The Vengeful Heart

Chapter One Excerpt: 7

Scientists at Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston required a full year to complete their phylogenetic studies in the case. In the meantime, Capt. Craft filled in the rest of Janice Trahan's story.

Her affair with Schmidt had begun with high hopes and great expectations.

"At first, everyone thought he was a good guy," Trahan's brother-in-law, Elus Brasseaux, later told People magazine. "He was the perfect gentleman."

Schmidt even started showing up for family dinner on Sundays. "He told us many times that he wanted a family with her, that he was definitely leaving his wife," added Trahan's sister, Becky Brasseaux. "But there was always an excuse."

"The evidence reveal[s] that sex was the primary focus when [Schmidt] and Trahan were together," a panel of appeals judges later would note, dryly. That certainly appeared to be true in Schmidt's case. Trahan described him as an urgently insistent, sometimes violent, lover. He refused to pull on a condom, and forbade her to use a diaphragm. Since Trahan could not tolerate the Pill—it gave her migraines—she inevitably and repeatedly became pregnant.

Three times, in August and December of 1988, and again in June of 1989, Schmidt convinced her to seek an abortion. Only once did he relent.

That was 1990. According to Janice, Richard had forced himself on her, impregnating her once again. But instead of once again insisting that she abort, Richard informed her parents, both staunch anti-abortionists, that their daughter was carrying his child. It was another way of controlling her.

The boy was born in 1991. Schmidt allowed their love child to have his middle name, Jeffery. But little Jeffery never would be a Schmidt.