A Murder in Wellesley: The Inside Story of an Ivy-League Doctor’s Double Life, His Slain Wife, and the Trial That Gripped the Nation

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a murder in wellesley 55 the bloodstained sleeves of his windbreaker were telling the detectives something entirely different. To them, it looked like the husband had picked up his dead wife under the arms from behind then dragged her savaged body off the path. 6 Marty Foley knocked on Dr. Greineder’s front door at exactly 1:03 a.m. The doctor was up and opened the door right away, the two German shepherds barking downstairs. “Marty, what’s going on?” the visibly concerned doctor asked. “We have a search warrant to search your house. Can you put your dogs out back?” Foley replied evenly. Dr. Greineder rushed down the stairs and came back with the agitated shepherds. Stepping inside the doorway, Foley let the doctor pass with the dogs and then followed him into the kitchen, where he kept his suspect in sight until he returned from the dogs’ pen outside. “Marty, what’s this all about, you already looked in the house,” Dr. Greineder said, his voice tinged with protest and somewhat whiney. The daylong relationship between the detective and doctor had been amicable, even to the extent the two referred to each other by their first names. “Is there anyone here with you,” Foley asked, ignoring the doctor’s question. “The kids are sleeping upstairs. I gave them sleeping pills,” the doctor replied. With Jill McDermott now at his side and the other investigators lining the stairs from the foyer, Foley showed Dr. Greineder the search warrant, telling him what they would be looking for before reading the doctor his Miranda rights. After the near fiasco trying to recover the man’s clothes earlier at the police station, Foley wanted to be cautious. Moving to the living room, Dr. Greineder, casually dressed in a warmup suit, sat in an easy chair while Foley took a seat across from him on a couch, the knees of the two men touching. Although Dr. Greineder had a 56 tom farmer and marty foley lawyer, the detective sensed he wanted to talk. “What’s this all about?” Dr. Greineder asked. “You were already here earlier,” he complained. “We found a hammer and a knife and a glove that were used to kill your wife,” Foley softly told him, none of the other officers able to hear the muted conversation. “We’re here looking for the left-hand glove and receipts and packaging and the other things on the search warrant, and we’d like your help finding them.” Thinking of the man’s children having to be drugged to force sleep over their grief, Foley looked into Dr. Greineder’s eyes and appealed to him as a father. “You could make it easier on your family if you told me what happened today,” the detective said compassionately. Foley’s quiet voice had made Dr. Greineder lean closer as the trooper watched for a reaction, hoping his quarry would “cleanse himself” with a confession, as others had done when Foley employed this interview strategy. Without breaking eye contact, Dr. Greineder slowly sat back in the chair. Foley heard rustling from the Greineder children upstairs. Behind the man’s quizzical eyes, Foley could sense he was considering an admission to the horror he had set forth that day. The detective was anxious for a response before his children intruded. He’s thinking this might be the right thing to do, an optimistic Foley thought, still searching Dr. Greineder’s eyes. He’s going to tell me what happened. Foley was convinced his suspect was going to confess—until the moment was stolen by the wrathful shouts of his incensed oldest daughter. “What are you doing here?” Dr. Kirsten Greineder railed. “You have no right to be in our house!” The daughter’s furious entrance from upstairs abruptly ended the cordial conversation between Foley and her father, smashing the detective’s belief that he was going to admit what he had done. “It would probably be best if I didn’t talk to you anymore,” he calmly told Foley, leaning back in his chair while the other officers spilled into the home with the onset of Kirsten’s ranting. The shouting had brought Kirsten’s fiancé, Aleks, and her sister Britt and brother Colin downstairs, threatening to turn the situation more volatile. But the Greineders agreed to go across the street to Jerry and Nancy Gans’s house. a murder in wellesley...