Sunday, October 25, 2009

Joe and Connie

Joe and Connie were law school classmates of my former brother-in-law’s in Houston. I remember first meeting them at one of my brother-in-law’s many parties back in the late ‘70s. Connie was like so many of my brother-in-law’s friends: loud, very talkative, and a little coarse for my taste. Joe, on the other hand, was small, pale, and very quiet and reserved. The two of them seemed to get on well together, though, and over the next few years I ran into them at several more parties and heard they’d gotten married.
My former brother-in-law celebrates his birthday every summer by hosting a big lake party at a house owned by his aunt and uncle on Lake Travis. I often wondered why my ex-husband and I were rarely invited to this [I now suspect my ex- did actually attend this each year without me and told me he was “working”], but one year we did actually go to it. Unfortunately, I had a great deal of statistical work I needed to get done for a big project that particular weekend, so I reluctantly packed up the necessary documents and charts and a calculator and took the work along. When everyone else went down to the boat for an after-lunch cruise and swim, I decided to stay behind and try to finish the work so I’d at least be able to enjoy the evening later, but I immediately began running into problems. Joe and Connie happened to be at the lake as well, and to my pleasant surprise, Joe expressed an interest in what I was trying to do. After I explained my project to him, he mentioned that he had a background in statistics, and he was able to show me where I’d gone wrong with some of my calculations. I was even more pleasantly surprised when he offered to stay behind and help me fix my mistakes so I could finish by dinnertime. I remember feeling very grateful to him, and I also remember suddenly realizing there was probably a lot more to him than I’d previously thought.
I never saw Joe again after that. Sometime after he and Connie finished law school, I heard they’d moved to Florida. Connie came back to Texas several times to visit my brother-in-law and his wife, but she always seemed to come alone. Several years passed, and I pretty much forgot about Connie and Joe.
One day out of the blue, however, my brother-in-law and his wife casually mentioned to me at a family gathering that Joe had died. I was shocked, and I asked them what had happened. They said Joe and Connie had been having marital problems and that Joe had killed himself with carbon monoxide while sitting in a car in his garage with the engine running. My brother-in-law also casually mentioned that Connie wanted to collect some life insurance money and move back to Texas but that the Florida police and the life insurance company were suspicious of her because Joe apparently had a large quantity of Benadryl (an antihistamine that can cause drowsiness) in his system, and they’d told Connie she couldn’t leave.
A couple of years later, I ran into Connie at my brother-in-law’s again. She said she’d finally moved back to Houston but that she often came up to Central Texas to visit. I later heard she was making regular trips up here, and I think I also remember hearing she’d remarried.
I think the last time I remember seeing Connie was a few months before my husband suddenly left me in 1999, but I can’t remember for sure. She had changed a lot, but I immediately recognized her voice. What I do remember for sure was that after my husband left and I was packing up his things to get them to him, I found large quantities of various drugs and syringes hidden in unusual places in his stuff. In the back of one cupboard in the dressing area of our bedroom, I found a number of small glass vials of Benadryl with rubber stoppers, and at least of couple of these appeared to have been used.
Years later, I had occasion to mention all this to an official with Florida state law enforcement whom I was dealing with in regard to Diop Kamau; the official said he’d check into it. A few days after this conversation, I received a letter in the mail from the official saying he’d opened an investigation into Kamau. The very next day, I received a second letter from this same official saying someone high up had cancelled the investigation completely, despite the fact that Kamau had used an investigative company in Florida that wasn’t licensed there (Police Complaint Center) and an operative with this company (Greg Slate) who wasn’t a licensed p.i.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

mo=marina oswald ????????how come mary lou has COMPLETELY ignored this?????????

Anonymous said...

on a more serious note, this story illustrated ml's thinking very well indeed, the story is based on some actual events but is untrue in every major detail
joe was not ever married to connie, neither he nor his wife nor connie attended law school, most importantly none of the three ever lived in florida, joe had no life insurance at all and
the reference to benedryl and joe is completely made up, mary lou took benedryl out of a first aid kit (she actually violated a court order to return personal items and now admits it)
the facts are easy to verify but the story is meaningless without her embellishments

ML said...

Because of statements made by my ex-husband in the comment posted above, I need to set the record straight.
All of my statements regarding Joe and Connie are based on things I was told by my ex-husband and/or members of his immediate family at the time the events I discussed took place. If any of the information is not correct, it is only because I was told things that were not correct. In any case, it should be relatively easy for someone to verify or refute; I would be happy to provide additional details about what I was told to anyone who is interested in doing this. Certainly I would be extremely interested in knowing if I was told things that weren't true, and I'd be very grateful to anyone who could find out for sure so I could clarify the matter further. It is always my intention to keep the information in this blog as accurate as possible, and I have no problem with updating postings when additional information becomes available.
Regarding my ex-'s statement that I violated a court order, this is simply not true; I never saw such an order and certainly never would have violated it. Indeed, such an order would never even have been necessary, since, although I was in considerable shock when my husband suddenly left and moved in with a co-worker I hadn't known he was having an affair with, I went to considerable lengths to pack up all his things and get them to him as quickly as possible when it became apparent that he wasn't coming back. In fact, I have correspondence from him I can post if necessary that specifically mentions his appreciation for the way I got all of his things to him so quickly.
Regarding the Benadryl, the bottles I found were loose, NOT in a first aid kit. They looked to me like bottles that had come from a hospital (i.e., there were no Rx labels or names on them, only the identifying drug labels) and probably shouldn't have left it, although admittedly I'm not a medical person and can only describe what I saw. With regard to the disposal of these bottles and the other large amounts of medical-related items I found hidden in unusual places in my ex-'s things, I contacted various experts in both the medical field and law enforcement about what I should do with them but was not given any instructions with regard to them until I was specifically told by p.i. Ed Hodges to turn them over to a man he said worked for him as an investigator and private security guard who would treat them as evidence and see that they were properly turned in to law enforcement. This incident is described in detail in one of my earlier posts, and the vials of Benadryl were among the items listed on the signed evidence receipt that is posted there.

Anonymous said...

what you did is make up for your mis-remembered events by inserting your typical "my ex husband is responsible for everthing wrong" scenario or did you get misled even about the names of the people you wrote about and knew personally

i bet you're pretty embarrassed about calling joe's wife 'connie'to her face for years

i'll tell you what really happened about this and anything else but you gotta ask nice

Anonymous said...

poor mary lou

she knew these folks for ten years, personally, but forgot what happened so she makes up what she forgot and blames her ex for

not remembering their names


this is actually a great example of paranoid ideation...relating events to her eg thru the benadryl, that are completely un related


BENEDRYL ALERT

mary lou had sig. psychological problems early on in her relationship....not near as crippling as now but signifigant neverthe less

ml had dystonic reaction to a nausea pill which required reversing with iv benedryl

she always had benedryk available thereafter (and reasonably so)

she must have forgot!

ML said...

I have never had psychological problems.

Regarding the incident mentioned in the comment above, it did happen and I wound up in the ER for treatment for a few hours. Afterward, I was discharged with a small hospital prescription bottle properly labeled with my name that contained a few small capsules of Benadryl and instructions to take them at regular intervals over the next day or so until they were gone, which I did. I have never been prescribed intravenous Benadryl outside of a hospital setting (and then, only this once).

Anonymous said...

nope you severly impaired and very scared of recurrence, the benedryl was for your benefit....you dont mention the fake sprue you thought you had .....mary lou had non tropical sprue at her convenience. whe could drink beer when she wanted and "get sprue" when her agoraphobia got so severe that she couldnt leave the house



she wpuld have ki===d your ass to have benedryl available for the next 10 years

Anonymous said...

STUPID MARY LOU TRICK;

make up a story eg connie, joe and benedryl and connect it to a real event (benedryl in the house)

comes across as pretty stupid and very non-beliveable