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As their affair turned increasingly rocky, Trahan was not without
her means of retaliation. Under oath, she admitted to affairs with
six other men during her ten years with Schmidt.
“Every time he wouldn’t leave his wife, you’d start dating
someone,” a defense lawyer later observed to Trahan. “That got
his attention, right?”
“Yes it did,” she snapped back.
Trahan said the liaisons reflected her deepening desperation to
break away from the doctor. However, their most certain consequence
was to provoke him.
Barry Bleichner, a Lafayette bachelor, met Trahan at a New
Year’s Eve party, and began dating her in early 1994. According to
his later testimony, Bleichner invited Janice to a crawfish boil
that spring. She accepted, then broke, the date, he said, explaining
that Schmidt had grown furious when he learned they’d been seeing
one another.
About a week later, Schmidt telephoned Bleichner. The doctor said
he knew he’d been seeing Trahan, and recounted certain intimate
details of the relationship, some of which were incorrect. Schmidt
seemed to alternate between anger and calm during this conversation,
Bleichner recalled. Before hanging up, the doctor also
mentioned ominously that he knew where Bleichner lived.
A short while later, Schmidt telephoned once more, this time to
apologize, and to ask that Barry not mention their conversation to
Janice. It hardly mattered; Bleichner and Trahan no longer were
seeing one another.
Dr. Schmidt was not finished, however. Bleichner was
working in his front yard about a week later when Schmidt drove up
and asked him for the return of some photos Janice had given
Bleichner of herself. Bleichner replied that he’d be glad to
return the pictures to Trahan, but not to Schmidt.
The doctor asked Bleichner if he’d like to fight, and told the
younger man to take off his sunglasses. “He wanted to look
me in the eye,” Bleichner remembered.
Bleichner did not take Schmidt seriously.
“Richard, you’re crazy,” he said.
“Yes, I was trained that way,” replied the Marine veteran.
“If you see Janice again, I am going to kill you.”
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