Jean Harris

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For other people named Jean Harris, see Jean Harris (disambiguation).
Jean Harris
Harris in 1988
Born
Jean Struven

(1923-04-27)April 27, 1923
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedDecember 23, 2012(2012-12-23) (aged 89)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
OccupationEducator

Jean Struven Harris (April 27, 1923 – December 23, 2012) was the headmistress of

The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet
. The case is featured on the TV show Murder Made Me Famous.

Biography

Born Jean Struven on April 27, 1923, in Chicago, Illinois,

magna cum laude from Smith with a degree in economics. After college, she married Jim Harris and they had two sons by 1952. In 1965, Harris divorced her husband, who died in 1977.[3]

Harris met Tarnower, a

cardiologist
(later known as the "Scarsdale Diet Doctor" due to a popular diet book he published), in December 1966, the year after her divorce. They then began a 14-year relationship. Though Tarnower showered Harris with gifts and exotic vacations, he had relationships with multiple other women during these years.

Harris worked as the headmistress of the Madeira School for girls in McLean, Virginia, while continuing her long-distance relationship with Tarnower. Harris was aware of Tarnower's other relationships; he did not hide them from her. Tarnower prescribed Harris multiple medications over the course of several years, including methamphetamines. In the 1970s, Tarnower hired Lynne Tryforos, a divorcée more than thirty years his junior, to work as a secretary-receptionist at the Scarsdale Medical Center. Tarnower then began an affair with Tryforos.

Killing

In late winter 1980, Madeira students were preparing to leave for their break when some staged a "sit-in" protest that denounced the educators and headmistress of Madeira. Harris was troubled by the actions of the students. On the evening of March 9, Madeira faculty members noted she seemed despondent and distant. It was later learned that she was physically addicted to one of her prescriptions, unknowingly at the time.

On March 10, 1980, Harris made a five-hour, 264-mile drive from the Madeira School in Virginia to Herman Tarnower's home in

not guilty, insisting that the shooting was an accident in that the gun had gone off accidentally and repeatedly while Tarnower tried to wrestle it away from her.[4]

Legal defense and trial

Harris was released on $80,000 bail raised by her brother and sisters and signed into the United Hospital of Port Chester for psychiatric evaluation and therapy. She then contracted the services of attorneys Joel Aurnou and Bonnie Steingart to plan her defense.

The case went to trial at the Westchester County Courthouse in

not legally eligible to inherit $220,000 Tarnower had bequeathed to her in his will.[5]

Harris consistently maintained that she did not intentionally kill Tarnower. Joel Aurnou later stated that he encouraged his client to plead guilty to a lesser charge, but she refused. Because the defense had gone for broke in their quest for a complete acquittal, the jury was not offered the option of finding Harris guilty of

GEDs or college degrees while imprisoned. She also taught a parenting class to inmates and developed the in-prison nursery for babies born to inmates.[6]

Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner for the County of Los Angeles Thomas Noguchi, along with ballistic and bloodstain expert Herbert MacDonnell, analyzed the case in Noguchi's 1985 book Coroner at Large.

In the book's chapter "For Love of Hy" both men come to the conclusion that Harris was innocent of second-degree murder, and that Harris had engaged in a struggle for the murder weapon, a pistol, with Tarnower, who was attempting to take the pistol away from Harris. Their evidence was based upon unused police photographs, and a 1984 inspection of the murder scene which had been preserved for four years.[7]

Eleven years after Harris's conviction,[8] Governor Mario Cuomo commuted the remainder of her sentence on December 29, 1992, as she was being prepped for quadruple bypass heart surgery. She was released from prison by the parole board and initially planned to live in a cabin in New Hampshire, but later moved to the Whitney Center, a retirement home in Hamden, Connecticut.[9]

Death

Harris died of natural causes on December 23, 2012, at an assisted-living center in New Haven, Connecticut at age 89. She was survived by her sons, David and Jimmie.

Cultural references

Harris' story was told by Diana Trilling in the 1982 book Mrs. Harris, and by the journalist Shana Alexander in the 1983 book Very Much a Lady: The Untold Story of Jean Harris and Dr. Herman Tarnower.

Harris' murder trial was depicted in the 1981

Golden Globe
nominations for the film.

In the 1995 movie Dolores Claiborne, the journalist daughter Jennifer Jason Leigh asks her mother, Kathy Bates, why she killed her husband. The daughter then excuses herself by saying, "Don't feel too bad, Ma. I asked Jean Harris the same thing once."

In the 1997

Tony Award
-winning musical about the murders called Scarsdale Surprise.

Harris and Tarnower are referenced in Christine Lavin's song "Cold Pizza for Breakfast".[10]

The October 4, 2013, episode of the show Deadly Women tells Harris' story from when she met Tarnower to when she killed him. The episode is called "Vengeance".

The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, has a collection of Harris' records.[11]

Barbara Walters did several interviews with Harris over the years. On November 16, 2015, Walters aired an episode on American Scandals called "Jean Harris: The Headmistress Murderer".

References

General

Notes

  1. ^ Schudel, Matt (December 28, 2012). "Jean S. Harris, who gained fame for killing her celebrity lover, dies at 89". Washington Post. Retrieved December 18, 2017.
  2. ^ Haden-Guest, Anthony (March 31, 1980). "The Headmistress and the Diet Doctor". New York. Retrieved September 5, 2018.
  3. ^ Noe, Denise (December 29, 1992). "The Jean Harris Case: From Behind Bars". Crime Library. Trutv.com. Archived from the original on August 10, 2011. Retrieved December 19, 2016.
  4. ^ Isaacson, Walter (March 9, 1981). "Jean Harris: Murder with Intent to Love". TIME. Archived from the original on February 22, 2011. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
  5. ^ Isaacson, Walter (March 9, 1981). "Jean Harris: Murder with Intent to Love". TIME. Archived from the original on December 6, 2008. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
  6. ISSN 0190-8286
    . Retrieved August 29, 2022.
  7. ISBN 9780671625719
  8. ^ The Jean Harris Case Archived April 3, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, TruTV Crime Library website, accessed November 24, 2008
  9. ^ "JAN. 17–23: Former Headmistress Freed; Jean Harris, 69 and Frail, Paroled for 1980 Murder". New York Times. January 24, 1993. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
  10. ^ "The Bellevue Years : Cold Pizza For Breakfast". Christine Lavin. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
  11. ^ "Personal & Family Papers, H – Smith College Libraries". www.Smith.edu. Retrieved December 18, 2017.

Further reading

External links
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