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chapter 5

A Bombshell

Before Anita gave him the book about co-dependency, Paul knew the balance between his work and Monica’s work on the marriage was “a bit off.” He knew he deserved better, but he didn’t know to what extent or how to get it. The book answered those questions for him. And he realized how unhappy he was with Monica the way things stood.

Paul terrified Anita by jumping into action too quickly after reading the book. He decided he didn’t need therapy or other help. He would act.

“He went immediately from Point A to Point C,” Anita noted. “He began talking about leaving Monica right away and getting his own apartment. I was like, ‘Whoa! Slow down.’”

In February of 1994, Anita stepped out of the whirlwind and broke up with Paul. After a bad marriage, she didn’t need a relationship growing more serious by the minute with a man in an unhealthy and destructive marriage. In one sense, she feared commitment. If he divorced Monica, that changed everything. Anita felt she wasn’t in love with him then and she relished her hard won freedom. She needed to date others to be sure of her feelings. She needed to fulfill her own needs now that she was master of her own life.

Soon afterwards, Paul began writing Anita a love letter, saying he always wanted to be with her but wouldn’t push her into anything if that’s not what she wanted. Paul expected to wait until six months or so after he polished the last version of the letter on March 7, 1994, before giving it to Anita. He estimated that the date he would send it to her would be around September 25. Why he picked that date, he couldn’t explain. But he wanted to give his relationship with Anita time. Anita was afraid, he knew, of getting involved with someone so obviously caught in a co-dependent, unhealthy relationship with his wife. Although Anita had already broken up with Paul, they were still seeing each other as friends during this time. Paul believed Anita would change her mind and their relationship would again begin to blossom—especially after he and Monica divorced. He wrote in the letter that if she was reading it six months after he wrote it, then he and Monica were probably divorced.

As he penned those words, he had no idea what was about to happen during the months to follow.

Paul expressed his deep love for Anita in the letter and lamented the fact that Anita didn’t feel the same way.

“Why is it so hard to say or express that you love me?” he wrote. “Because you don’t? If you’re reading this, it must be the truth. I’ve thought very hard about what I am going to do next and it is not without great sadness that I must write this.”

That night in March when Paul actually wrote the letter, Anita went on a date with another man.

“I can’t compete with the other men you date,” the letter went on, “who are better looking than me. I’ll never be able to offer you anything more than my love, my care, my strong back and mind.”

He assured Anita that he wouldn’t want to own her, because of what she had taught him about codependency.

“I’ve come too far for that, but I do—and always will—desire you.”

He wrote that his love for her must not be enough if he had decided to give her the letter after all. “If you’re reading this, it means I give up.”

He told Anita they would’ve been great together, but he wouldn’t live a lie with her. He wouldn’t live with a soul mate who saw him as nothing but “safe,” as she had once told him. He said they’d always be friends and he thanked her for helping him recover from being dependent on Monica.

Then he told her how saddened he was to realize she wasn’t joking when she told him the Saturday before he wrote the letter that she didn’t love him. When she went out with another man the next night, he realized she really meant she didn’t want the serious relationship that he wanted.

“I know how Monica felt at the end of our love, grasping for something that was dead, trying to hold onto love lost…I’ll miss your counsel, your feisty spirit and your body more than you know. But I guess it’s time to let you go.”

Paul told Anita to call him if he was wrong about her needing to be free. He wrote he’d never forgive her ex-husband for abusing her physically and emotionally to the point that she might not ever be able to handle a committed, serious relationship.

“I love you and always have since the day we first met and, as in the ruby you wear, you will always have a piece of my heart. This is not a ‘Dear Anita’ letter, it is a letter of freedom on your part, because I finally realize I can’t hold your hand and walk life’s path side by side with you. I’ll miss you and Josh deeply. Give him my love, for I do love and respect him immensely. Forever yours, Paul.”

The irony was that Paul mainly wrote the letter to get his feelings out. He wasn’t sure he would ever send it. He put the letter in the glove compartment of his truck, mistakenly assuming it would be safe from the scrutiny of others.

Meanwhile, Paul dropped what must have seemed to Monica to be like a nuclear bomb. The macho-on-the-outside, passive-on-the-inside man became assertive and began openly questioning the state of their marriage. “I’m doing all the giving in our relationship,” he said, “while you receive everything.” His defiant comments and questioning caused Monica’s suspicions to jerk and she started looking for reasons for the change in her husband.

She took to searching his things. She went through the pockets of his trousers and jackets hanging in the closet; she checked under the pile of shorts and T-shirts in his drawers; she rifled through the desk where he kept mail and bills. On March 7, not finding anything in the house, she checked his truck. After first running her hand underneath the seats, she popped open the glove compartment and swept the contents out onto the floor of the cab. Immediately, she found the letter to Anita. It was all she could do to restrain herself from ripping it open. Then, finding that the envelope wasn’t sealed, she carefully extracted the letter, sickened at the sight of Paul’s handwriting filling the pages. Words of love to another woman! The letter held her transfixed. Whether or not Monica missed the gist of the letter, which was that Paul intended to end the affair, she focused entirely on the word “love.” Paul loved Anita. That meant he didn’t love Monica. How could any man resist Monica? How could Paul love someone else when he had Monica? More than furious, she felt deserted and very much alone as she read about Paul’s secret life.

Little did Paul and Anita know, Monica had a secret life of her own.

Later on after she discovered the letter, Monica showed up at the Farmington bank where Anita worked as a loan officer. Anita immediately recognized her as Paul’s wife. She had some friends in tow and was looking intently around the bank lobby. When Monica spied Anita’s nameplate, the group headed her way.

She has a sense of purpose on her face like she’s on a mission, Anita thought. I hope this confrontation doesn’t get too ugly right here in front of my co-workers.

Monica looked beautiful that day. She had finally lost the weight she’d gained from her pregnancies and looked terrific in a softly tailored, tan jumpsuit, her makeup flawless.

“I’m Paul Dunn’s wife. I just wanted to meet the woman who’s breaking up my marriage,” she said, loudly enough for all those around to hear.

Monica blazed on while Anita tried to gather her thoughts. While she spoke, Monica fingered an enormous ruby heart she wore on a gold chain.

“Is yours as big as the one I’m wearing?” Monica had also found a bill from a jewelry store for a smaller ruby heart like the one she wore.

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re talking about,” Anita answered calmly.

She did, of course. Paul had given Anita a gift of a small ruby heart on a gold chain.

“How can you live with yourself being with another woman’s husband?” Monica screeched, not mincing words.

“I’m not with him. I’m not seeing him anymore,” Anita replied softly.

It was true, but Anita could tell that Monica didn’t believe her. Suddenly Monica stopped and looked around at the craned necks and fascinated faces. She seemed to have no more questions. She had already achieved her aim of creating a scene.

“I think you should talk to your husband,” Anita said quietly.

Just then a heavyset woman came out of another office. She had no idea what was going on at Anita’s desk, but her face brightened when she recognized Monica. She came over and said hello.

Monica gushed, “Oh, hello. It’s so good to see you, Nancy.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry, I have to go now. Bye!”

With that, Monica and her friends strode out of the bank.

Relief spread throughout Anita’s tensed body as she slowly lowered herself to her chair. As she thought about it through the day and the entire scene sunk in, anger overtook her. She snatched up the telephone and called Municipal Court, asking to speak to Monica Dunn. She walked into my world; I can call her in her world, Anita fumed silently.

Monica was upset at the call and asked how Anita got the number, as if it were unlisted.

Anita spoke her piece. “I don’t have any designs on Paul. I’m not the reason he’s leaving you.”

The phone call was short and to the point. Monica was out-raged.

Afterward, though, Anita felt humbled, because she knew Monica was right. She had absolutely no business being with another woman’s husband.

Later, after Anita found out that Monica had had an affair while married to Paul, gotten pregnant and had an abortion, she fumed. “The monumental gall of that woman to come down on me.”

When Paul returned home that night, Monica confronted him and told him to leave. As always, he did as she said.

If Monica felt emotional turmoil, she masked it when she visited attorney Victor Titus, Paul’s friend. Soon after, she and Paul separated. She announced she was going to be seeking a divorce and contacting another lawyer who was not so close. She never made any claims of spousal abuse to Titus nor did she say anything about his affair or her own.

A few days later, Monica went to visit handsome Farmington Police officer Lawrence “Dusty” Downs. “She came into my office in the detective division and asked if she could talk to me about something,” Downs said, explaining it had to do with Paul. “Monica had a bruise on the right side of her face,” Downs said. “When I noticed the bruise on her face, that was the first time I had physically seen her. It had been common knowledge throughout the department, throughout the building I should say, that she and Paul were having marital difficulties. When she walked in the room, it was an assumption on my part the bruise may have been partially related to that.”

Her sister’s boyfriend accompanied Monica. On the occasion, Downs said Monica spoke for the first time of having suffered abuse at her husband’s hands and confided she thought he was taking steroids. Downs took photographs of her and gave her a domestic violence packet.

Downs said after Monica’s disclosures that he was concerned for her safety and her well-being. Monica hadn’t bothered to mention to Downs that the a few days before she had found in Paul’s truck a letter proclaiming his love for Anita.

But Monica was not always so upbeat. Her best friend, Vicki Maestas, who knew Paul because Vicki’s husband and Paul were casual acquaintances, said that Monica often came to work with tears in her eyes or eyes reddened from crying. Vicki worked with Monica for eight years and had been close to her during the time they were court clerks and even during Monica’s brief stint working for a bail bondsman. Monica told Vicki Paul constantly came over to the house to talk to her after she told him to move out and that he “harassed” her at home and work by calling or stopping by unannounced. “He was driving by, trying to find out where she was all the time and just constantly bothering her.”

Paul’s actions angered Monica. Maestas didn’t describe fear in Monica’s demeanor. Monica told Maestas she had snooped in Paul’s truck and found a letter Paul wrote to Anita. That they had had an affair was obvious. Maestas described Monica’s fury at finding out about the affair. Monica told her she’d made copies of the letter, keeping one and giving the other copy to her father.

One day at work, Monica seemed especially sad to Maestas. She and another co-worker decided to visit Monica at home after work. Paul showed up at the front door while the two clerks were inside. Paul and Monica spoke at the front door. Soon, Monica’s co-workers heard the two former lovers arguing over a document Paul needed. Maestas intervened, offering to get the document for Monica. In a moment, Maestas returned to the front door with the document. Maestas stepped outside and after handing the document to Paul, told him he needed to tell Monica once and for all if he wanted out of the relationship or not. Paul said he loved Monica, but he didn’t think he was in love with her anymore. Before Paul could say anything else, Monica came out of the house and told Paul to leave. He left.

As that stormy March spun by, a troubled Paul devoted himself to his children. He went to his and Monica’s house every Monday and Tuesday to see the girls. Just as he had done when he lived there, he did the laundry, cooking and bought groceries, which seemed to please Monica, who also went off one weekend to Las Vegas. And she seemed to have a good time when she went with Paul to a movie on Monday, March 29 and met him at a neighborhood pub on March 30.

Paul went to see Maestas and asked her who Monica had gone to Las Vegas with a few weeks earlier. Maestas said she didn’t know. Paul persisted.

“Am I going to have to look at this person every day? Do I work with him?” Paul asked.

Maestas repeated she didn’t know who Monica went to Las Vegas with. In that conversation, Paul also made reference to divorce and said he wasn’t going to “get screwed over” as he did in his first marriage. He didn’t get custody of April when he divorced his first wife. This time he would fight to get custody of Diane and Racquel.

On April 1, after filing divorce papers, Monica went out to lunch with Dusty Downs. That Friday, Paul stopped at Monica’s office and told her he’d pick up the girls Monday morning. He also planned to cut the grass, clean out the hot tub and go grocery shopping for Monica.

Monica’s mood darkened and became explosive on the night when she and her daughter, Amanda, followed Paul to Anita’s house. Perhaps she had been expecting that an obviously suffering husband would want to return home to her and his children.

Late in the day on April 3, Monica’s family had a barbecue at which Monica saw her friend Paula Jacquez, a nurse in Farmington whom she and her sister had known from their school days.

Paula and Monica had much in common as Paula explained. “I was kind of distraught over my husband. He and I had been separated for six months and my oldest son had gone out with a friend and had been away for a couple of hours. When Monica showed up at her uncle’s barbecue, she could tell I was worried. I explained to her how it was hard to gain control of a teenage boy whose dad isn’t around, and Monica and I got to talking and got to crying. We went off into the bedroom, and we spent probably two or three hours just, you know, discussing what breaking up is like after being married for so long. There was a lot of heartache and a lot of understanding between us.”

Paula went on: “There was a lot of time we were crying, and there were a few times we could smile, but Monica could talk and start something and I could finish her sentence and she could do the same for me.” Paula noticed Monica had lost a lot of weight. Monica complained that it was real hard for her to take care of herself physically as well as mentally. Paula explains, “I talked her into coming into my office and seeing my doctor and possibly getting something to help her sleep. Monica was concerned that Elaine, another nurse who worked for the same doctor and who was a friend of Paul’s, would get hold of her records and give them to Paul which would make a difference in the fight over custody of her children. I reassured her that I was sure my doctor wouldn’t let that happen.”

An upset Monica also told Jacquez, “I went to Anita Harris’s place and saw Paul’s truck there.”

“It was there,” Paula says, “she showed me a place on her elbow and on her side where she said she had been thrown into a mirror and broke it. She described the situation as him being a Jekyll and Hyde type of person. One minute he was the loving man that she married, the next minute it took next to nothing to make him fly off the handle.” At one point, the two women laughed bitterly over the fact that it is okay for a man to go off and have a relationship with another woman, but when the woman tries to get on with her life, it’s not okay; she’s wrong to do it. “We shared the same belief that in society it is okay for your spouse to screw around, but if you go out to dinner with somebody, then it makes you evil.”

Later, when Paul stopped by Monica’s house to drop off some Easter treats for the girls, he gave Diane and Racquel a dollar and Amanda five dollars. Monica said she also needed some money, so without counting it, he handed her the rest of the cash from his wallet.

All seemed peaceful for the moment between the two former lovers, but it was the calm before the storm. Paul had heard that she was depressed. Of course, what he didn’t know was the trigger had been Monica seeing him at Anita’s. Paul asked Monica if he could come into the house for some water. At first she was reluctant, asserting he could get a drink anywhere and wanting to know why he felt the need to come into her house for that. But then she gave in. As they walked through the house, Paul asked how work was going on the remodeling of the master bedroom. He quickly entered the room with Monica nervously trailing behind. When he noticed the master bathroom door was closed he approached and tried to open it, but Monica jumped in front of it. Her quick movement knocked down a mirror hung on the door and it broke. Later, Paul admitted he tried to get to the bathroom to see if a man was hiding inside, but Monica blocked his way. Paul left after the mirror broke and didn’t see Monica until Monday. He didn’t know Monica had seen him at Anita’s.

“You don’t care. He hurt me and you don’t care.” She repeated the words but would never explain who hurt her. Paul got the impression that she was raped on the trip she had made to Las Vegas unbeknownst to him. In his rage and frustration about her being raped and refusing to name her attacker, he punched a hole in the wall. He had no idea at the time and would have thought anyone crazy who said Monica had to get herself bruised somehow if she was going to make the battery theory fly and set him up for murder.

That Easter Saturday, Monica called her friend Vicki Maestas around 8:30 P.M. Monica blurted out that “it” happened again. Maestas asked Monica why she didn’t call the police about Paul’s abuse. Monica said Paul threatened to kill her if she reported his violence, because he risked losing his job. “She was very afraid of Paul. She was scared. In our conversations, she was scared.”

Monica told Vicki she had a domestic violence packet and she planned to file charges against Paul on Monday, despite the threats. She said she was scared about what Paul would do once he was notified about the charges, Vicki said.

Monica never talked to Maestas about suicide, not that night and not before.

On Easter Sunday, Monica paged Dusty Downs while he was at church and he called her back.

Downs commented, “Monica seemed distraught, somewhat upset.” They arranged to meet at the police department around noon. Monica arrived with Rick Jacquez, her sister’s boyfriend.

“She advised me that there had been an incident on the previous day and she now wished to go ahead and proceed with filing charges and a formal report. I explained to her again, uh, what would happen by the filing of this, this offense report would automatically start an administrative investigation. And I wanted her to be aware of that, that these people would be contacting her, uh, interviewing her in regards to that. I wanted (her) to be aware of that. I also informed her of her own personal safety that she needed to seek the civil remedy which is the domestic violence petition which would restrain Paul from any further contact with her. I even provided her with what we call the Domestic Violence Package to facilitate that.”

Downs explained she would have to file the papers in court. Monica promised to do so. She asked Downs to call her early Monday to ensure she didn’t back down.

But that never happened. Instead, the last explosive episode between Monica and Paul intervened.

On that Monday, at 5:30 A.M., Paul left Anita’s house and went to his apartment to change and get some cereal and milk for his daughters’ breakfast. He arrived at his former home about 6:40 A.M., just as Monica was backing out of the driveway with the girls in the van. Monica saw Paul and pulled back into the driveway.

“What did you expect me to do with three dollars?” Monica demanded as she left the car. The girls remained inside the van, Diane wearing her Catholic school uniform.

“I didn’t know I only had three dollars left when I handed you the cash.” Monica told him she was taking the girls to their grandmother’s house before she went to work. This puzzled Paul after the plans they’d made for him to watch the girls.

He got the girls out of the van, and they all followed Monica into the house. The girls started eating the cereal Paul poured for them. Monica asked Paul to dispose of some spoiled meat in the refrigerator and he did as he was told.

When Paul had finished the task, Monica made her angry announcement that she was filing charges against him.