Ned didn’t like that so much.
Ned had told people he loved Karen. That there could be no other woman like her.
Karen saw an end to the relationship; it had run its course. Certainly. But she also saw a beginning to her own life.
Ned saw the opposite—and it tore him apart.
37
I
Back in the day when it worked, Social Security helped people. Because their father had died at such a young age, Barbara and Karen Osmun were afforded the opportunity to pick, basically, any college they wanted to attend and the government would foot the bill.
Not a bad deal for a couple of well-groomed, smart kids who would one day make productive members of society and great contributions to the world.
II
Two years after their father died, their mother remarried. Why not? The woman couldn’t wallow in sorrow all her life. She was attractive and eager to please a man. For Karen and Barbara, both now in college, the new man took a bit of the worry off their plates and allowed them to focus on school. Through the years of 1978 to 1979, Karen had volunteered at a local animal shelter. Through that close and personal relationship with the animals, she decided to make it her future.
Her vocation.
Her purpose.
“She just adored all kinds of animals,” Barbara said.
III
When Karen’s mother remarried, she and her new husband sold their homes and purchased a beach house on the Jersey Shore. It was a beautiful place that ebbed and flowed with people throughout the summer like a living, breathing thing. The salty taste of the beach air, the sand on the wooden floors brought in from the beach, the subtle crashing of the waves as you lay on a blanket and collected the sun’s rays, were all part of the nuance of a New Jersey summer.
As a unit, the Osmuns were not “overly impressed” with Karen’s boyfriend, Ned Snelgrove. She had brought him to the house for the weekend one summer. He was not what they had expected—and maybe no man Karen brought home would have been. But Ned seemed quiet and—innocently, perhaps—mysterious. That boyish charm that had impressed so many others failed to work on the Osmuns, who were, in many ways, tough people, and yet all-around average people.
What was clear to everyone, however, was that Ned adored Karen.
It was Ned’s “vibe,” Barbara said later. There was just something about him that was off—no one could quite put a finger on what it was exactly.
A dark cloud followed Ned. Something was “different” about him.
“He was our friend,” a former college buddy said, “so it was easy to brush it away. Ned was just ‘weird.’ But he was Ned, you know.”
Still, as time moved forward, Karen “tried moving away from him” in a romantic sense, but she expressed an interest to remain friends. So for a year, on and off, Ned and Karen dated and separated. They’d be an item, and then they wouldn’t.
Karen was cool with it. But, according to former friends and even Ned’s own family, it ate him up inside. His first real girlfriend and she wasn’t really his girlfriend at all. Just a part-time lover.
“It wasn’t like, ‘I don’t even want to see you again,’” Barbara said. “Karen never said anything like that to Ned. But it was more of, ‘I’m moving on—in a new direction.’”
IV
After that weekend Ned spent at the cottage, Elizabeth Anne and Barbara got to talking. Just about things in general. A mother and her daughter shooting the breeze.
It was nice.
Then Ned came up.
“He’s not quite right,” Elizabeth Anne told Barbara.
Barbara understood. It wasn’t any one thing Ned had said or anything he had done, but more of a feeling. A sixth sense.
Ned was strange.
Part of it was that Karen and Ned didn’t seem like a “hot and heavy” couple. They were dating, yes. But when they were together, it seemed the word “couple” didn’t fit. It was like an energy around them.
Bad karma.
There was no chemistry.
“Ned had a strange way about him around women,” said one college friend. “He liked to invade their space and get in their face. He’d get physical with women all the time.” Not in a fun way. But bothersome. Touchy-feely. Hugging too long. Too close. Embracing females intimately he had just met. It was extremely uncomfortable for those around him.
“And yes, before he met Karen,” that same college friend agreed, “Ned was a virgin. No doubt about it.”
V
Heading into the year 1983, Karen rented an apartment in New Brunswick. She had been the maid of honor at Barbara’s wedding—a dream come true for both—and was beginning to decide on which road to take in life. In the interim, near commencement, Karen had made it perfectly clear to Ned that he had been, more or less, a college boyfriend. She had no intention of seeing him in a romantic way after college. But she didn’t want to stop talking or even seeing him. But back in August 1982 she broke it off with him.
“Friends.”
The one word no man in love ever wanted to hear.
“Let’s be friends, Ned.”
Devastation. Rejection. What’s wrong with me? What have I done?
“I love you, but I’m not in love….”
Ned had confided in his sister near this time that he “loved Karen” more than any other woman he had met. Ned was confident he would never feel that way about any other girl, Mr. Snelgrove wrote.
Never, ever. It just wasn’t possible. Karen was the first and the last.
Ned’s everything.
So, when Karen said, “I cannot see you anymore,” Ned saw the end of the road. His one chance at love gone and forgotten. He had never been in love before. Heck, he had never even had a girlfriend before.
But now the free spirit, the girl who had grown into a woman herself and wanted to see the world, was out of Ned’s life.
Forever.
Ned crashed and burned. Reality check.
What do I do now? Ned must have pondered.
VI
After Barbara got married, the Osmuns began getting together again: cookouts, holidays, birthday parties. It was a great time in their lives, Barbara said later. Mom was remarried. Barbara was just married and talking about kids, and Karen was beginning her life after college, Ned Snelgrove completely in the past. Karen was once again the bubbly little girl she had been before college, before her dad had died, before her entire life changed. What a difference time made. She saw the future. She relished what she had, not what the family had lost. God was good. He was blessing her again. She was traveling. Europe and the Caribbean. Talking about helping animals. Being a veterinarian.
Life couldn’t have been any better.
VII
Karen and her mother were talking one night. The conversation somehow turned toward Ned. There was almost a silent agreement between them that it was best Karen had broken it off. But, “Ned wants to resume the relationship,” Karen said, adding that he was calling her, pleading with her to give it one more try.
“And you said?”
“I discouraged it.”
A polite way to say that she wanted nothing to do with Ned.
“He’s been persisting,” Karen added. “It’s somewhat of an annoyance.”
38
I
It was late summer. Barbara was down at the shore staying at the house with her husband. Karen had come down for the weekend. They all decided to go out to eat. Their mom and stepdad had gone away on a trip and hadn’t been around for a few weeks.
“So, sis, how’s it going?” Karen and Barbara were sitting, waiting for their dinner. They finally had a chance to catch up.
“Good…,” Barbara said. She was smiling. It was great to see Karen again.
“What is it?”
Barbara’s husband was smiling, too. A coy sort of “I know something you don’t” smirk.
“I’m pregnant,” Barbara blurted out.
“Oh, my goodne
ss…how wonderful.” Karen beamed.
Auntie Karen. It sounded…great!
Images ran through Karen’s mind: buying toys for her niece—it was certainly going to be a girl—and, of course, taking her to the zoo. Images beyond just watching her grow up. She couldn’t wait to spoil the child.
“Don’t tell, Mom, though,” Barbara said.
“You want to tell her, I understand.”
II
Christmas 1983 was quickly approaching. Barbara and Karen decided to buy their mom and stepdad a gas grill. Seven months pregnant, Barbara was starting to show. That nice little bundle of joy had pasted a brilliant glow over her that only pregnant women can pull off. Christmas, both Karen and Barbara knew, was going to be special this year. A wondrous time to share in the joy of new life and love and family.
What else could they ask for?
A baby was coming.
Karen was busy. Shopping and planning things and just being a young, single woman out enjoying her life.
“We have to pick up the grill,” Barbara had told Karen that week.
“I’ll do it.”
“Great. We’ll see you at Mom’s, then?”
The family had plans to get together on Christmas Eve.
“Yes,” Karen said. “I’ll see all of you then.”
III
December 23, 1983, was a Friday night. There was a party at a Piscataway (a town north of New Brunswick) house on the campus of Rutgers. Some friends of Karen’s who had graduated in 1982 were celebrating. Three friends lived in the house. They had invited sixty to seventy people. The party had been planned for a month. Although Karen had been out of school for a year and a half, and attending graduate courses at University College, she decided to go. It was going to be great seeing old friends again, catching up. Seeing who was making it out in the world, who was married with kids already, and what everyone was doing for the holiday season.
IV
According to Ned, he and Karen had broken up in August 1982. Since then, Karen had been dating several different men. Her latest boyfriend, Philip Costanzo, was a strong young man who lived across the hall from Karen in the same apartment building. Philip was slated, in fact, to spend the holidays with Karen and her family. Elizabeth Anne and Arthur Bilger (Karen and Barbara’s stepfather) liked Phillip, as did sister Barbara.
Philip wanted to attend the party with Karen, but had to work. It was no biggie. Karen would go, give her best to everyone, have a couple of drinks, get home, and then meet Philip later that night.
It had been sixteen months since Ned and Karen had actually seen each other on a boyfriend-girlfriend basis. In a letter, Ned later referred to Karen as a “girl I dated.” But Karen, of course, was much more than that.
V
There was one girl Ned knew in college. “He asked me out every Thursday night,” she later told me, scared to even come forward some twenty-five years later and talk about it. “But I always said, ‘No.’ I do remember being alone with him (during the fall of 1983). I went to a party he was throwing down in New Brunswick. My friend and I had an argument about staying. I stayed and she left. Ned gallantly offered to drive me back to [my apartment, which was two hours away]. No one saw us leave. It makes me sick now to remember that we ‘made out’ in his car, in my parents’ driveway.”
The one thing that saved her life, the woman was later convinced, “Thank God I lived with my parents.”
VI
Even if she had known beforehand that Ned was going to be at the house party, Karen would have still gone. It wasn’t as if she and Ned were enemies or at odds. In fact, they were still somewhat friendly. They lived right around the corner from each other in New Brunswick. Ned was calling, but Karen kept casually blowing him off. It wasn’t even hot and cold anymore. It was over. Karen had moved on.
“I wish he would leave me alone,” she’d tell friends.
Ned had arrived at the party at nine o’clock. It was just starting to heat up. Pot smoke filled the air. Kegs of beer. Spiked punch. Loud music.
Karen rolled in by herself around eleven. When she spotted Ned, she walked up to him. “Ned?”
“Hi, Karen.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m here just trying to pick up girls,” Ned said, half kidding, of course, trying to relieve the tension he felt between them.
Ned looked good: yellow V-neck sweater, lime green golf shirt, brown shoes, Docksiders, and rust-colored jeans. Karen wore a “tight sweater” with stripes, and jeans.
As the party wound down somewhere near 1:30 to 2:30 A.M., Karen decided to leave. She had to get up early and do some Christmas shopping, call the family and prepare for the next few days of holiday celebration. And then Philip would be calling later and maybe stopping by, depending on what time he got out of work.
Ned later said that he and Karen happened to leave at the same time. But others beg to differ. Most reported that Ned watched Karen walk out the door and followed her.
Later, Ned said, “[We] were leaving [the party] at about the same time, but we were not actually ‘leaving together.’”
Half of this was true.
They had—again by happenstance—parked rather close together. We know this because Karen pulled in after Ned.
Ned walked behind Karen as she approached her car. People were walking to and from the house. It was still loud, that thumping sound coming from inside the house as the stereo blasted. Even though it was late, the campus was also still bustling.
Looking at Karen, Ned could undoubtedly feel it coming on.
But now was not the right time.
Fight it off.
As they both got into their cars, Ned followed Karen. After all, he said, they had to go the same way home, seeing that they lived nearly next door to each other.
Lie.
And then, as they drove to their homes, Ned claimed later in a letter, at the last minute he decided to stop at [Karen’s] house instead of going home.
Lie again.
That urge, no doubt, had been boiling in Ned as he followed Karen home. That irrepressible fascination with the flesh that led Ned down a road of thinking that the only way to curb it was to render the woman, whoever she may be, into unconsciousness and then gratify himself. It didn’t matter that he knew her. Or had supposedly loved her. In fact, all the better. It would be easier to trick her. To fool her into thinking that all he wanted to do was “talk.”
39
I
So Ned took a right into Karen’s parking lot. He parked his car. “Hey,” he said as Karen got out of her car, no doubt unnerved by his presence.
“Hey,” she said. Karen was startled. She wanted nothing to do with Ned. Philip was going to be calling and/or coming over at any moment. It would be awkward, the two of them. Ned and Philip.
According to what Ned later said—an authority we should probably not take too seriously—Karen walked up to his vehicle and said, “Can you come in?”
She was not, he later insisted, surprised to see him.
“Sure,” Ned said.
II
Walking into Karen’s apartment, Ned had to think that whatever was going to happen next was not going to turn out positively. He understood those feelings of violence he was having and knew the triggers. Going into Karen’s apartment was an episode waiting to happen. There could be no two ways about it.
It was possible that Karen invited Ned in that night. There was never a sign that he had forced his way into her apartment. Maybe Karen thought that she could be friends with Ned. Maybe introducing Philip to him would finally cut the cord? But whatever the reason, she had known Ned for about three years and dated him for half that time.
He was certainly no stranger.
And Ned, of course, used this vulnerability to his advantage—something he would become an expert at in the coming years.
When they got inside, Ned said, Karen was the aggressor—again, something Ned would later associate with the women he
met and the violence he perpetrated. “We started kissing,” Ned explained. Then Karen, Ned insisted, took off her shirt and bra, and that was when Ned saw Karen’s breasts and lost all control of himself as the sight of her breasts brought out that other person in Ned.
Seeing Karen topless set off a series of receptors. Once that happened, there was no turning back.
Ned’s heart raced.
Then “these scenes in my mind began to take over,” as they had so many times before, Ned said. He and Karen “rolled” around sexily on Karen’s bed, he claimed.
Then they fell off.
At first, it was funny. A roll in the hay had taken them for a ride over the edge of the bed and onto the carpet.
How romantic. He claimed they laughed about it.
Ned, though, in his own way—comparable to no one, I should note—explained away his actions, claiming that when they landed on the carpet, his hands just happened—it’s worth repeating: his hands just happened—to end up on the side of Karen’s face.
When Ned found himself with his hands so close to Karen’s neck, he said, he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t control himself. The power of being so close to taking a life became overwhelming. There was that adrenaline rush again. That drug.
That unmanageable urge to kill.
My hands, he wrote, just ended up wrapping around her throat.
His hands just ended up wrapping around her throat.
When that happened, Ned said, he just had to begin squeezing. What else could he do? It was almost as if it were in slow motion. Karen’s feet weren’t even off the bed at this point.
And Ned began to choke her.
Without one bit of compassion.
Without a second thought.
Without any sense of remorse.
He knew what he was doing. He knew Karen’s life would be over. And he knew that he could—if he really wanted—stop himself. But all he thought at that exact moment, he later admitted, that exact moment when he held the power of life and death in his hands, was I’m actually doing it this time.
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