Poisoned Love (56 page)

In recreating scenes with dialogue, I tried to quote from as many official sources as I could, such as transcripts from the trial, police interviews, or taped conversations; police reports; sworn depositions; or other public documents, all of which I had to condense and edit to make the story flow. Frank Barnhart, for example, did not want to be interviewed, so I quoted the thoughts and statements he recalled during his deposition in the civil case. When I pulled statements from the interviews I started doing the day of Kristin’s arrest, I generally tried to quote only the person who remembered saying the words, paraphrasing most if not all of the other people’s comments. I relaxed that rule when I wrote about conversations between Kristin and her parents, which they relayed to me in interviews early on and then generally backed up in their court testimony. In rare situations where I felt dialogue was necessary to tell the story but couldn’t check with other participants in the conversation, such as Kristin or the anonymous man who called John Varnell, the statements I recounted are based on at least one person’s memory.

I interviewed Constance and Ralph Rossum a number of times before Judge Thompson instituted the gag order, but they chose not to cooperate with this book. I also interviewed Melissa Prager early on, but she, too, did not want to talk further for this book. I wrote Kristin twice asking for interviews but was rebuffed. I also asked Michael Robertson for interviews through his attorneys, and although he initially said he would cooperate, he later changed his mind. His criminal attorney, Chuck Goldberg, also decided not to respond to the outstanding allegations against his client. I was unable to interview Marie de Villers, who died in August 2003, but I was able to learn about her and her marriage from her sons and through her deposition from the civil case and her divorce filings. Yves de Villers, who lives in Monte Carlo, did not want to be interviewed but did answer some questions by e-mail.

Finally, for purposes of full disclosure, I want to tell readers why I have had such a strong interest in this story and why I believe I was able to bring a unique insight to it. First, I know what it’s like to grow up in a family of academics, with all the pressures that entails. Like Kristin, I consider myself a perfectionist. Both of my parents have Ph.D.s and worked at San Diego State University while I was growing up, my father as an English professor and my mother as an administrator, eventually rising to dean of undergraduate affairs.

But perhaps more importantly, I was married to an alcoholic. My late husband, who died in April 1999, was a talented pension fund investment executive who, like Kristin, worked for the County of San Diego. He was an ambitious and emotional man, who, again like Kristin, seemed to have a bright future ahead of him. He managed to keep his alcoholism hidden from me and many other people before we got married. But his lies and his addiction, coupled with depression and the shame he felt about it all, cost him at least two jobs, three marriages, and ultimately, his own life. He committed suicide in a hotel room in Mexico a few days after I told him our relationship was over. I was scared of him and his demons when he drank, and I didn’t want to become one of those murder-suicide statistics I’d read about so often in my own newspaper. Still, when I tried to help get him back into treatment one last time, he refused and ran away. He’d threatened to kill himself in the past and told me at least once that I’d helped stop him with stories I’d written about others’ suicides, one of which earned me a Pulitzer Prize nomination. I was not surprised to learn that he’d finally carried out his threat. In fact, I was expecting the call, but that didn’t make it any less traumatic when it finally came.

Yes, this book is a sexy story about a fatal love triangle, illicit drugs, adultery, addiction, and murder. But I hope people will also see it as a cautionary tale about how drugs can destroy not just one life, but many others in the process.

Marie-France T. de Villers shows off baby Bertrand to his brothers, Greg and Jerome, while their father, Yves, looks on.

(Photo courtesy of the de Villers family)

Kristin helps Greg celebrate his graduation from the University of California, San Diego in 1997.

(Photo courtesy of the de Villers family)

Kristin and Greg are married on June 5, 1999, at the historic Padua Hills Theatre in Claremont, California.

(Photo courtesy of Jacinta Jarrell)

In 1997, Kristin was hired as a student worker in the toxicology lab at the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office while she was attending San Diego State University.
(Author photo)

Michael Robertson out with his buddies from his Australian football club, the San Diego Lions.
(Photo courtesy of Rob Liwanag)

Kristin and Michael met after work at this spot, which they nicknamed “the Willows,” on a dead-end street in the neighborhood of University City, where they lived within a mile of each other.
(Author photo)

Michael gave Kristin these love note–IOUs, promising massages and dinners out. A coworker saw a box of them on her desk at the lab.

(Photo courtesy of John McCutchen)

Michael ripped up these cards he exchanged with Kristin and threw them in his trash after police searched his apartment on January 4, 2001. Police retrieved them, taped them back together, and used them to confront him during an interview a week later.

(Photo courtesy of John McCutchen)

Michael gave this card to Kristin with dried rose petals in it. Prosecutors used it as an exhibit during the trial to show the couple’s fascination with roses.

(Photo courtesy of John McCutchen)