Well I haven't seen anything posted in here on the recent Cornwell scandal
so I thought we should get some discussion going. After all, when you read
the article below you will see it has had an affect on her writing. There
was a little disussion on DorothyL but it has been very polite. Probably
because the authors on the lists are thinking "gee I wouldn't want my
private life splashed all over the Washington Post and People magazine.
From the online edition of People (see the newstand issue for photos this
week):
An ex-FBI agent dons a ski mask and pulls
a gun on the minister of a Virginia
church. He shackles the man and lures his
own, estranged, wife to the church. She
arrives, armed, and takes a shot at him,
but he escapes unharmed. He is later
charged with crimes that could land him in
jail for life.
A hostage, betrayal, gunfire in a house of
God--all the elements of a scene from one
of Patricia Cornwell's gritty, grisly crime
novels. Except that this scene really
happened, and what happened next makes it
unlikely fodder for any future Cornwell
thrillers. After the ex-FBI agent,
41-year-old Eugene Bennett, was charged by
Virginia police with five felonies, a local
newspaper, The Prince William Journal,
obtained papers for his impending divorce
hearing (only a day before they were sealed
by a court). In the papers, Bennett claimed
that his 12-year marriage, and his life,
began unraveling in 1991 when his wife,
Marguerite, 42, a fellow FBI agent, had a
love affair with Patricia Cornwell.
So far, Cornwell, 40, isn't commenting. She
is busy promoting her recently released
seventh novel, Cause of Death, which will
likely top The New York Times bestseller
list, and basking in her brand-new $27
million, three-book deal she reportedly
signed with G.P. Putnam's Sons. Friends
describe her as an intensely private woman
who travels with bodyguards--to homes in
Virginia, Los Angeles, the Caribbean and
London, among other destinations--carries
guns, and lives behind sophisticated
security systems. They also say there are
numerous parallels between her fiction and
her life.
A North Carolina native, Cornwell began
learning about crime in 1979 as a police
reporter for the Charlotte Observer. She
had just graduated from Davidson College
and was newly married to Charles Cornwell,
an English professor 17 years her senior
(they divorced in 1989). "She was what you
call a digger," says former Charlotte
police chief Mack Vines. "She was pretty
much like a detective digging for
information. We helped her, and she helped
us." Cornwell later worked as a computer
analyst in the Virginia medical examiner's
office, an experience that helped her find
a fictional voice in her literary alter ego
Kay Scarpetta, a sharp-wittedmedical
examiner who hunts serial killers for the
FBI. The success of her first Scarpetta
novel, 1990's Postmortem, launched
Cornwell's crime-writing career.
The following year, while researching her
next novel, Cornwell, according to the
divorce papers, met Marguerite "Margo"
Bennett, an instructor in interrogation at
the FBIAcademy in Quantico, Va. Margo
Bennett's FBIagent husband, Eugene, was
then assigned to the Washington field
office. The couple--who have two young
daughters--separated in 1992, the year
Eugene filed for divorce.
A Manassas, Va., neighbor recalls that
sharing the custody of his children angered
Bennett. "He would say she wasn't taking
care of them the way she should,"says
Maureen Wells, 35. A nanny who worked for
Bennett in 1992, Meredith Duffy, 23, picked
up other hints about his growing rage.
"Gene kept telling me, `She's seeing some
famous author,' " Duffy says. Apparently,
Margo Bennett was equally bitter; in 1992
she told FBI officials that her husband had
attempted to defraud the agency of more
than $17,000. He served one year in prison
for that offense, and for trying to block
the FBI's investigation, before being
released in April 1995.
On June 23, Bennett called his wife's
minister, the Rev. Edwin Clever, 43, and,
disguising his identity, arranged a meeting
at the Prince of Peace Methodist Church in
Manassas on the pretense of donating food.
Bennett put on a ski mask and a dark
jacket, and waited in the church for Clever
to arrive. "He just suddenly appeared out
of the stairwell, and he had a gun,"says
Clever. "My initial reaction was, `This
must be a joke.' " Bennett shackled
Clever's arms and legs, told him he was
putting explosives around his waist and
forced him to telephone Margo Bennett and
lure her to the church.
Suspicious, Bennett's wife showed up with a
gun. After an argument about custody of the
children, she fired once at her husband,
who escaped to his home in Manassas. Clever
was released without injury, and Bennett
was arrested after a four-hour standoff at
home the next day. His gym bags found at
the church contained syringes, sodium
chloride and ammunition--what one police
officer termed a death kit. Jeffrey Gans,
Bennett's criminal lawyer, has petitioned
for a psychiatric evaluation, citing his
client's "black-out periods" and "an alter
ego named `Ed.' "
In his divorce papers, Bennett said that
his wife "began spending a great deal of
time with Cornwell in late 1991 and in
1992. Mrs. Bennett would secretly meet with
Cornwell for romantic candlelight dinners."
He claimed to have "observed Mrs. Bennett
and Ms. Cornwell hugging and kissing in
their vehicles" and noted, pointedly, that
"Mrs. Bennett has displayed a moral
bankruptcy in her sexual and personal
preference that can only be very harmful
and confusing"to his daughters.
A former associate of Cornwell's who asked
not to be named says the writer confided to
her that she had an affair with Margo
Bennett. "It is true that it happened,"
says the associate. "Inever met [Margo],
but Patsy talked about her all the time."
Later, Cornwell wrote The Body Farm, in
which Kay Scarpetta has an affair with a
married male FBIagent named Benton
Wesley--a romance that continues in Cause
of Death.
While Eugene Bennett awaits his Aug. 13
preliminary hearing in a Virginia prison,
his wife, who resigned from the FBIin 1994,
has temporary custody of the children.
Neither is commenting on the situation.
The publicity surrounding the Bennett case
hasn't hurt Cornwell's standing with
friends like Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who was
the model for a character in The Body Farm.
"For as long as I've known Patsy, there was
always someone trying to take advantage of
her," he says. "Regardless of whether that
story is true or false, she's a worthy,
good person." Hatch suspects Cornwell will
weather the storm. "She's used to being
beaten up," he says, "but she says that
people who know her will know the truth."
-- ALEXTRESNIOWSKI
-- MARY ESSELMAN and CAROL SIMONS in
Washington and CHRIS RAPHAEL in Manassas
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