
00:50:34
a beautiful love affair at first I was like wow I'm rooting for you two kids yeah but then it pops off really quick
00:50:40
yeah crazy so that's the story we got some more stuff coming your way some very exciting stuff especially this girl
00:50:49
over here her eyes just lit the [ __ ] up hell yeah I think it's already happened
00:50:53
but you know we told you about it in the beginning yeah but will record right after so you can get the full feeling
00:51:00
yeah and with all of that being said you guys we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird
00:51:09
that any of this takes place no you just got to you got to get out when it's time
00:51:13
to go babe yeah get out of there yeah hit the road girl hit the road Jean that's right don't you come back no
00:51:21
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