An interview with Michelle Theer: 'A deadly mix'
Q. Did you meet him somewhere and say you wanted to break up?
A. No, I told him, I told him on the drive back from Raleigh.
Q. This is when you went to Raleigh to celebrate your birthday?
A. Yeah.
Q. What did you tell him?
A. That I couldn't keep living like this. . . [that] if I was going to make my marriage work, I had to put 100 percent into it, that I couldn't lie, couldn't live a double life. That I just needed to not see him anymore. And he was very cocky about it. . . he acted like he didn't believe me, or like he would just be able to talk me into it again, or something, I don't know. And, later that night, I think he called me, and I told him again on the phone, don't call me anymore. . . And that is when he started calling–either that night or the next morning, I don't remember, he started calling me at, like, 3 o'clock in the morning, every 10 minutes, on the cellphone, and later started calling my home phone. . . I wasn't answering. . . I tried ignoring his phone calls for as long as I could. And then he started calling my office. . . when he couldn't get a hold of me, I think Tuesday afternoon [Dec. 12, 2000], he called Tom Harbin [her employer]. . . I remember Tom telling me that John called and left a message that he wanted to talk to him. . . I just couldn't take it anymore–he kept calling and kept calling and kept calling. . . I finally talked to him, I said, please stop calling. He was threatening me, I am going to call the APA [American Psychological Association], I'm going to call the state licensing board, and have you–I'm going to say I was a patient, you had sex with me, I am going to make you lose your license. . . He was saying that. . . I'm going to tell your husband and tell him we've been having an affair. . . he was just completely out of control. So, finally, I told him. . . I don't have any time to meet you until Thursday or Friday, whenever it was–I said, just give me until then, don't call, and then I will talk to you. And he said, OK, and he stopped calling.
Q. So, then you meet with him on Saturday at Zorba's restaurant?
A. It was Friday [December 15]. . . I just felt so trapped. . . I couldn't do anything to save myself. If I tried to break it off with him, he was gonna go crazy, he was gonna kill himself, he was gonna report everything to everybody. . . I didn't want to get back together with him, especially now I'm finding that the guy's crazy. But, you know, he gives me the whole spiel. . . if you don't want to be together, we can be friends, we can talk every now and then, so I said OK. You know, anything to appease the guy at this point. . . I just kept thinking to myself, this time, you know, obviously, I can't cut it off, I can't do cold turkey. What I am going to have to do is just–I am going to have to just slowly, slowly cut it off. . . .
Part 4: Night falls–and death beckons
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