Anne Scripps and Scott Douglas

0:00 Hi, I'm rich and I'm tin And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage, some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary, kill e Tina. Hey, Rich, how are you? I'm great? How are you good? Well, you've been sick, so I don't know how good you actually are. I have been a little sick, and I'm getting a little sick and tired of being sick. But I'm gonna I'm hanging in there. I think you brought me something to eat, and I am a little hungry. I did bring you something, so I held you cooking something. This is a very random it's kind of a random snack today, but it's just something I had kind of craving for. Bisy, I made you some homemade biscuits. Well, they're lovely. Look really good, don't they. Yeah, I'm excited to try them. I brought some honey and some some jam also in case you would like to put something on your biscuits. I'm a little shocked right now. Was a little scared because last time you made beignets the kit So Rich is he's a great chef, but he's not the best cleaner. And so last time you made the bignet's, I was like, holy moly, everything was like covered in powdered sugar and my bowls weren't clean. Oh, your kitchen is just fine. Trust Oh it's just fine. Okay, Well the biscuits they look great. Yeah, I'm not much of a bit. I don't really make biscuits. Which we

1:30 had biscuits last night with their fright, I know I had. This was a something I had planned before. We decided to go to the gas station and get chicken and biscuits. People we get okay, we have yeah, who we do go to the talk about the gas station chicken places. Well, let me try this biscuit. All right, we'll be right back. Holy noly, you you're beautiful. Did you enjoy your biscuit? Olyness? That was? That was so so good? Was really good and hit the spot. You know how. I don't know how I came to decide I'm making biscuits, but it started to love a biscuit. Today's Today's episode is set in New York and I was looking for New York snacks or something, and I was googling things that I came across the cronut, which apparently was invented in New York, the cross between a croissant and a donut. So I was gonna make those. But then I looked at the recipe, and we're going to make corona. Yeah, but I looked at the recipe.

2:24 I was like, oh no, I'm not making this way too way, too complicated. So yeah, somehow I wound up from there to biscuits. I don't know how well they are excellent, and you did a fabulous job. And I like the scallop edge. I think it's the cutter that we have. It's a little scale up edge here, but fancy, fabulous. Well you are the officially the biscuit maker in our family. I have been meaning to make croissants, but I mean, I bake a lot, but I'm not the most I don't like a hard recipe. So yeah, maybe we could tackle that together. We could collaborate on some croissants. All right, yes, all right, what is the story you're going to tell us today? Well, first, before I get into that, today's case was a recommendation from our listener Dorothy from the Long on the Go. So Dorothy, I hope you're still listening. If you are, thank you for the recommendation. We do have a long list of case recommendations and we're working our way through them. Some of them weren't able to do because we can't find enough information, but I'm glad that you were able to find enough information to do the soon for Dorothy. Yeah, and if you would like to recommend a case to us, email us at Lovemarykail at gmail dot com. Like you just said, we can't promise to get to every case, but we're always interested to learn about new stories that we weren't aware of. Today, we're going to tell you about the tragic story of An Scripts and her family, an heiress to the Script's newspaper Fortune, and Scripts had a privileged upbringing, attending private schools and coming out at debutante balls in Vienna and New York.

3:55 She married a stockbroker in a lavish ceremony with royalty and attendance, and soon gave birth to two daughters. When her first marriage eventually ended in divorce, she quickly met and fell in love with a new man, a house painter named Scott Douglas, who was nine years younger than Anne. After a whirlwind romance, Anne and Scott married, and soon Anne gave birth to a third daughter. All Anne wanted was the simple life of a suburban housewife, doting on her children and giving them the warmth and love that she didn't get in her own childhood. But her new marriage quickly turned into a nightmare, with a tragic outcome that would reverberate for years to come. Anne Script's story is a reminder that wealth and privilege are not safeguards against domestic violence. It's also a reminder that domestic violence doesn't just affect one person, it can impact entire families for generations to come. Very true. Just a warning that today's episode contains descriptions of domestic abuse and suicide that may be distressing, so please listen with care. Anne Fraser Scripts was born in nineteen forty six in Gross Pointe, Michigan, one of the country's wealthiest suburbs. She was the first of three children born to Captain James E. Scrips, the third, a retired merchant marine, and his wife Anne. Anne's great great grandfather was James E. Scripps, who in eighteen seventy three launched the newspaper that became the Detroit News. He had a radical idea for its time that his reporters should quote write like people talk unquote. His competitors called the News a cheap rag,

5:29 but the public loved it. It's a good paper. Yeah. I mean well, I will say growing up in the Detroit air there were and there still are, two major newspapers, the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. Your family was either like a news family or a free press family. You couldn't be both, which was kind of weird. It was. It was almost like there was a like this competition, like, well, we subscribe to the Free Press, so you know, we don't like those news people. Well, in Chicago it's similar because you have the Chicago TRIBUNEA and the Chicago Sun Times. Well, we were a free press family up in any case, James Scrips did pretty well for himself, but his little brother, Edward W. Scripts did even better. He started his own news empire, acquiring twenty five different newspapers and starting the news service that became known as United Press International or UPI. His media empire was called the E.

6:19 W. Scripts Company, also known as Scrips Howard, and it's still around, although now mostly focused on TV production. You may also know it as the organizer of the US National Spelling Bee, which started in nineteen twenty five. Oh, I was going to ask you if you'd heard about the Spelling Bee because it just wrapped up. Oh no, okay, good timing. We'll save that for later. Okay. Together, the Scripts were known as the first Family of American journalism. Anne grew up in a life of old money privilege. She went to the best private Catholic girls' schools. She had nice clothes and other possessions, and she got to take amazing vacations. But what she didn't have were parents who were there for her. Dad was away much of the time, and he was an alcoholic who wasn't heavily involved in her life. Later in his life, he did get help for his alcohol addiction and devoted the rest of his life to helping other alcoholics as the director of a treatment program for recovering alcoholics who were unable to pay for their own care. Nice Anne's mom was also only partially present. She struggled with manic depression, although it wasn't diagnosed until much later in her life. Anne's grandmother, Ruth ru ended up being a surrogate parent to Anne in many ways.

7:31 Ruth had been married to James E. Scripps Junior, who died while in his twenties. She remarried a man named Lester Rue of gross Pointe Farms. Ruth was a socialite who mingled with the Ford family and other members of the elite class. She introduced Anne to the ways of high society. When Anne was twelve, the family moved to upstate New York near Albany, where she attended the all girls Sacred Heart Convent. She then moved to New York City to attend the prestigious Dushane Residence School, a two year college for Catholic women. Anne was a debutant who made her debut at a ball in Vienna's Schwarzenburg Palace and then in New York at the debutant Cotillian and Christmas Ball It's Very Fancy Wait. After graduating from the Residence School in nineteen sixty six, and studied interior design at the New York School of Interior Design. Soon after finishing school, Anne met and fell in love with a bond trader named Anthony Xavier Morrell. They married in nineteen sixty nine, when Anne was twenty three years old. It was a lavish ceremony at the luxurious Saint Regis Hotel in Manhattan that included European royalty. Among her bridal attendants was Princess Immaculotta Habsburg of Vienna, and one of the ushers was Victor Emmanuel Junior of the House of Savoy, who was a direct descendant of the former King of Italy. The wedding was featured in a three page spread in Town and Country magazine. After the wedding, Anthony and Anne settled in the affluent village of Bronxville, New York,

9:05 about fifteen miles north of midtown Manhattan. Anne had an idealized version of life as a suburban housewife, greeting her man with the Martini when he came home from work, dinner on the stove, children playing in the yard, and for a time that vision seemed to be coming true. Less than two years into the marriage, Anne gave birth to a daughter, Alexandra, and the following year she had another daughter, Anne. Alex and Annie were Anne's pride and joy. She was determined to give them the warmth and attention that she hadn't gotten from her own parents. She spent as much time with her girls as she could, making crafts, doing art projects, taking walks, going to get ice cream. Once they'd started school, she would walk them to school every day, come back and pick them up for lunch, then return to walk them home from school at the end of the day. Her entire life revolved around their children. Alex and Annie later recalled their childhood as idyllic. They were spoiled by their mother's love, and they lived in a beautiful tree lined neighborhood and a seven bedroom house that offered endless opportunities for exploration, hide and seek, and sometimes even roller skating down the hallways. Sounds like a very nice childhood. The two girls, just over a year a part in age, grew up close more like twins in many ways. Alex was seen as the tougher of the two, more daring and with a biting sense of humor. Annie was more sensitive and awkward, but also warmer and more open hearted. But all fairy tales eventually come to an end. While

10:39 Anne was a homebody who enjoyed the simple life, Anthony was drawn to life in the fast lane. He liked the world of high finance and parties, He drank a lot, and over time Anne came to suspect that he was having affairs. In nineteen eighty eight, after eighteen years of marriage, a couple decided to divorce. Alex and Annie, both in high school at the time, stuck by their mom following the divorce, but by this point they were both starting to brant out to do their own thing with their own friends, and Anne found it hard being single. She was afraid of being alone, but she wasn't alone for long while the inco on the divorce papers was still drying. Anne met Scott Douglas at a Super Bowl party in late January at nineteen eighty eight. Seemed a little odd that Anne was going to a super Bowl party. Everyone loves the super Bowl, I guess, so it's just not a high society yet. Scott was thirty three years old, nine years younger than Anne. Scott had a very different background and upbringing from Anne.

11:39 He grew up in the town of Rye, New York. His father died when he was young, and his mom struggled to get by as a single mother. She eventually remarried, but Scott didn't get along with his stepdad. He dropped out of high school and moved out. When Scott was nineteen, he moved in with a woman named Phyllis Creighton. Phyllis was twelve years older than Scott, divorced with two children. They lived together for three years and remained close friends after that. A few years after moving out, Scott got a job as a caretaker for a property in Portchester, New York, living in a cottage on the property from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty six. Scott was somewhat of a mystery to people who knew him. He was very private. In three years living with Phyllis Creighton, he never once introduced her to or even mentioned his mother. He was tall, good looking, charming, and affable, but some people saw him as standoffish and inarticulate. Philis said he wouldn't hurt a fly. Literally. She said that he wouldn't kill the flies or aunts if they were in their house. Instead, he would take them outside, saying that everything had a right to live. At the same time, his hobby was taxidermy. Well that's a little ironic. He wouldn't kill a fly, but then he would stuff a beaver or whatever you might find a dead raccoon or other varmint and his freezer waiting to be stuffed.

13:03 One neighbor said he was quote a boy scout of a guy. But at the same time, she said that he had a large light and a dark side. He dated a lot of women. The man who owned the property where Scott worked as a caretaker had this to say about him. I think before you read the quote, I think you have to read this with a New York accent. So if you could do that, that would You're so talented action you're accents, okay. Quote. There were a lot of girls, and I heard a lot of fights. He was a woman chaser. The gals he went around with were very substantial, very beautiful. He was an earth shaker, had a personality to make movie stars look like a bunch of bombs. Only close friend he had was his brother. He'd never marry a poor woman, told me I was a sucker. He used to tell the girls this was his place. He'd entertain them at my pool.

13:50 He had no respect for women, said women are nothing but a bunch of whores. He'd be fighting with one of them inside with another waiting for him outside. End quote. Oh to he's the player. He fathered two children out of wedlock before meeting Anne, something he never mentioned Anne, amongst other secrets he had kept from her. Growing up where he did in the proximity of a lot of wealthy people, Scott had ample opportunity to see how the other half lived, and he wanted to be one of them. By the time he met Anne at the Super Bowl party, Scott lived in a small apartment in Greenwich, Connecticut, and was making a living painting houses. Anne saw Scott as someone who was hard working and who valued family above all else, just like she did. Anne's wealthy friends and her daughters had a different feeling, though. They saw Scott as standoffish, believing that he felt inferior, having come from a lower class background in their eyes. They tried to be friendly to him, but he didn't seem interested, although it's certainly possible that they looked down on him and that he sensed that he just didn't fit in with the ultra rich country club crowd that Anne had grown up with.

15:00 This started a vicious cycle where he would try to separate her from her friends, which caused them to resent him, which made him even more determined to build a wall between Anne and her friends. Anne's daughter Alex later said that he just didn't seem very bright or articulate, and that she had nothing in common with him. He was unsophisticated, and Alex and Annie worried from the beginning that Scott was out to take advantage of their vulnerable mother. In any case, Anne found him charming and attentive. After dating for only about six months, Scott asked him to marry her, saying they had to get married right now, and Anne agreed, that's not a red flag. No. Her friends and family were taken aback when she told them of their plans to get married only five days following his proposal. One friend later said, quote, we tried to talk her into waiting, but she was vulnerable, a bit scared after her divorce. How do you put restraints on a grown woman?

15:54 Unquote How much time had passed between the proposal and the divorce. It was roughly a year, maybe a little less. Okay, so that's pretty quick, Yeah, really quick. Her family tried to talk Anne into having Scott sign a prenup, but that also fell on deaf ears. The wedding was held at Anne's home in Bronxville. It was small, with only twenty people in attendance. Notable absences included Scott's mom, he had told Anne that she was no longer living, and also Anne's mother, brother, and sister. She hadn't even invited them, knowing that they wouldn't approve. Even those who did attend the wedding were not necessarily supportive. One guest later said about Scott, quote, he was classless, a name dropper. You could see that immediately. He was shifty, he had a slimy, weak handshake, didn't look you straight in the eye, had no conversation, had nothing to say. What could he talk about house painting? He didn't speak our language.

16:48 Unquote. Well, I take offense to that because my dad was a painter. Yes, he was a house painter, a very successful house painter who worked so hard. Yeah. I have no sympathy for Siks in this story at all, but I do. It does seem like her friends were a little bit bit thompus. Yeah. While Anne's friends and daughters may not have liked Scott before the wedding, at least they saw that he seemed kind and treated her with respect. After the wedding, though, that changed suddenly. He was quick to criticize Anne about everything. He said she had snobby friends and that she spoiled her daughters. Alex later said, quote, he got an attitude. He got very mean and controlling. Unquote. He lied to Anne about many things. As we already mentioned, he told her his mother was dead, even though she was in fact living just twelve miles away from them. He never mentioned the two children that he had but never saw.

17:42 He also had two sisters that he never mentioned, and for some reason, he told Anne that he was Jewish, even though she later found out he was Episcopalian. He also didn't share with Anne the fact that he drank a lot, had bouts of depression, had been in therapy, and that his painting business wasn't really all that successful. He was struggling to get by. All of this would gradually become clear after the wedding. After he moved into Anne's house, he kept his apartment in Greenwich. It was primarily an office for his painting business, but he would come and go regularly, and he never mentioned to his local friends or neighbors that he was now married. They all assumed that he was still single. Despite the growing issues in the new marriage, Anne was anxious to have another baby. Partly, she was looking for a new life to take care of now that her daughters were both getting older and getting ready to go off to college and a life of their own, But partly she thought that having a baby would help fix things in the marriage. It never does. About a year into the marriage, Anne found out that she was pregnant. She gave birth to another girl, Victoria Scrips Douglas, in June nineteen ninety. Everyone doated on little Victoria, more commonly known as Tory. Anne loved her and spent hours playing with her, making up silly stories and saws and dances, just like she'd done with Alex and Annie. Scott seemed to enjoy being a dad as well. No one doubted that he loved his new daughter. Now teenagers, Alex and Annie also loved their new little sister, but it didn't take long before things deteriorated.

19:15 The dislike between Alex and Scott turned into outright hatred. She would call him an uneducated dirt bag, and he started seeing both Alex and Annie as competition for his wife's affection and probably for her money as well. He pushed Anne to put pressure on Alex to move out after she graduated from high school, which she did. There were also increasing fights about money. While Anne knew that Scott wasn't wealthy, she probably expected that he would at least be able to contribute to the family with his income. But it turned out that Anne paid for everything. She paid all the bills, the utilities, any expenses for the children, She paid if they went out to dinner in a movie.

19:56 She even gave him money besides all that, and in fact, he would charge her if he did any work around the house. A friend of Anne's said, quote, she thought he would share in the cost of the house, but he acted like a jigglow. She was used to being treated like a lady unquote, but she has a lot of money, right, Yeah, for sure, But she just wanted him to contribute something. I think it's I think it's reasonable. Right. Smartly, Anne kept her money completely separate from Scott, refusing to give him access to any bank accounts and keeping him in the dark about her finances. This rankled him, as did her refusal to buy him a new BMW. At one point, he exploded at her, saying, quote, I've gotten more from women I've dated for two weeks than I got from you in two years unquote hikes. If Scott thought that he was going to get rich by marrying a wealthy woman, he must have gradually realized that he was mistaken. In most old money families, like the Scripts, the family fortune is well protected in trusts that are designed specifically to keep the money in the family. In fact, when Anne died, her estate was only worth about a million dollars. The rest of the Scripps family's nine hundred million dollar fortune was in a tightly controlled trust, with interest from the trust used to support generation after generation of direct errors. No matter what happened, Scott was not going to get any of the trust fund money. As things got worse in the marriage, Anne updated her will to ensure that Scott would get the minimum amount possible. By law, he was

21:29 entitled to one third of her estate, about three hundred thousand dollars, but she had the will structured in a way that he would get an initial payment of ten thousand dollars followed by taxable payments of just sixty five hundred dollars a year for life. Wow. That was pretty smart. Over time, Scott became increasingly violent, especially When he would come home drunk, he would throw furniture across the room, smash glasses against the wall, and he started becoming violent with Anne as well. After a dinner party, a friend of Anne's saw him slam her against a stone wall near the driveway of the dinner party hosts, in full view of other guests. Another time, at a wedding, he became enraged when Anne went out on the dance floor with her former brother in law. He grabbed her arm and pulled her off the dance floor, calling her a slut in front of everyone. On their second wedding anniversary, Scott bought Anne a bathroom scale, saying, quote, you'd better use this every day. I don't want to see an inch of fat on you unquote At the time, not that it matters, but Anne weighed one hundred and five pounds. The fights would get worse than Scott would apologize and promise to change, then the cycle would start all over again. He would get paranoid and accuse Anne of having affairs, and he would get irritated and impatient when she would take Tory for a walk or stop and chat with neighbors.

22:52 Anne started speaking in code to her friends on the phone, believing that Scott may have bugged the phone. She had code words to let her friends know that Scott would lingering and that she couldn't speak openly. He started spending more time at his old apartment and business office in Greenwich. He would party a lot, and he would befriend many of his female painting clients, never letting on that he was married. Oh, hopefully you're getting the picture by now that Scott is a real piece of shit. In the spring of nineteen ninety one, a petitioned the family Court for an order of protection against Scott, saying that he had tried to push her out of a moving car. She packed her bags and took Toy with her to stay at Alex's apartment in Bronxville, but Scott persuaded her to return home, promising again that he would quit drinking and become a better husband. In December nineteen ninety three, and discovered that Scott had taken Tory's birth certificate and other important papers from their home.

23:48 Fearing that Scott would kidnap Tory, she filed another court order preventing Scott from harassing her and from taking Tory from the house. Anne then sought help from the Coalition for Family Justice, nonprofit organization in Westchester, New York. On describing Scott's violence in detail, the chairperson of the coalition advised Anne to get out of the house and offered up one of their shelters as a place for her to stay in the near term. However, Anne's attorney advised her to stay at home, otherwise it could be considered abandonment and it would weaken her position in regards to custody of Tory. Oh, it's just those stories over and over again. It's just really really heartbreaking. As they talked about ending the marriage, Scott said he would leave if she paid him a quarter of a million dollars. Anne agreed, but only if it was done officially through the court system. Otherwise she was worried that Scott would come back and demand more money, or that he would kidnap Tory, something he had threatened to do many times. So this was the situation leading into the final week of nineteen ninety three. Scott and Anne were both still living in the house, both sleeping in separate bedrooms. Scott would come and go without explanations, sometimes staying out all night or leaving in the middle of the night. He would wake Anne up in the middle of the night, yelling at her, calling her stupid or calling her a slut. She'd wake in his grip, unable to move as he ranted at her. One time, he threatened to cut her into little pieces and scatter her body all over New York. She began

25:22 sleeping with a claw hammer under her pillow or next to her bed for protection. On Christmas Eve, Anne met a friend for lunch. She had a patch over one eye after a trip to the ar because her cornea had gotten scratched in Scott's latest attack on her. She told her friend that he had pushed her down the stairs, thrown her on the floor, kicked her, and pulled her hair so hard she thought it was going to come right out of her head, she said. She threw her hands up and told him, quote, take anything you want, but don't hurt me any more. I can't take it any more. End quote. That's horrible. A few days after Christmas and before New Year's Scott gave Anne a black eye in another fight, and she went to family court to seek an order of protection.

26:04 But it was the holiday season and the family court judge was on vacation, so she was told to come back after the holidays. On New Year's Eve, Alex now twenty three, was in Vermont skiing with friends. Annie twenty two, was home on break from college, but she was planning to go to a party while Anne was planning to stay home with Tory, who was now three. As Annie was getting ready to go out, she found her mom crying. Anne told her that she and Scott had been fighting again. She said that Scott told her that the threats were over and something more had to be done, implying that the violence was going to escalate her, which is really scary. Annie said she was going to stay home, but Anne said, no, go ahead and go out have fun. It's just another one of his threats. When Annie returned home from the party at three thirty am, she realized she had forgotten her key and the door to the house was locked. It was freezing outside, so she pounded on the door, the same time noticing that Scott's car was not in the driveway where it usually was. She was quickly alarmed when there was no answer, because she knew that her mom was sleeping in her room, which was right above the door.

27:11 A few hours earlier, just ten minutes into the new year, some police officers out on patrol saw a gray bmw idling in the middle of the tap and Z Bridge, a cantilever bridge that spanned the Hudson River, twenty five miles north of Midtown, Manhattan and about twenty two miles from Anne's home in Bronxville. The car was at the midpoint of the bridge, which was three miles long and one hundred and forty feet above the water. There was no one in the car, but sitting in the front seat was a bloody claw hammer. After Annie had been outside pounding on the door of the family home for about twenty minutes, the police showed up. We've heard differing reports about how the police got the call. One report said that the neighbors heard Annie pounding on the door and call them up. Another said that Annie called them herself. It's possible that she may have had a cell phone at this point, but we don't know. A third explanation we read is that at some point, after finding Scott's car on the bridge, his brother called the police because he was worried about Scott. Apparently, Scott had called him right before midnight, saying quote, I've done something really bad this time end quote.

28:18 When Scott's brother couldn't reach him after that, he eventually called the police, who showed up at Anne and Scott's home around three fifty am to find Annie standing outside the front door. In any case, after the police arrived, firefighters were summoned to break into the house. As Annie and the officers reached her bedroom, they were met with a horrific sight. Anne was laying on the bed, her head bloodied and beaten, apparently by the same hammer that she had been keeping nearby for protection. The sheets were soaked in blood, and the family's new puppy was snuggled up next to her. Anne was breathing, but just barely. Here's Annie telling ABC News about that terrible moment.

28:59 I couldn't believe it. I couldn't even recognize my mother. Face was so badly beaten and swollen, and she had a huge oh on the side of her face. Anne was rushed to the hospital. Three year old Victoria was found physically unharmed, cowering in her bedroom next to the primary bedroom. Apparently she either witnessed what happened or went in to find her mom after it happened. We've seen different versions of what Tory supposedly said to her sister and the police after they found Anne, but most are something along the lines of quote, daddy was giving mommy so many bad booboos? Why does mommy have paint all over her face? End quote that's so we'll be back after a break. Anne was in a coma fighting for her life. She hung on for six days, but her injuries were just too severe, and she passed away on January sixth, nineteen ninety four, without ever regaining consciousness. Coincidentally, at the time that Anne was fighting for her life, her first husband, Anthony Morrel, was fighting for his own life in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Pittsburgh. He had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver resulting from his fast paced, hard drinking lifestyle, and was given between six weeks and six months to live. When he heard about what happened to Anne, he

30:30 left the hospital and came to New York to be by her side. Alex and Annie decided that their mom would have wanted to donate her liver to their dad, so they gave the go ahead for the transplant. Oh my goodness, a family spokesperson said, quote, her daughters acted on what they knew would be their mother's wishes. Anne left this world the way she lived in it, loving and giving unquote. The liver transplant ended up giving Anthony the gift of another eleven years of life. He died in two thousand and five of a heart attack. Well that's so nice, I know, very nice. If we divorce, I want you to have my lover too. If oh, thanks, you're welcome, and vice versa. Oh thanks. New Year's Day nineteen ninety four was the first day on the job for Westchester County District Attorney Janine Piro. That sounds familiar, well before she had her Judge Janine Puro TV show and before she was a Fox News co host. She was elected as the first female DA of Westchester County, New York. On that first day, before she even had a chance to take her jacket off, she was notified of a high profile domestic violence and possibly murder case.

31:37 She was already known as a passionate prosecutor of domestic violence cases from her time as assistant DA, and she raised her profile further by appearing frequently in the media to talk about the Anne scripts case. Domestic violence would become a focal point of her next twelve years in office. One substantial change was eventually made in domestic violence procedures as a direct result of Anne's death. Remember that Anne had sought out protection shortly before she was killed, but the family court judge had been on vacation, so she was turned away. Now, if no family court judge is available when needed, the criminal court judge who is on twenty four hour duty can sign an order of protection, which is really it's amazing that it took this for that change to be made, because it just seems obvious that people are going to need protection at random times of the night or holidays or things like that. But in any case, some good that came out of it. While Scott's car had been found idling in the middle of the tappan Zee Bridge, few people believed that he had actually jumped over the side to end his life. Alex and Annie were firmly convinced that he had faked his own suicide, and they feared for their safety, even hiring bodyguards for a time. Scott's former boss, who owned the property where Scott worked as a caretaker for six years, said quote, I'll tell you this, he never jumped off that bridge. He hated cold water. He never went in the pool one time in all the years. Said the water was too cold. No way he jumped into that freezing cold January water. On

33:09 January second, the police visited Scott's apartment in Greenwich. They spoke with a neighbor who lived downstairs from Scott, who said that she hadn't seen him. The next day, though she heard footsteps in the apartment above and called the police, But when they showed up, there was no sign of Scott at his apartment. Whoever it was had left, but it reinforced the belief that Scott was still alive. The investigation also uncovered the fact that Scott maintained two bank accounts under two different names and social security numbers, and that he was in possession of two birth certificates with different names. There was speculation that he had fled to the Caribbean, possibly with the help of a girlfriend. A warrant was issued for Scott's arrest, and the family offered a reward for information leading to his arrest. The reward started at twenty five thousand dollars and was raised in February to one hundred thousand dollars. The police did launch a search of the river, but the currents in the Hudson River are actually quite variable.

34:07 Unlike most rivers, the water in the Hudson River can flow either north or south depending on the tides, and the flow direction changes usually four times a day. And while the Hudson River doesn't usually freeze over, the frigid waters and scattered ice hindered the search. On March thirtieth, nineteen ninety four, as things were thawing out, a Metro North Commuter railway worker found a body on the river bank, not far from the railway tracks. A day later, dental records were used to positively identify the body as Scott. Apparently he had jumped after all. Oh my goodness, He had five hundred and seven dollars in cash in his pocket and his watch was stopped at exactly twelve o'clock, leading investigators to believe he jumped right at midnight, moments after calling his brother and only ten minutes before they came upon his car. And Annie were surprised, but relieved they no longer had to worry about Scott coming after them or Tory. Annie said, quote, it was a surprise, but the nightmare is over. Unquote. Do you think when Scott jumped from the bridge he intended to end his life or do you think he thought he could reach the shore? I think he must have intended to end his life because the bridge is it's one hundred and forty feet above the water, and the waters were frigid cold on January first, So I can't imagine a world where he thought he would survive that, Okay. In a brazen and shameless move, Scott's family tried to file a claim on Scott's shares of Anne's estate,

35:38 but in October nineteen ninety four, a judge denied the claim. The primary reason it was denied was that Scott actually preceded anne and death. Although it's hard to believe if she hadn't hung on for six days after the beating, it's possible that his family might have actually been entitled to part of her estate. It just boggles my mind that that would even be a possibility. That his family could just so icky too that they wanted to do that. Although Annie had said the nightmare was over after Scott's body was found. Sadly that was not the case. Initially, after her mom's death, Annie redirected her grief into caring for her little sister, Tory, who wasn't able to get to sleep by herself anymore. Annie became a substitute mom for Tory, and for a time she wanted to adopt her, but she was twenty two years old and in no position to provide a stable home for a traumatized three year old. In the end, Tory was adopted by Anne's sister, Mary Scripps and her husband, Robert Carmody, who raised Tory in Vermont. Even though Annie and Alex remained in touch with Tory after she was adopted by her aunt, losing her was another blow to Annie's fragile psyche. In nineteen ninety five, Alex married a real estate investor named Jimmy Romeo, whom she had been seeing at the time of her mother's murder. In nineteen ninety six, Annie married Jimmy's best friend, Paul Patrol, whose family owned a construction company.

37:02 Alex and Annie remained extremely close through the years, talking ten to fifteen times a day and taking vacations together. The two couples lived fifteen minutes from one another. Alex had a daughter, Alexa, and Annie had a son, Michael, who were fifteen months of pardon age, just like Alex and Annie had been. They were more like sister and brother to each other than cousins, but neither marriage lasted long. Alex got divorced after three years of marriage and Annie after four. As Alex later said, the two girls were in La La Land after their mother's murder and were having a hard time coping. Annie was reportedly drinking a lot during her marriage. Anne had to be hospitalized more than once after passing out. Alex received intensive therapy and at help.

37:46 She had always been the more resilient of the two girls, and she hadn't been there that night to see her mom's horrific injuries. It was harder for Annie. She saw a therapist for a time, but she couldn't get the images of her brutally beaten, in dying mom out of her head. She felt guilty for not staying home that night, thinking she could have prevented what happened, despite Alex and others telling her that no Scott would have killed her as well if she would have been home. Over time, Annie's trust fund dwindled, she had problems managing her money, compounded by a drinking problem and difficulty finding love. She and Alex, along with the Scripts family, sued the state family Court and police for twenty two million dollars, saying that Scott should have been barred from Anne's house when she had petitioned the court in early December, but the Sooths were eventually dismissed. The court transcripts showed that Anne hadn't actually asked for Scott to be evicted at the time, even though it had been reported that way in the media. In nineteen ninety seven, a maid for TV dramatization of Anne's story was made, called Our Mother's Murder.

38:51 It starred rox Anne Hart as Anne, Holly Marie Combs as Alex, Sarah Chalk as Annie, and James Wilder as Scott. Alex and Annie both participated in the making of the movie, which brought them some income but also served as a reminder of their trauma every time it aired. In two thousand, was that a Lifetime movie? I don't know who originally made it, but I believe it. You can probably see it on Lifetime in reruns now. Yeah. In two thousand and one, the girl suffered another blow when their uncle, George Morrell died in the nine to eleven terrorist attacks, and then again in two thousand and five when their dad died of a heart attack. To occupy her time, once her son Mikey started school, Annie got a job working part time at a local nursing home. She was trying to help herself by helping others, but it didn't work. She got too close to the nursing home residence and anytime someone died she took it really hard. They loved her at the nursing home, but it just wasn't going to work out.

39:49 She took other jobs as well, as a clerk at an antique store working in an office cafeteria, but the drinking interfered with her work and she couldn't hold down a job. Her son, Mikey, became anxious being around Annie when she was drinking and depressed. He loved her, but he started having trouble in school. The school suggested he might have to be held back a year. Annie and her ex husband decided that it would be best for Mikey to switch school systems, so he moved in with his dad. It was the best thing for him, but again it was another major blow to Annie's already fragile mental state. Nighttime when she was home alone, was especially hard for Annie. She'd call her friends while walking her dogs, and sometimes she would be in tears, talking about her inability to find a man to love, or how she just missed her mother. Some nights, she would drink too much and made calls that could be bitter or angry, but she wouldn't remember even making those calls the next day. One morning, around two thousand and six, Annie called Alex and told her that she'd taken a bunch of valume that she'd ordered on the internet. Alex called for help and ended up getting Annie committed to a treatment facility. While there, the doctors recommended electroshock therapy, and Annie agreed, desperate for a solution to her struggles.

41:02 But after the treatment, Annie found that she was forgetting people's names and events from her life, such as family vacations, but she couldn't forget the one thing that she really wanted to forget. In September of two thousand and nine, thirteen year old Mikey was still living primarily at his dad's house. On September twenty second. The Our Mother's Murder docu drama aired on TV again two days later, Thursday the twenty fourth. The day started as it normally did. Alex called Annie and they had their morning coffee while chatting and laughing on the phone. The sisters met for lunch, then got manicures and pedicures. After that, they went to Annie's condo and hung out until six pm, when Alex left to go make dinner at home. According to Alex, they were talking and laughing about whatever, nothing out of the ordinary. After Alex left, Annie went on Facebook and sent a quick message to a friend, just asking what's up and saying she missed her. At seven thirty, Annie called Chris Smith, who was a friend and an on again, off again boyfriend. She said something about being at the gas station getting cigarettes, but her signal was breaking up, so the call ended quickly. Fifteen minutes later, around seven forty five, Annie drove her BMW out to the middle of the tappan Z Bridge, stopping at nearly the exact spot that her stepfather had jumped from nearly sixteen years earlier. Witnesses saw Annie walk purposely from her car to the railing of the bridge. She called Chris Smith again at seven forty nine pm. This time all he heard was what he described as a loud

42:36 swishing sound, then nothing. Three days later, Annie's body was found on the riverbank a quarter mile north of the bridge. She was thirty eight years old, the same age as Scott Douglas was when he jumped from the same bridge. That's so horrible, I know. In her car was found a note scribbled in pencil. The first part of the note was addressed to her son. It said, quote, Michael, my angel. I loved you more than life and will love you forever. I tried to give you everything and always be there. I'm so sorry I let you down. I'll be your guardian angel, and that's a promise. Be strong, my special son. I love you. Daddy and Mima slash Biba, which I think is her husband's parents, will always be there. You'll grow up to be strong and caring. Always smile. I love you the day I loved you, the day you were born. I'm sorry I let you down. Further down in the note, she addresses her sister and her niece, quote Alex and Alexa, I love you so much. Thank you for the smiles. And for never giving up unquote. Next, there's a bit of a cryptic message to her half sister, Tory, quote Tory wish you loved us me and I'm assuming she meant to say we here Me certainly loved you. I always missed you unquote. So I haven't read anything about any conflicts between Tory and her sister, so it's unclear what he was referring to in the note.

44:01 Maybe Tory felt that she needed to distance herself from the alcoholism, and yeah, that's possible. The note also includes a brief message to her friends Amy and Chris, and she asks that someone find a good home for her two dogs and her cat. Written in the middle of the note is a heartbreaking plea to the spirit of her parents. Quote, Mommy and Daddy, please find me unquote. All Annie wanted was to live a normal life. She wanted to find love and raise a family, but she couldn't escape the demons that haunted her since finding her mother on that New Year's morning in nineteen ninety four. It's so sad because you know that she loved her son and would have done anything to be there for him, but she just couldn't carry her grief and depression any longer. Annie's death hit Alex hard. The two girls were best friends who talked ten to fifteen times a day. Alex was at first in denial, then her denial turned to anger at Annie for leaving behind her son, her sister, and her friends. Alex said that dealing with Annie's death was ten times harder than anything she went through with her mother.

45:04 It's so so hard to lose someone that's so close to you like that. Yeah, just never recover and you missed them horribly every day. Yeah. Tory, whose thirty fourth birthday will be June seventeenth of twenty twenty four, has also struggled to deal with the trauma and the loss that she's experienced in her life. She's battled addiction since a young age and has gotten into trouble with the law several times over the years. Her adoptive parents, Mary Scrips and Robert Carmody, said that her troubles started in her middle school years after seeing a re airing of the Our Mother's Murder docu drama, prompting her to start asking questions about her past. Her older sister's suicide when Tory was nineteen also exacerbated her issues. Before Tory turned eighteen, her adoptive parents went to court, saying that she was not capable of handling the seven figure inheritance that she was due at that time. The court ruled in Tory's favor, and she quickly spent the money that she inherited. People took advantage of her, knowing that she had money and also knowing about her addiction. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty one, she was arrested four times for drug related offenses and twice for burglary. Then in twenty eleven, at age twenty one, she was pulled over in Vermont and found to be in possession of one hundred and ninety three bags of heroin. She told the arresting officer that she had a six bag a day heroin habit. She was subsequently charged with heroin and cocaine distribution, and then another charge was added later on that she was operating

46:35 a crack house. After this arrest, her adoptive parents refused to post her ten thousand dollars bail, hoping that she would dry out by staying in jail. Her mother, Mary Scripts, said at the time quote were supporting her every way we can. We love her and will never stop loving her, and will never stop trying to help her. Unquote. Tory ended up pleading guilty and was incarcerated for about a month before being permitted to go to a halfway house in Florida, but she was thrown out of the halfway house for violations and returned to jail. She was granted supervised release in twenty thirteen, but again found herself in trouble after violating the terms of her probation. She was back in court in twenty fifteen, where she delivered a ten page handwritten letter to the judge apologizing for her behavior and documenting a plan for successfully staying sober, which included attending college, continuing to seek drug treatment, undergoing individual counseling, and working on developing a more healthy lifestyle. In the letter, she wrote, quote, throughout my addiction, I have suffered so many consequences.

47:42 Every time I think things cannot possibly get worse, they do. As a result of my addiction. I have lost family, friends, hope, for my future, my own values and beliefs, self esteem, pets, educational opportunities, respect from others, and for myself, my freedom and the list go. In twenty eighteen, Tory was again arrested for possession of stolen property after pawning her adoptive mother's heirloom jewelry and stealing her car, and she was arrested again in twenty twenty three in North Carolina on charges of second degree trespass. In twenty nineteen, at age thirty, Tory was scheduled to receive another two million dollars from her trust, and again her mom, Mary, filed a motion that Tory not received the distribution on the basis that she is incapacitated as defined by the trust terms. It appears, at least based on my reading of the case file, that this time Mary was successful in delaying the payment, but I haven't been able to find any more information about that.

48:45 In January twenty twenty four, Victoria's estranged husband, Dewan Williams, was sentenced to twelve years in prison as the mastermind of a nationwide heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine distribution network. During his sentencing hearing, a recording of a twenty nineteen call between Williams and Victoria was played in which he threatened Tory and her family. I did a little bit of Facebook stalking, and I saw that Victoria's adoptive parents, Mary and Robert, posted a picture in January twenty twenty three where they're embracing Victoria, who has a big smile on her face in the picture. So I'm hoping that with the love and support of her parents, that she is keeping herself on a good path. Wow, that is a lot of generational trauma. I know, it's just so really so sad. Like you alluded to at the top of the episode, people think that money makes you happy and it can take all your problems away, but that's not the case. No, definitely not the case. I have a couple questions for you. One is, why do you think Annie chose to end her life at the very same spot that her mother's killer chose to end his life. Well, the traumatic event never left her and she was probably thinking of him when she did it, and she knew that it had worked for him, and it was maybe a quick way to end her life. Yeah, yeah, maybe, I think. You know, obviously, her mother's death had such a huge impact on her life, and I think it, you know, it just was full circle at that moment for

50:16 her to end her life. In that way, her mom's death never left her. It was always, you know, at the forefront of her mind, no matter what she did. Yeah, and it's so sad. It really really a worry. I mean that's devastating too. I know she was really a baby when she saw her mom die. Yeah, and it never left her either. And no amount of therapy and love from other people can heal you sometimes, right, I have one other question for you, and this this may sound like a little bit more of a whimsical question, but I'm really serious about it. And the question is if you were an heiress with access to a family fortune, so you didn't you don't have to work, you could do whatever you want, what would you do with your life?

51:00 Because I think in some ways that can actually be more of a challenge. Like for Toy, for example, she didn't have to work, so I think that in some ways it was harder for her. But you know, what would you how would you choose to live your life if you didn't have to work. I would give all my money away, would you know? I would give a lot of it away. I would think, Well, whenever we play the lottery, I'm always like, okay, if we win we're going to give like half to charity, right, but we haven't won. No, we haven't won. Unfortunately, our podcast is doing you know, we're donating what we can with the podcast. But what would you do with your time? Oh, with my time? Yeah, I mean I don't know. I would definitely want to travel and have a good time.

51:45 But yeah, I think I know what you're getting at. And yes, I think you do need a mission. You need something to work towards. You need to do hard things for your self esteem. Yeah, you need to find some reason to to live, really, to get out of bed. Are you saying that Annie and Alex didn't have one toy? I mean, I think I think Tory, especially like, it was hard for I think Annie and Alex they both had a child fairly, you know, early on after they got married. So I think that gives you, you know, a reason, gives you something there. But I think it's hard for all of them just having, you know, having too much freedom in some ways is not a good thing. Well, that is the tragic story of Anne Scripts and her three daughters. The key takeaways for me are as I mentioned at the beginning of the story, domestic violence and abuse affect so many more people than just the immediate target of the abuse. Everyone deserves healthy relationships. If you're in an abusive situation, please get help by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at one eight hundred seven nine to nine. Safe Safe.

52:54 Rest in peace, Anne and Annie, and best wishes to Alex and Tory. I hope that they're doing okay. Do you have any update on Mikey. I don't. I tried to find any information about him, but I was not able to. But I hope he is also doing well. We worked really hard in the month of May and we had two bonus episodes and we had a lot of new listeners and it was a good month. We had a really good month, so thank you so much for listening. But we were able to donate three hundred dollars to the Bride Again Foundation. We had an episode earlier in the month about Shana Gardner and Jared Bright Again, and we said that we were going to donate to their foundation. I'm just going to redo something from their website. Kirst and Bridagin founded the Bride Again Foundation in September twenty twenty two after the tragic murder of her husband Jared earlier in twenty twenty two, Jared was ambushed and shot to death outside of his vehicle on February sixteenth, while his two year old daughter, Bexley sat strapped into her car seat. For witnessing this horrific act, Axley was taken to the police station, where she not only spent hours without either of her parents, but she was also without basic necessities for a toddler, such as a sippy cup or the correct sized diapers. The officers did their best to comfort Bexley, but she had they had limited supplies on hand. In an effort to make children's experiences at police stations a little less traumatic and scary, project Bexley Box was born. Bexley Box aims to provide comfort items and basic

54:30 necessities for children brought to police stations without their caregivers. So we're proud to make a donation to the Bright Again Foundation this month, and if you would like to make a donation, just go to Brtiganfoundation dot org and you can easily donate there. And thank you all, And we really owe it to all of our listeners for being able to do that. And one more thing I wanted to talk about. It's a current news story that I thought would be relevant. So we don't normally get political here in the Love Mary Kill Studios, but there is a a big political scandal in the news right now. I thought we would be remiss if we didn't talk about it. Okay, I'm talking, of course, about New York City's rat hating Mayor Eric Adams once again being ticketed for having rats at his property in Brooklyn. Last week, Mayor Adams announced plans for the first ever National Urban rat Summit.

55:22 The summit, scheduled to take place this coming September, will gather the best rat experts from around the country to talk about ways of mitigating the growing rodent problem in the Big Apple. In announcing the summit, Adams said New Yorkers may not know this about him, but he quote hates rats unquote. I think most of us hate rats. Don't go we I mean I don't. I mean I can say I don't hate them because we don't have them. If I lived in the city, I would probably hate them. So Adams went on to say, quote with rat sightings down nearly fourteen percent in our city's rat mitigation zones year over year, we continue to make progress, but We're not stopping there. The best way to defeat our enemy is to know our enemy. That's why we're holding this inaugural summit. Rat Mitigation Zones, by the way, they are areas with high levels of rat activity where city agencies focus resources to address rats and the conditions that support them. Mayor Adams says he hates rats so much that a few years ago, when he was the Brooklyn Borough president, he held a press conference that featured a macab display of dead rats killed by a new type of rat trap he had installed in the borough. Last year, Adams appointed Kathleen Karate as the city's first ever ratsar, tasked with coordinating across city government agencies, community organizations, and the private sector to reduce the rat population in New York City. Despite his alleged hatred for rats, however, Mayor Adams has just been ticketed for a fifth time for rats At a property he owns in Brooklyn. A health inspector observed

56:57 fresh rat droppings and a rat borough near the front staircase of the property. Adams challenged the previous rat tickets that he's received. Three of them were dismissed, but he had to pay a three hundred dollars fine to settle the fourth one. He said at the hearing that he had spent seven thousand dollars on rat mitigation at the property. So far this year, across all five New York boroughs, there have been fifteen, eight hundred and eighty four complaints about rat sightings, which kind of confused me because every time I've been to New York, I've seen rats, but I've never ever once thought to call and report it. But apparently that's a thing you can do. Not everyone is happy about Mayor Adams and his war on rats. However, after his latest comment about hating rats, PETA, the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, has sent Mayor Adams an empathy kit, including one of its popular Rats Have Rights coffee mugs. PETA executive vice president Tracy Rieman said, quote, instead of trash talking rats, Mayor Adams should focus on clearing New York's streets of the massive heaps of garbage attracting them in the first place. Pet is calling on atoms to stop villainizing rats for a problem created by humans and to address this issue with respect and understanding. Unquote, I mean I can kind of I think that's probably the better thing to do is to focus on you look at the underlying cause yeah, yeah it is. I had a pet rat.

58:22 Oh really, yeah, well it wasn't really a pet rat. I had an experimental psychology class, and in the experimental psychology class, you were supposed to train the rat, okay, and I wasn't very good at it. And my rat what I mean, I really didn't like the rat. It was kind of a mean rat. I don't know if they all are, but it bit me several times and I did not enjoy that very well. What were you trying to train it to do? Oh? You know what, I don't even remember. It was a long time ago, but we did have like little sugar pellets and you were trying to you know, that was like the reward. It was the reward. Yeah, I mean it was pretty much like a Pavlov situation where I think I was probably just trying to train it to like tap something to get the sugar pellet. Yeah.

59:08 The first time I ever went to a big city, I think it was probably New York where I first saw a rat running around the street. And it just it's such an icky. They're like so big, they're like little tiny dogs. You don't know if I've seen one in the wild ever. Well, when I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, I told you this, but I was walking down an alleyway at night to get back to my hotel, and suddenly I sensed that there was a lot of movement around me in the alleyway. And I looked around and there was like dozens of rats, like just scurrying everywhere. Well, what makes a rat worse than a pigeon or yeah, a mouse. I mean, I know they're big, and I know they you know, have pointy claws and you know, teeth. Yeah, yeah, in reality, probably probably nothing.

59:52 Right because of our episode was about ann scripts and the scripts National Spelling Bee just wrapped up. I think we'd be remiss not to talk about the Spelling Bee for a second. I know we did this. I think we did this. No, I was going to give you a couple. I believe the winner of the Spelling Bee was a twelve year old, which is so young to you know, know all those words. Yeah, tough words too, Like I was going to give you some. I don't even know how to spell any like, I mean, how to pronounce any of them. I'll give you just a couple that I know how to pronounce, desiccate d e s s I c A t e no no d e s I c c A t e two c's. I never would have thought that.

1:00:39 Uh, there are some propernouns on this this too. And if you're if, if you're a patriot bringing up old old words, ham trammick, am trammick. That's a city in the Detroit area. Capital h A m t r A m k h A m t r a m c k e k is a city in Michigan where you can get Poonski's on Fat Tuesday. You can go there any time up. They're known for their Pooonske's to cannery. C h I c A n e r y. Hey, you got that right, packet arm p A c h y d e r m those easy.

1:01:22 No, we did this on a patriot. I think we've already established that I am an excellent spell you're an excellent speller. You're excellent almost everything, almost almost everything. Well, thank you guys so much for listening and hanging out with us today. We appreciate it. Please rate, review, follow, and subscribe. Find us on social media or send us an email up Lovemrykill at gmail dot com and consider supporting us on Patreon dot com slash love Marykill. We have one tier five dollars a month for early ad free access and a monthly bonus episode until next time. Don't kill your you, don't kill your wife. That's a little ironic. He wouldn't kill a fly, but then he would stuff a beaver or whatever it means. Why are

1:02:57 you laughing about stuff in a b vergs made me left h