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Murder at Morse's pond
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The arrest of Doctor Dirk Greineder for the brutal killing of his wife sent shock waves through the town of Wellsely.
Tom Farmer, Boston Herald reporter: I don’t think there’s been a bigger story there in the last 40 or 50 years.
Friends of the couple rallied around the doctor. His neighbors even offered to put up a hundred thousand dollars if the judge decided to grant the world-traveling doctor bail.
And his children launched a full-throttled campaign to support their father -- appearing in People Magazine and on local Boston television.
Greineder hired one of Boston’s top attorneys, and prepared to tell the world that police had gotten it all wrong.
Farmer: I’ll never forget when Dirk made his first appearance. He came confidently striding into the room, took his seat at the defense table, you could see that he was energized. That, you know, this is my chance now, I’m gonna tell the story. I’m going to beat this.
And the state’s case against Dirk Greineder wasn’t a sure thing. With no eye-witnesses, no confession to the crime, the prosecutor was going to have to rely on circumstantial evidence to convince a jury of 12 that a well-respected Harvard doctor, the adored father of three, brutally killed his wife of 31 years during a morning walk through a public park. The prosecutor was going to have build his case piece by piece.
As in all murder cases, Prosecutor Rick Grundy didn’t have to give the jury a motive for WHY he believed Dirk Greineder murdered his wife, but it was a question that demanded an answer.
Rick Grundy, prosecutor: What society and those in the community who knew him best knew about this individual was vastly incomplete.
Grundy would begin to chip away at the facade of the high-achieving family living in a tidy house on Cleveland Road.
Grundy: Dirk Greineder was one of the most controlling individuals I ever prosecuted. Everything was gonna be set up in his way.
Murphy: The children were involved in the swimming for Dirk?
Grundy: Dirk was a collegiate swimmer. And that became the paramount sport for all three children.
Murphy: So, his scientific discipline became theirs?
Grundy: Two doctors out of three kids.
Murphy: His alma mater became theirs?
Grundy: Correct.
Grundy would tell the jury that there were clues that Dirk Greineder might be losing this tight grip on the family— signs that his marriage was crumbling.
May’s niece testified that her aunt seemed adrift in the marriage.
Belinda, May's neice (in court): I personally observed that she was somewhat lonely and I think they were spending more time away from each other.
May had recently also gone on a self-improvement tear.
Belinda: She started dressing nicer, coordinating her clothing and she lost some weight. She was exercising.
And when May wanted help she went to her sister, Ilse Stark, not her husband.
Ilse Stark, May's sister: And oddly enough she asked me she wanted money to have a facelift.
In recounting her last conversation with May, just two days before the murder, Ilse sensed something was troubling her sister.
Grundy: What did you note with respect to her affect as she spoke with you?
Stark: Very stressed.
Stress—but why now?
After more than 30 years together, with the children doing well, with their bills paid, what could be pushing this marriage to the brink?
The prosecutor would tell the jury that Doctor Greineder had developed an all-consuming obsession— a secret life that amounted to nothing less than an unquenachable thirst for sex.
Bondage, threesomes, swinger couples, prostitutes, Internet porn: the doctor was into it all.
Farmer: This case was sensational enough as it was, just on the merits of, you know, this all-American family. Now you throw that into there it was like a nuclear explosion.
The judge limited the prosecutor to discussing the doctor’s sex life for a period of just seven days before the murder. But what a week it was, Grundy would tell the jury.
An examination of the doctor’s computer found that he joined two new Web Sites that week alone. One lets viewers watch live video of naked women.
The owner of the Fort Lauderdale business explained how it works ...
Gifford: We have a room that’s in Amsterdam that has female models in these rooms. Each room has a camera on the model and the model has a computer and a keyboard there where the viewer can come in and see her, ask her to do poses or whatnot or just chat with her.
And the doctor was trolling for sex day and night.
Grundy: He’s sending out e-mails at a ferocious rate starting at 4 o’clock in the morning, getting on at times 11 o’clock at night until 2 o’clock in the morning. And these are all very pointed, very directed as to meeting, getting together, different things that he’s interested in.
Murphy: Accelerating obsession?
Grundy: Absolutley accelerating. Absolutley accelerating.
A look at the doctor’s calendar showed that the Saturday before the weekend his wife was murdered, the doctor attended an out-of-town medical conference at this hotel in suburban New Jersey.
The prosecutor introduced phone logs that showed Greineder calling a New York escort service at 2:46am in the morning. He wanted a woman sent to his room. The price: $400.
Hotel records show he ordered a porn film, and then went to the lobby where he made four separate cash withdrawls for $100 each.
The dispatcher for Marilyn’s Escorts told the court she sent a girl from their Brooklyn office.
Grundy: Was in fact an escort dispatched to the Sheraton Mahwah?
Perri: Yes.
Grundy: Now this is an individual who, again, in a highly professional field is at a seminar where he’s a lecturer and he’s on the Internet until 3 am. He’s at the ATM in the lobby taking money out at like 4 am. And he’s with a hooker from 4 am to 6 am. And he’s lecturing at 10 am. You know, when is this individual sleeping?
And that wasn’t all.
Six days before the murder, the doctor made contact with a Massachusetts couple into swinging. He met them through the computer dating service he joined the week of May’s murder.
His cyber-handle: “casualguy2000.” He even e-mailed a nude photo he’d taken of himself.
Grundy: This person who probably his most prized possession is his professional reputation is now e-mailing to complete strangers naked photographs of himself.
Harry Page, the swinging husband of the couple told the jury about their encounter with “casualguy” who was looking for a “threesome”.
Grundy: Could you read that message that was received from casualguy 2000?
Harry Page: “I am white married but she does not play so I’m looking for a very discreet couple with whom to play. I also am very oral both give and receive and would love to exchange emails to see if we can fit. I am a few pounds overweight, really only a few. Love group activities. I am basically straight but can be flexible in group situations...”
And there was more. The same night he contacted the Paiges, the swinging couple, Greineder traded e-mails with another new woman who went by the name “backalley cat.”
Grundy: Could you recall what that communication was as you are here today?
Irwin: Something along the lines that he was interested in what I was offering.
The next day, five days before the murder, the doctor e-mailed "Daisymay828" who told the court the doctor was also looking to meet her.
On October 30th, the day before the murder, the doctor did some other things the prosecutor found odd.
Greineder—who was always concerned with keeping in shape—suspended his Boston Sports Club membership for the next three months.
Suspicious timing, thought the prosecutor...
Grundy: So that would reflect to you a freeze request for November first 1999 to the first of February 2000?
Williams: Yes sir.
That same day—less then 24 hours before his wife would be murdered. he contacted Deborah Doolio—a woman who ran an escort service called ‘Casual Elegance.’
The doctor had paid her for sex on one occasion 5 months earlier, and he had been trying to meet her again in early September.
But sensing something “off” about the doctor, Doolio suggested he think hard about what he was doing before they schedule another tryst.
Deborah Doolio, escort: He was indecisive and I felt confused. And I told him maybe that seeing an escort wasn’t the best thing to do for him until he found some peace within himself.
And prosecutor Grundy implied that the doctor just might have found that “peace” the day before May’s murder when he finally made the decision to kill his wife and get her out of the way.
That Saturday, he placed a call to Doolio. He left her a message. It was the day before his wife’s murder.
Grundy: He had this plot ready to hatch. It was gonna happen. And I think maybe some last minute jitters caused him to reach out for her.
He calls her a second time on November 1st, the day after the murder.
To Grundy, that was hardly the sign of a grieving husband.
And when the doctor couldn’t pay for sex with cash, he went to great lengths to cover his tracks.
Greineder set up a phony medical company with a corporate credit card in the name of his long-ago roommate from Yale.
Thomas Young testified that he was stunned when Detective Foley told him to check out newspaper stories that detailed how the doctor had been using his name as an alias.
Young: Mr. Foley suggested that I look at the two Boston newspapers articles on it and that’s how I came to most of my information.
And when detectives searched the Greineder house almost two weeks after the murder, they found a box hidden in the garage.
Det. Foley: The first being a prescription for Viagra and the second being a 12 pack of Trojan condoms.
Prosecutor Grundy told the jury May might have started getting wind of her husband’s secret sex life. Grundy called to the stand a repairman who had been working at the Greineder home two days before she was murdered.
He overheard Dirk confronting May about whether she’d been on his computer. Had May found out about the porn sites? The e-mails in search of sex?
Grundy: Do you recall whether or not at that time there was any conversation that you overheard from the defendant to May Greineder?
Rosado, repairman: Yes he came up and asked her if she had used his computer and she replied, ‘no’.
But the prosecutor didn’t buy it. He suspected May had used the doctor’s computer that day and was angry.
Murphy: Is this the trigger? Has the repairman heard the moment?
Grundy: Could be. And again I can’t complete that circle. As far as did may discover this? Was May going to use this in an attempt to get a divorce? Besmirch his reputation either with his children or with his professional associates? But certainly at this point in time we know that it’s less than an idyllic marriage and it’s clear that those activities are activities that May Greineder doesn’t fit into.
Greineder’s defense lawyer Martin Murphy was eager to refute the prosecution’s secret sex life theory of the crime.
Martin Murphy, defense attorney: This was an unfortunate use of his time. But it was not an obsession and it was not a motive for murder.
But, he’d have to wait for his moment because the prosecutor was still laying out his case. If Grundy had a hope of winning he was going to have to take the jury— step-by-gruesome-step—on that fatal walk through Morse’s Pond that ended in a savage murder.
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