Jurors re-enact the crime and find Jean Harris guilty
The story was a classic one: a jealous woman, a man who done her wrong, a gun, a struggle, and a question of where to put the blame in a blizzard of passion. It happens every day on television, in films, even in real life. But the trial of Jean Harris, 57, accused of murdering Scarsdale Diet Doctor Herman Tarnower, 69, assumed the proportions of a national melodrama. During the three-month trial, as her precious privacy and guarded respectability were stripped away, the pitiably proud former headmistress of Virginia's Madeira School for girls became the centerpiece of a passionate drama—the old battle of the sexes, fraught with newer, feminist tonalities. In the end, the outcome seemed almost predetermined: the jury found Harris guilty of second-degree murder, of shooting Dr. Tarnower with the intent to cause his death.*
During the trial, Harris had admitted driving five hours from her home in Virginia to Tarnower's Westchester County, N.Y., estate on March 10 with a gun in her purse. Nor did she dispute that, late in the night, she pulled the trigger five times (though she could not account for all of the shots), wounding the doctor, whose lover she had been for 14 years, four times. But in her eight days of testimony she insisted that she only wanted to kill herself, and Tarnower died trying to save her.
The summation by Defense Attorney Joel Aurnou, 47, was emotional and dramatic. "Don't let Dr. Tarnower's life itself be tarnished!" he shouted. "Don't say he died as a result of a homicidal rage, of some sordid affair. Restore the dignity of Dr. Tarnower, who himself died trying to save Jean Harris." He ended his impassioned plea by quoting a poem of Edna St. Vincent Millay: "I miss him in the weeping of the rain . . ."
Prosecutor George Bolen, 34, was cold and indignant in his summation, insisting that jealousy over Tarnower's affair with his lab assistant, Lynne Tryforos, 38, was the motivating factor for murder. Argued Bolen: "There was dual intent, to take her own life, but also an intent to do something else . . . to punish Herman Tarnower . . . to kill him and keep him from Lynne Tryforos." Bolen ridiculed the notion that Harris fired her .32-cal. revolver by accident. He urged the jury to examine the gun while deliberating. Said he: "Try pulling the trigger. It has 14 pounds of pull. Just see how difficult it would be to pull, double action, four times by accident." Bolen, who was thought by his superiors to be too gentle when he cross-examined Harris earlier in the trial, showed little mercy as he painted a vivid picture of what he claims happened that night. He dramatically raised his hand in the defensive stance he says Tarnower used when Harris pointed the gun at him. When the judge sustained an objection by Aurnou that Bolen's version went beyond the evidence presented, the taut Harris applauded until her body shook.