Henderson - Blood in the Snow: The True Story of a Stay-at-Home Dad, his High-Powered Wife, and the Jealousy that Drove him to Murder

Dear Reader:

The book you are about to read is the latest bestseller from the St. Martins True Crime Library, the imprint The New York Times calls the leader in true crime! Each month, we offer you a fascinating account of the latest, most sensational crime that has captured the national attention. St. Martins is the publisher of Tina Dirmanns VANISHED AT SEA , the story of a former child actor who posed as a yacht buyer in order to lure an older couple out to sea, then robbed them and threw them overboard to their deaths. John Glatts riveting and horrifying SECRETS IN THE CELLAR shines a light on the man who shocked the world when it was revealed that he had kept his daughter locked in his hidden basement for 24 years. In the Edgar-nominated WRITTEN IN BLOOD , Diane Fanning looks at Michael Petersen, a Marine-turned-novelist found guilty of beating his wife to death and pushing her down the stairs of their homeonly to reveal another similar death from his past. In the book you now hold, BLOOD IN THE SNOW , Tom Henderson examines a tragic case of jealousy, deceit, and murder.

St. Martins True Crime Library gives you the stories behind the headlines. Our authors take you right to the scene of the crime and into the minds of the most notorious murderers to show you what really makes them tick. St. Martins True Crime Library paperbacks are better than the most terrifying thriller, because its all true! The next time you want a crackling good read, make sure its got the St. Martins True Crime Library logo on the spineyoull be up all night!

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Executive Editor, St. Martins True Crime Library

This book is dedicated to Alicia and Erik Standerfer, whose pain I cant imagine and whose help was appreciated and touching. And it is dedicated to Ian and Lindsey. No one should ever have to go through what they went through. Thank goodness for an aunt and uncle who fought to become their new parents.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

Friday, February 9, 2007

Stephen Grant has a crush on the family au pair. His wifes about to arrive home from a business trip to Puerto Rico, but his minds on the au pair. Shes out dancing with girlfriends, and throughout the night, he texts her, flirting. He reminds her: she owes him a kiss.

His wife, Tara, is gone a lot, leaving him to run the house and be Mr. Mom to their two young kids. While he was the only dad at the kids bus stop each morning, shed worked her way through the ranks of Washington Group International, an Idaho-based engineering firm. She used to work out of the Troy office, but since October shes been working full-time in the companys Puerto Rico office. And then there are her business trips to London and Russia. When she is home on the weekends, he seems to alternately bore her and irritate her.

Verena Dierkes, the au pair? Shes been with the Grants since August. She finds Stephen fascinating, an older man at thirty-seven, six feet tall, trim, a long-distance runner with a tight belly and nice legs. Shes a nineteen-year-old German in the States for a year or two, a beauty, blond hair, nice smile. Shes still a teenager, just graduated the year before from the Gymnasium St. Xavier, a school that caters to top students in her hometown of Osnabruck. Stephen seems to her a man of the world who has been making her feel like the woman she wants to be.

She is the latest, and best, in a string of attractive au pairs the Grants have got from Au Pair in America, a London-based company with U.S. headquarters in Connecticut. For a fee of $7,400, the company screened potential au pairs. Verenas contract calls for her to be paid $285 a week plus room and board for forty-five hours of work a week. The contract is for one year and can be renewed. If Grant has his way, it certainly will be.

Verena knows from his messages that Tara has been delayed in Newark. Shes at Mr. Bs, a popular nightspot in Rochester.

Stephens messages to her, telling her he misses her, are cute, she thinks, but kind of annoying, too. She tells him to stop, her friends might get suspicious. They know its him texting her. That isnt suspicious, but the volume of messages might be. It doesnt dawn on her to just ignore them, put the phone away, that not being part of her cultural vocabulary.

Things had started heating up between them in mid-January, though the crush, at least on his end, has been building for longer than that, and probably on her end, too. A friend of the family, Michelle, was coming by with her kids then, and Steve told Verena that Michelles girl was going to play with his girl and Michelles boy was going to play with his boy, and putting a smirk on his face, he mustered up his courage, decided to go for it, and said: And you and Michelle can play. God, Id love to see that.

No way she could miss his meaning, given the smirk.

He was instantly mortified. Hed gone too far. Verena was going to be mad. But after half a beat, she laughed, instead. She thought it was funny. She thinks Steves funny. It makes him feel good. Tara used to think he was funny, too.

End of January, Tara was in London on business, and Steve and Verena were talking in the Grants big, four-bedroom reddish-brown brick Colonial in Washington Township, where what were recently cornfields twenty miles north of Detroits northern city limit have been turned into outsized homes and overextended mortgages. They found each other fascinating, the way people do at that stage. Steve got a look on his face and told her he was thinking another bad thought, but this time, he said, hed keep it to himself, meaning he wouldnt blurt it out like he did about Michelle and Verena.

No, said Verena, tell me. So he did. He told her he wanted to kiss her. Oh, I cant believe you said that, she said, coy not mad. They kept talking for another twenty minutes, standing in the hallway.

The next nightor was it the night after?she was in her room, getting ready for bed. Stephen came to the doorway. Youre so beautiful, he said. I want to sleep with you.

She laughed. They started talking, talked for four hours before going to bed in their separate rooms at 2 A.M.

Thats how it started. Theyd sneak kisses, short kisses that became longer and more passionate.

One day she was at the computer, typing an e-mail to her brother, when she heard Stephen behind her. Im going to take a shower. Want to join me? He was getting bolder, she more intrigued by the idea of consummating the heat growing between them.

No, she said.

Another night, just after she went to bed, he texted her from another room in the house. I want to have sex with you was the message. She typed: No.

On February 7, again just after shed gone to her room for the night, he stuck his head in. Good night. I love you. He came in and sat down on her bed. I wont repeat those three little words again, but I am falling in love with you.

They hugged and cuddled for a few minutes. Wordlessly, Stephen stood up, took her by the hand, pulled her to her feet and led her to his room. He leaned her back on the bed, slid down her panties, and gave her oral sex, a gift she accepted with ardor and appreciation.

To show her what a giving and generous man he is, he ended their sexual encounter with just that act. He didnt, not yet, anyway, need to have it reciprocated. This is for you, he seemed to say. Your gift to me can come another time.

So that was what Americans meant by swept off your feet. In a daze, she went back to her room. She couldnt wait to tell her best friend in America.