Desperate Housewife
A lonely woman looking for love, a handsome Army sniper, and a husband murdered in cold blood
In August 2001, an Army court-martial convicted Diamond of killing Marty. Michelle had not yet been charged. But the following May, a civilian grand jury in Fayetteville accused her of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. By then Michelle had beat it out of Fayetteville, changed her appearance, and was hiding in Florida under assumed names. She was captured in August 2002 and convicted last December. In her three-month trial, she emerged as a complex and cunning woman who used sex, played mind games, and even dabbled in witchcraft to get what she wanted.
Violent death leaves terrible scars on the psyches of those left behind. How does a parent handle the maddening death of a child? How does a parent handle the likelihood that a son or a daughter has no soul and can kill without remorse?
Linda Gettler, who is Marty's mother, is left with only her scrapbooks and memories. She shed her tears years ago and knows they won't bring her son back. She has accepted that her only son, the love of her life, the child she reared alone and who did his best to please her, is gone. She is, amazingly, not bitter. She is convinced that the authorities nailed the right people.
On the other hand, Ann Hoefler, the mother of Michelle Theer, says her daughter would never be involved in a violent crime. She was a caring child, she says, the most affectionate of her three children. "There were," she says, "no signs of violence." John Diamond's parents, Bobby and Christen Diamond, are equally certain he didn't kill Marty Theer. "If I thought he was guilty," says Bobby Diamond, "he would still be my son, but he could rot."
As for Diamond and Michelle, the two former lovers deny having had anything to do with the killing; they point the finger at each other. "I loved Marty," Michelle said this past July during an interview at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh. ". . . Even the times when we were having problems, there was never hatred there." She is appealing her conviction. In a statement issued through his lawyer, Diamond, incarcerated in the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks in Kansas, said: "I did not kill Captain Theer, nor did I conspire with anyone to seek his death." He has filed an appeal with the Army's appellate court.
Marty Theer was buried nearly five years ago, with full military honors, at the Air Force Academy Cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colo. How he got there, the insanity of it all, is laid out in thousands of pages of court records in Fayetteville, and in Army court-martial records: The State of North Carolina v. Michelle Catherine Theer, and The United States of America v. Staff Sergeant John M. Diamond, United States Army. Marty Theer, the records show, was a man of much promise.
FALLING IN AND OUT OF LOVE
Theer was the quintessential all-American boy. He was born in Wurzberg, Germany, on Feb. 26, 1969, where his father was stationed in the Army. The family soon moved to Richland, Wash., but his parents were divorced just after Marty reached the age of 1. Linda Gettler tried marriage a second time, but that failed, too.
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