An interview with Michelle Theer: 'Marty was really a nice guy'
Q. Where did you meet Marty?
A. I met Marty on New Year's Day, Jan. 1, 1987. . . . I had just turned 16. . . and this friend of mine that I went to school with my freshman year. . . was for whatever reason out driving around with a couple of his friends, and they were over on our side of town, and he used to always just pop in to my house. . . [and] hang out for a little while and visit. So, I guess he had said to the guys, [and] Marty was one of them, there is this really cool girl I know, let's stop in at her house, she is really nice. . . I look a mess, I have no makeup on, my hair's not fixed, I am wearing raggy old sweat pants. And I am laying on the couch watching TV in the family room. . . my mom says, "Michelle, Bob's here, and he has a bunch of guys with him. . . " So I go out into the front room, the family room, and sure enough there's Bob, and he's got, like, two or three guys with him, and I can't see any of them because I have really bad eyesight–my vision is like 25/100. . . And about two weeks later, Bob's telling me, "Yeah, this one guy, Marty, he wants your phone number, he wants to call you. . . " I said, "Well, what does he look like?" and Bob's like, "Well, he was there on New Year's Eve," and I was, like, "Yeah, but I didn't get a good look at him." And, anyway, Bob gave him my phone number, and we ended up talking on the phone for a couple weeks, and then we finally went out.
Q. What attracted you to him?
A. Well, once I finally got a good look at him.
Q. A handsome boy?
A. Yeah, you know, he was really a nice guy. He wasn't a jerk. A lot of guys in high school are really jerks; they think they gotta be tough, macho guys. You know, he was just a genuinely nice guy. He didn't act like he had to be something special. . . . We just always had something to talk about.
Q.Did you click right away?
A. Yeah. . . .We did click right away, and I mean right away, I know that I wanted to see him again. . . . We dated that whole semester, and he graduated, and then he went to the Air Force Academy, so we started a long-distance relationship pretty quickly.
Q. He was in Colorado Springs?
A. Yeah.
Q. So, in your senior year, he is at the Air Force Academy?
A. Yeah.
Q. How do you get back together? Do you go down to Colorado Springs in your senior year sometimes?
A. Yeah . . . We wrote letters every day for the whole four years. . . there was only really a couple weekends that he was able to leave or that I got to really spend time with him. . . .
Q. I assume the fact that he went to the Air Force Academy influenced you to join the Air Force Reserves?
A. No. Actually, me joining the Air Force Reserves was really almost a whim. . . . I really didn't have any way to pay for college. You know, my parents really had never made enough money to have a college fund. You know, I didn't come from a family that had trust funds and college funds. . . there [was] no such thing as retirement funds, everything is–you make money and you pay your bills. . . .
Q. Did you go to college?
A. I ended up going to the University of Northern Colorado, which is in Greeley, Colo. I went there because I wanted to major in special education. . . I went there for two years, and then in January 1991, my Reserve unit was activated for Desert Storm, so I had to drop out. . . . We went down to [a]. . . base in Texas. . . . I actually worked in the command post. I was a command and control technician. . . .
Q. Did you go back to Greeley?
A. No, by then, Marty and I had gotten married. When Desert Storm ended, Marty and I got married, he graduated, and we moved to Enid, Okla., the armpit of Oklahoma. Of course, Oklahoma is sort of the armpit of the United States. We were in the armpit of the armpit. And we lived there for a year. I did the whole housewife thing, which, let me tell you, was very boring. . . . He was in flight school. . . . I didn't go to school that year. I was basically Mrs. Homemaker, at home making cakes.
Q. What was the date of your marriage?
A. June 1, 1991.
Q. Where were you married?
A. At the Air Force Academy chapel.
Q. Where did you go from Enid?
A. We went back to Denver, and Marty went to school there at Lowry Air Force Base to train for space operations. . . . He was training to be an orbital analyst. When he went back to flying, he left that job. . . .
Q. When you leave Denver, where do you go from there?
A. Colorado Springs. . . Falcon Air Force Station.
Q. Did you go back to school then?
A. That's when I went back to school. I went to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Q. You finish your degree there?
A. That is when I decided to change my major to psychology. . . . I graduated in December 1994. . . . We ended up leaving Colorado Springs in May 1995, and we spent the summer in Texas. Marty went through a refresher flight course, and then we moved to Florida, to Patrick Air Force Base, right next to Melbourne, Fla., just south of Cocoa Beach.
Q. How long were you down there?
A. Two years, and then they moved the unit that he was assigned to–Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, Valdosta.
Q. How long were you there?
A. Well, I wasn't. Actually, I never went there because I still had one more year of graduate school. So, I stayed in Florida [for] my third year of graduate school while Marty lived in Valdosta, and then I went and did my residency in Auburn, Ala., while Marty did his second year in Valdosta.
Q.You did the residency where?
A. Auburn, Ala., at the VA, the Tuskeegee VA.
Q. When did you get your master's?
A. . . . I want to say 1997, from Florida Tech.
Q. You got your doctorate at Florida Tech?
A. Yeah, in 1999.
Q. You never actually moved to Georgia?
A. No. . . He would have moved there [Valdosta] in 1997.
Q. So when do you end up together again?
A. In Fayetteville.
Q. For that two-year period, 1997, 1998, are you apart?
A. . . . He was in Kuwait a lot of that time. So, when he was in the country, we would spend weekends together. . . .
Q. So, 1999, in Fayetteville, what month did you move there?
A. He must have come here like in June, and I came at the end of August.
Q. Had you lined up your job with Tom Harbin, a psychologist in Fayetteville?
A. Yes.
Q. Was Fayetteville a tough experience for you?
A. Yes. . . working at the VA. . . before I even knew we were moving here, I had heard nightmare stories about this place from all the Vietnam vets who had been through here on their way to Vietnam. . . I heard about Fayette-Hell, Fayette-Nam, Fatal-Ville. . . .
Q. Did you have a specialty as a psychologist?
A. No, I don't think so. . . I was just still a generalist. I did a little of everything. . . . I think I was very good in relating to my clients. I think I was very good in building empathy with them, very good in connecting with them. A lot of people told me I was very good with adolescents. . . .
Part 3: A deadly mix