An interview with Michelle Theer: 'A deadly mix'
Q. You met John Diamond through the Internet?
A. I know that I chatted with him online. I do remember. . . him coming across as very funny, very amusing. . . he would send me these little funny messages, and they made me laugh. I finally agreed to meet him in person. And that was main thing about him that attracted me to him.
Q. In all candor, you had done this before, and you maybe weren't as nervous in meeting someone you were meeting online?
A. I wasn't concerned about going to a public place and meeting someone, no. . . when I met him. . . we clicked. He was very interesting, very funny, very charming.
Q. Handsome?
A. Uh-huh. But there's a lot of good-looking guys out there.
Q. But you liked his personality.
A. Yeah. . . He made me laugh. And to me, personally, that's the most important quality.
Q. Marty wasn't making you laugh. You were in a place you didn't want to be–Fayetteville–Marty was gone all the time. Is there a sense of desperation here on your part?
A. I don't know. . . Believe me, there are times when I am still trying to understand myself. . . people have asked me, and I have wondered myself, was I trying to get caught [in affairs]? And I do think–I honestly do believe–that I wanted to get caught, that I wanted Marty to catch me. And there are times when I think that Marty did know what was going on, and he purposely turned a blind eye.
Q. You mean about Diamond?
A. Yeah. Because I don't know how he could have not known. . . . There were things I did that were very blatant, very obvious, very right out there.
Q. Having Diamond over when he was gone?
A. Yeah. . .
Q. You were living together as man and wife, but the reality was, you were doing your own thing?
A. Well, I think we were. I think we got used to living our own lives when we lived apart. You know, Marty was putting pressure on me about having a family. . . I really felt like he was doing that because he wanted–he felt like that would be a ball and chain that would keep me.
Q. You think he loved you more than you loved him.
A. Yeah.
Q. Were you in love with Diamond–ever?
A. I guess I was, yeah.
Q. Were you trying to break it off with Diamond?
A. I did try. . . I was very conflicted. . . I knew that Marty and I were going to have some problems to work through when I first came to North Carolina. . . . I didn't realize how big the problems were going to be. I didn't realize that Marty was going to be leaving Fayetteville in January [2000] to go to a school for five months. That made the problems even worse. . . He went to Little Rock, Ark.. . . aircraft commanders' school. I was really upset about that because he volunteered to go to that. Here we were, just getting back to living together again, after all this time apart. . . and then he goes and volunteers to go there, and leave me stuck in Fayetteville alone. And, then I got involved with Diamond, and that made things worse.
Q. So, you tried to break it off with Diamond?
A. Yeah, it was back in August [2000], it was when I found out that he was married. . . at the trial, they portrayed this as if I knew that he was married and had a kid, and I was trying to break up his marriage. I was so shocked when I found out he was married [she says she knew about Diamond's first marriage, not the second]. . . I was married, and I didn't try to hide it. . . .
Q. You tried to break up with Diamond in August 2000?
A. Yeah, that was when Marty and I had separated. . . . That was when I decided I wanted to work things out with Marty. . . . John was very charming and interesting and fun to be around. But even at the time, there were things that made me feel like I couldn't trust him. . . he would say he loved me or whatever, I kind of felt like he was conning me sometimes. . . . Even now I wonder if he was just using me. But, anyway, I really did want to make things work out with Marty. . . . I told John I didn't want to see him anymore, that I wanted to make my marriage work. . . he got really angry. . . Then he kind of turned to the pleading–well, can't we at least be friends, we had all these good times, and stupid me, I was, like, OK, I guess we can be friends and get together and have coffee now and then. And I thought that I could handle that. I thought that would be OK. Of course, it didn't work out like that.
Q. Was there a second time you tried to break up with Diamond?
A. Yes. The second time. . . was right before Thanksgiving [2000]. This time, he got very angry, and there was a lot of phone calls. . . him repeatedly calling me. . . He did that on occasion–he did threaten suicide on the phone. . . .
Q. Was there a third time when you tried to break up?
A. Yeah. . . right before Thanksgiving.
Q. Why do you think he borrowed the gun at that time? Did he tell you he borrowed the gun?
A. No, as a matter of fact, I did not know that he had borrowed the gun, and I did not make the connection until, actually, when we were–it was actually when I was doing an interview. This was when I was in jail, and I was doing an interview. . . with my lawyer. And he had a typed-out timeline, and it. . . had their note of the first time that he borrowed the gun. That was the first time.
Q. And the third time you tried to break up would have been?
A. That was the Sunday after my birthday. . . December 10.
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