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I'd Do Anything for You, or to You: They Clicked, Then She Snapped
By Jennifer Frey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 13, 2007; C02
Ah, the power of love. Makes you giddy, makes you miserable, or -- in the case of some folks -- makes you out-and-out loony. Theirs is a brand of passion destined for TV-movieland ("based on a true story" and starring Anne Heche) or, better yet, the Oxygen Network, which has an entire reality series built around women who murder their men. It's called "Snapped!"
Astronaut Lisa Nowak -- she of the BB gun, trench coat and Depends -- may be the current poster girl for that kind of crazy, but she has plenty of company when it comes to Women Who Snap Over Love:
* Amy Fisher. Who can forget the saga of the Long Island Lolita? Teenage girl falls hard for married, middle-age auto-body-shop worker (Joey Buttafuoco) and issues an ultimatum: Leave the wife. He says no. She gets a gun, walks up to the Buttafuocos' front door in 1992 and greets the wife, Mary Jo, with a shove and a gunshot to the head. Mary Jo survives. Fisher does seven years in prison. After her release, she marries, has two kids and works for a time for a Long Island newspaper.
* Jean Harris. For 14 years, Herman Tarnower, the exceedingly rich doctor who invented the famous Scarsdale Diet, and the headmistress of the Madeira School in McLean are lovers. Then he decides he wanted a younger woman -- his 37-year-old assistant, to be precise. In 1980, a despairing Harris drives to his estate in Purchase, N.Y. Tarnower ends up dead. Harris says she planned to ask him to kill her. She is convicted in a celebrity circus of a trial and sent to prison in New York for 15 years. After she has a heart attack, the governor commutes her sentence. She's released in 1993 after serving 12 years.
* Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes. Known as the "crazy" one in the "CrazySexyCool" rock band TLC, Lopes certainly knew how to get her lover's attention. In 1994, after a fight with NFL star Andre Rison, Lopes torches his Atlanta mansion, which burns to the ground. Convicted of arson and sentenced to time in a halfway house and probation, Lopes dies in a car accident in Honduras in 2002.
* Carolyn Warmus. A pretty schoolteacher with an Ivy League degree -- and, prosecutors would later argue in court, an obsessive nature -- Warmus has a thing for hot fellow teacher Paul Solomon. She wants to marry him; he already has a wife. In 1989, jealous after discovering that the Solomons were out socially the night before, Warmus buys a gun, goes to their condo and pumps nine bullets into the competition. Then she meets her lover at a bar for a drink, has sex with him in a car. After two trials and one hung jury, Warmus, insisting she was framed, is convicted. She's serving 25 years to life, in the same Upstate New York prison that once housed Jean Harris.
* Clara Harris. Hell hath no fury like a scorned woman behind the wheel of her Mercedes. Harris, a Houston dentist, suspects her husband of having a fling with his secretary and hires a private investigator. When the PI tracks the illicit couple to a hotel, Harris drives there -- with her stepdaughter -- and runs over her husband, killing him. The 2002 incident gets the "Mercedes Murderess" a 20-year prison sentence.
* Mary Woodson. In 1974, madly in love with singer Al Green, she supposedly wants to marry him, even though she already has a husband, and kids. Him? Not so interested. Furious over the rebuff, Woodson decides to surprise Green with a pot of hot grits . . . in the bathroom. After flinging the boiling concoction on a stunned Green, who is badly burned, Woodson kills herself with his gun.
* Els Clottemans. Doesn't ring a bell? Last month the 22-year-old Belgian sky diver allegedly found quite the unique method for disposing of the "other woman." Discovering that her lover is involved with one of her friends, Clottemans, according to the charges against her, sabotages the woman's parachute on a group dive. Els van Dore plunges to her death while Clottemans (and the man in question) look on. Clottemans faces murder charges.
By Jennifer Frey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 13, 2007; C02
Ah, the power of love. Makes you giddy, makes you miserable, or -- in the case of some folks -- makes you out-and-out loony. Theirs is a brand of passion destined for TV-movieland ("based on a true story" and starring Anne Heche) or, better yet, the Oxygen Network, which has an entire reality series built around women who murder their men. It's called "Snapped!"
Astronaut Lisa Nowak -- she of the BB gun, trench coat and Depends -- may be the current poster girl for that kind of crazy, but she has plenty of company when it comes to Women Who Snap Over Love:
* Amy Fisher. Who can forget the saga of the Long Island Lolita? Teenage girl falls hard for married, middle-age auto-body-shop worker (Joey Buttafuoco) and issues an ultimatum: Leave the wife. He says no. She gets a gun, walks up to the Buttafuocos' front door in 1992 and greets the wife, Mary Jo, with a shove and a gunshot to the head. Mary Jo survives. Fisher does seven years in prison. After her release, she marries, has two kids and works for a time for a Long Island newspaper.
* Jean Harris. For 14 years, Herman Tarnower, the exceedingly rich doctor who invented the famous Scarsdale Diet, and the headmistress of the Madeira School in McLean are lovers. Then he decides he wanted a younger woman -- his 37-year-old assistant, to be precise. In 1980, a despairing Harris drives to his estate in Purchase, N.Y. Tarnower ends up dead. Harris says she planned to ask him to kill her. She is convicted in a celebrity circus of a trial and sent to prison in New York for 15 years. After she has a heart attack, the governor commutes her sentence. She's released in 1993 after serving 12 years.
* Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes. Known as the "crazy" one in the "CrazySexyCool" rock band TLC, Lopes certainly knew how to get her lover's attention. In 1994, after a fight with NFL star Andre Rison, Lopes torches his Atlanta mansion, which burns to the ground. Convicted of arson and sentenced to time in a halfway house and probation, Lopes dies in a car accident in Honduras in 2002.
* Carolyn Warmus. A pretty schoolteacher with an Ivy League degree -- and, prosecutors would later argue in court, an obsessive nature -- Warmus has a thing for hot fellow teacher Paul Solomon. She wants to marry him; he already has a wife. In 1989, jealous after discovering that the Solomons were out socially the night before, Warmus buys a gun, goes to their condo and pumps nine bullets into the competition. Then she meets her lover at a bar for a drink, has sex with him in a car. After two trials and one hung jury, Warmus, insisting she was framed, is convicted. She's serving 25 years to life, in the same Upstate New York prison that once housed Jean Harris.
* Clara Harris. Hell hath no fury like a scorned woman behind the wheel of her Mercedes. Harris, a Houston dentist, suspects her husband of having a fling with his secretary and hires a private investigator. When the PI tracks the illicit couple to a hotel, Harris drives there -- with her stepdaughter -- and runs over her husband, killing him. The 2002 incident gets the "Mercedes Murderess" a 20-year prison sentence.
* Mary Woodson. In 1974, madly in love with singer Al Green, she supposedly wants to marry him, even though she already has a husband, and kids. Him? Not so interested. Furious over the rebuff, Woodson decides to surprise Green with a pot of hot grits . . . in the bathroom. After flinging the boiling concoction on a stunned Green, who is badly burned, Woodson kills herself with his gun.
* Els Clottemans. Doesn't ring a bell? Last month the 22-year-old Belgian sky diver allegedly found quite the unique method for disposing of the "other woman." Discovering that her lover is involved with one of her friends, Clottemans, according to the charges against her, sabotages the woman's parachute on a group dive. Els van Dore plunges to her death while Clottemans (and the man in question) look on. Clottemans faces murder charges.
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