(7 of 7)
In hindsight, all the holes in Stuart's story look painfully obvious. Why did Stuart, who had been to Brigham and Women's Hospital several times before, drive to Mission Hill instead of toward his house after the childbirth class? Why did the robber not shoot him first rather than his less threatening wife? After the assailant jumped out of the car, why didn't Charles head back toward the hospital instead of driving around aimlessly? During the 13 minutes he was on the phone with the dispatcher, he could not identify any street signs or landmarks in a city where he had lived and worked all his life. During the conversation with the dispatcher, he never tried to comfort his wife, never called her name. In the ambulance to the hospital, he only asked about the seriousness of his own wound, and never about his wife's condition.
Days after Stuart left the hospital, he picked up an insurance check for $82,000. He immediately purchased a $22,000 Nissan Maxima, trading in the | bloodied Toyota and paying with a $10,000 cashier's check. Besides the brooch, he purchased a $1,000 pair of diamond earrings at the Ostalkiewicz Diamond Importers. There may have been more insurance money to come, from additional policies on her life.
Psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg writes of the psychopath who can perfectly mimic a human personality without having one: "They obtain very little enjoyment from life other than from the tributes they receive from others or from their own grandiose fantasies, and they feel restless and bored when external glitter wears off and no new sources feed their self-regard." Stuart had tired of selling minks and perhaps of his wife, who was about to realize her own dreams of a family, dreams he did not share. As stupefying as it seems, Stuart apparently carried out his monstrous deed only to remake himself into a glamorous restaurateur. Against such vanity and deceit, as Carol Stuart -- and Boston -- found, there is no protection.