Murder at Morse's pond

Now it was Dirk Greineder’s turn to tell the jury how much he loved May, his devoted wife of 31 years.

Dirk Greineder: She was the most incredible person I’ve ever met. I love her more than anything. I just can’t imagine living without her, to this day.

Mike Murphy, defense attorney: The state’s case makes no sense. He had no reason to want his wife dead. And there’s no evidence that anything happened in the time immediately preceeding the murder that would have caused him to want to kill his wife.

Just the opposite, the doctor told the jury.

Greineder said he and May were ecstatic over their older daughter’s recent engagement announcement.

They were planning her wedding.       

Mike Murphy, defense attorney: Did there come a time doctor when you learned that your oldest daughter Kirsten was getting engaged?

Dirk Greineder: Yes. That was two weeks before my wife’s death. I provided the looseleaf binder that she had almost filled in two weeks with materials to plan for our daughter’s wedding. 

And the doctor told the jury that the night before his wife was killed, they’d spent a quiet evening together working on a paper for a class May was taking.

Dirk Greineder: That evening we worked on May’s studies. I know I printed out her paper for her at one point so she could proofread it. And I know that I typed her bibliography.  

It was a typical of their devotion. They both did whatever they could to help the other, the doctor said.

And he told the court that he and his wife were still extremely close even though their sexual relationship ended five years earlier when May developed some health problems.

Dirk Greineder: Around that time she seemed to progressively lose interest in sex which led to our stopping having sexual relations.  

Greineder said his entry into the world of unconventional sex started after this—and only as a last resort.    

Dirk Greineder: I felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable about what I was doing.

The doctor sensed May was aware of his “other” life.

Dirk Greineder: She called me one day at work and said that she had accidentally opened my travel shaving kit and had found the bottle of Viagra in the kit and did I have an explanation. I couldn’t think of anything other to say then to tell her that I had bought them to experiment with.

Mike Murphy: What did your wife say in response?

Dirk Greineder: She didn’t say much more. She said, “Oh well I’m sorry that I was prying, I didn’t mean to. I opened it by accident.”

And while the doctor said his wife knew, and maybe even quietly accepted his philandering, he also testified that their marital bond was as strong and as unbreakable as ever.

In an odd way, the doctor seemed to indicate that his life of anonymous sex may have helped keep their relationship together— there were no demanding mistresses insisting he leave his wife.

It was a way to save his marriage, not to end it. 

Murphy: Did you consider asking your wife for a divorce?

Dirk Greineder: Never. I couldn’t imagine living without her. 

But in a moment of profound humiliation the Harvard doctor had to confess that his sordid, furtive sex life was all true  —the porn, the swingers, the prostitutes ...

Murphy: Is this something doctor you have difficulty talking about?

Dirk Greineder: Yes. I’m - it’s embarrassing... It’s embarrassing. It seems so silly... it was a side activity. I was, I guess, gratifying, a secondary need. And it obviously, I did it and I’m not proud of it.

The doctor had been unfaithful, yes, humiliated by the sex revelations, certainly, but the defense attorney argued that was no reason to kill his wife.

Mike Murphy: It’s a fact, a sad fact, but that many men in the United States that look to escort services for sexual gratification, look to the Internet for sexual gratification —that doesn’t make them murderers.

Dennis Murphy, Dateline: If some people see this as sordid base behavior you’re saying we give it to you. We’re guilty of that behavior?

Mike Murphy: That’s what we said. If he was charged with adultery he’d be guilty, but he wasn’t. He was charged with murder.

But what was the jury making of the doctor’s account of that final walk through Morse’s Pond.

May straining her back, saying “You go on with the dog, I’ll meet you later.”

Dirk Greineder: After a minute or two, she persuaded me.

Mike Murphy: What then did you do? I decided to go the way we usually did and moved ahead of her leaving her to walk slowly. I walked down the path out to the circle.

The doctor then told the court about how he was separated from his wife for only about 10 minutes before he came back and found her lying in the path.

Dirk Greineder: (crying) All I could think of at the time was scoop and run, scoop and run which is what we used to say in the emergency room. And I couldn’t scoop her out of there. So I said, okay I’m going to get some help.

And, finally, the doctor would tell the jury—in no uncertain terms—that the police had fingered the wrong man.

Murphy: How did you feel about your family, doctor, on October 31, 1999?

Dirk Greineder: It was the most important thing to me in my life. More than work. More than fame. More than money.

Murphy: Doctor, did you kill your wife?

Dirk Greineder:  I did not.

But the prosecutor had yet to cross-examine Dirk Greineder.

Would his story hold up? And the prosecutor had another surprise for the jury.

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