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a murder in wellesley 145 his attorney call both Belinda and Ilse, insisting they bring someone from his firm to represent them before the grand jury. “We went back and forth about what I was going to tell the grand jury,” Belinda said. “I decided to play it straight and say it’s no big deal, but it had turned out to be a really big deal. Marty Murphy called and said I should take one of his people with me and I should be prepared by his people before I went in there. When I said no, that threw out a big red flag. They knew at that point that they had a problem.” 14 Sitting outside the closed door to the Norfolk County Grand Jury with Marty Foley on December 15, Belinda Markel could not imagine why her mother had been sequestered inside so long. Prosecutor Rick Grundy had told Belinda and Ilse they would both finish long before lunchtime, but as the clock passed 10 a.m., Ilse had been testifying for well over an hour. “Oh my God,” Belinda finally vented. “I’m not going to be in there that long,” she vowed with exasperation. The appearance of a crying Ilse with a trail of attending court workers quickly brought her daughter back to the painful reason for their presence before the twenty-four citizens who would decide whether Dr. Greineder should stand trial for May’s murder. Enthralling the jurors with her heartfelt memories of May during their upbringing in Queens, Ilse had been overcome with emotion, forcing a break in the testimony. “She had actually broken down, and they brought her out,” Belinda softly recalled. “She was upset that she lost her sister and she was upset with who did it. It was emotional. It’s turning a corner. From where we were standing this was a very difficult process to go through,” Belinda explained. “This is my family. This is a murder. So just the process of accepting who did it was very, very difficult for her.” Her mother calmed, “we sent her back in there,” said Belinda. “They 146 tom farmer and marty foley had all kinds of questions, and she had all kinds of answers. She started telling stories and was quite engaging.” Her kids at the neighboring Dedham Mall with Jill McDermott, Belinda had time for another extended conversation with Foley. Interspersing questions for the investigation with frivolous small talk, Foley asked one that could pass for both. “Would you have felt better if May had died of a heart attack,” he asked gently, pretty sure what the response would be. “Yeah, I would still miss her, but . . .” Belinda didn’t finish the sentence, but Foley knew what she was saying. “But she wouldn’t be here testifying against her uncle for killing her aunt,” Foley thought, still clawing for any reasoning that could lead this respected doctor and parent to methodically eliminate his wife in such a vicious manner. Belinda and Foley continued their conversation, slowly learning more about each other. Belinda frequently got up to pace around the waiting room, occasionally peering out a window at the Dedham Mall next door, where McDermott was trying to occupy her children. “He had relaxed questions that made sense,” said Belinda. “We talked about his wife, Cheryl. We talked about our families, but there were a couple of questions that stuck with me. I’m not the most trusting individual , and I was going through a process of feeling these people out to see who they were. I was now bombarded by all these new players that I would have to get to know pretty fast.” Belinda was touched when Foley told her he had lost his mother when she was just fifty-eight, the same age as May. He could relate to Belinda’s cousins’ losing their mother because he was about the same age when his mother died, but he could not understand their unconditional support of their father. Ilse finally finished as the clock spun toward noon, and Belinda took her place. But she was vastly disappointed when she walked into the grand jury room. Expecting more of “an official courtroom setting,” she found the grand jurors standing or lounging in mismatched chairs, a worn-looking wooden podium the only piece of furniture that indicated the judicial function of the room. Taking a seat, Belinda saw Rick Grundy casually leaning against a wall in a chair while prosecutor...
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