Episode 651: Jean Harris and the Murder of Herman Tarnower (Part 1)

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Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena. And this right here, you bitches, is morbid.
You bitches, it's valentine's day it is i sounded pissed about that i'm not it's fucking valentine's day valentine's day yeah no i'm i'm happy about the the valentine's day of it all i love valentine's day not because like we do anything really. No, we're not like, we'll do like a little something.
Like I woke up to a cute little like array on the counter this morning. Oh, see, that's cute.
Yeah. We don't always, honestly, I gotta like be real here.
Drew is a lot better at Valentine's Day than I am. Like I usually wake up to something and then I'm like, oh fuck, I didn't, I'm gonna like run out later and get you like discount candy.
I don't know why I said candy like that. But this year I did really fucking good.
Hell yeah. I went a little.
I went a little. I like upped the ante this year.
See, John and I usually like go really hard to like make the kids like a cute little Valentine's thing. I feel like when you have kids, it becomes more about like the holiday yeah and it becomes it becomes like super fun again because like it becomes like super kid again yeah that's always fun i know the magic of all the holidays like obviously like christmas is like insane when you have kids but even just like valentine's day and saint patrick's day even yeah like we so i always um like our bathroom that they brush their teeth in, that's essentially the kid bathroom.
Yeah. Because they've demolished it.
Oh, do you decorate it? I decorate it for all the holidays. And I don't go – it's not like I go nuts.
I just get stuff like some little banners. And sometimes I'll throw a balloon in there if I can find one.
Like that dollar section stuff. Yeah, like the dollar section has a lot of cool stuff.
So, like, it's super easy to be able to do it. Or, like, Michael's has a lot of stuff in case you guys are thinking I want to do it.
Yep. The little things are what I literally just put a banner up that says be mine and some of this, like, tinsel.
Like, this is, like, red tinsel. Cute.
And then I think I had, like, a little heart, like, stuffed animal on the counter. I love that.
And just in their bathroom. So, we do it we do it for like everything like we try to like just throw like a little banner in their bathroom just to make like the morning exciting when they brush their teeth I like St.
Patrick's Day when you put green dye in the toilet and you see the leprechauns peed and they found to flush they fucking love that I'm I'm co-opting that when I have it's so easy yeah and it's they love it yeah and we do like you know we do aprechaun toast for that, like where we just put like Lucky Charms and like frosting on toast so they get to have like a wild ass breakfast. That's the shit I can't wait for.
It's fun. And then like I stayed up until 2 a.m.
last night making, because I got a cricket. This bitch is a cricket enthusiast.
It is fun as fuck. When you figure out how to do it, it is so satisfying.
And so I stayed up until 2 a.m. I found they had like the girls already had like plain pink shirts, like long sleeve shirts that they never really like grab or they're just sitting in their drawer.
And I was like, oh, I can bedazzle these. Let me make this a shirt you want to wear.
Sat up until 2 a. a.m.
making them little Valentine's Day shirts, and they were psyched this morning. Aw.
So it was like, and then I made their lunches all like heart themed. Shut up.
Like I got these little heart cutters for their sandwiches, and they make them like into Uncrustables, so they'll like seal off the sandwich. They're really cool.
You can find them on like anywhere, really. I fuck so heavy with an Uncrustable.
And it's fun to make your own, because you can make different shapes and stuff yeah you can put whatever it just makes like a fun lunch and then like i just got some like heart shape shit and like pink stuff and all that did you cut the strawberries into little heart shapes no i didn't do that this morning because i did a trail mix instead of strawberries today but it was like a pink themed trail mix hell yeah brother yeah it was fun let's go it's a lot of fun and then john usually and i always forgot he'll get me flowers oh yeah a lot of times yeah like he'll have them delivered and then i end up forgetting and being like oh we don't because we're always like we don't do anything i know like why'd you do that and he's like i have to no it's relatable yeah i feel like you know you just do what you can you do what you can i got drew like a random lego set so i love that big into lego so i'm like any occasion i'll just get you a fucking lego set yeah usually it's as you get older and as you like kids come into the picture or even if they don't i feel like it just becomes one of those like it's a nice day yeah it's just fun yeah i want to get one of those um dunkin donuts donuts today that has the brownie batter in the middle. Oh, fuck yeah.
Why didn't we get those?

Because I'm getting

something delivered.

I already ordered it.

She just

raised her eyebrows

at me and Mikey

and Mikey is shimmying

right now.

Which is exciting.

Did you just see

the full mobility

in my eyebrows?

Yeah.

They move now.

Yeah.

Ash makes expressions.

I stopped getting it.

I'm in recovery

from Botox.

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

I love your face.

Thank you.

That's so nice i'm working on loving it too i should um but yeah i ordered some crumble cookies oh yay and they're all fun valentine's oh i'm excited there's one that's like a strawberry cake oh bitch on the it's like you know when you get a cupcake and you like rip the bottom off and you make it a sandwich? It's like that. Yeah.
I love that. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, we have, you know, this is an exciting day and bitch.
It's been an exciting week or two. Yeah.
So I'm without words for what's happening this week. Retweet.
So the last episode, you guys probably noticed that Andrew McMahon was on the show. Fucking wild.
Andrew McMahon from Something Corporate, Jack's Mannequin, Andrew McMahon in the wilderness. All of the above.
You know, posters when I was 16 in my room. Yes, those as well.
I have a Something Corporate tattoo. It was my first tattoo I ever got uh he came here to the stew like he came he's i we had such a blast with him like he flew from california here um we went out like we went out to dinner we got to hang at the studio like he was amazing he's just like a pal i know like immediately i was like wow i do feel like I've known you since I was 16.
You kind of have. And I've known him since I was six, if we're going by that logic.
Yeah, it was great. It was very funny because he was telling us that he listens to the show, so hopefully you're listening now.
Hi, Andrew. Because it was very surreal to me.
Oh, yeah. Because I was such a big something corporate, something corporate fan when I was younger, and I still am, and Jack's Mannequin, Andrew McMahon in the wilderness.
And it's funny that, like, to be in that phase of life and then to sit with him and talk about being parents together is, like, surreal in a way I can't describe. Like 16-year-old Elena, if you told her you're going to sit in your house or at dinner with Andrew McMahon and talk about parent shit together, I'd be like, what are you talking about? I'd be like, what? Cannot compute.
What are you talking about? It was really lovely. And he was lovely.
And it was a great experience. And it was a fun episode.
A very fun episode. We talked about Dancing Plagues.
If you haven't listened to it. Go check it out.
It's, you know, it's interview and it was a great experience yeah and it was a fun episode a very fun episode we talked about dancing plagues if you haven't listened to it go check it out it's you know it's interview and it's also we talk about some like funny like and crazy dancing plagues of history and he did the interview he has some great answers oh absolutely it's a great episode and we talk about fucking the devil a lot so you should definitely listen to you know like a regular regular episode doing butt stuff with the devil or fucking the devil a lot. So you should definitely listen to it.
You know, like a regular episode. Regular episode.
Doing butt stuff with the devil or fucking the devil. So that was fucking amazing.
And I hope you guys enjoyed that episode a lot. And, you know, hopefully someday we have him back on because it was a blast.
Yes. And we forgot to have him sign.
Andrew, if you're listening, you do have to come back. We forgot to have you sign our hand.
Not our hands. Not our hands.
But the hand. He's like, no, thank you.
He's like, I think I'll not come back. forgot to have you sign our hand you know if you guys not our hands but he's like he's like no thank you he's like i think i'll come back uh the hands that we have people sign when they come into the office if you guys have seen the movie talk to me which if you haven't go watch it because it's an australian film horror film and it's fucking brilliant a24 right i think it is yeah is it yeah yeah it is right i was like wait uh there's a hand in it that is like a main plot device of the movie.
And we have the hand in the office. Yeah, it's fun.
And we've been having people sign it. Like we had Bridget sign it when she came.
And we were going to have Andrew sign it because we're trying to have all our guests sign it. And we forgot.
So now you have to come back. So we'll set that up.
You don't have a choice. We'll have our people call your people.

So that happened.

That was amazing.

And then we have another amazing thing happening.

You guys are getting a bonus episode.

Yes.

This week.

In fact, tomorrow it's coming out wide to everybody.

Wide and, isn't it wide and? It's a simultaneous release.

So everyone's getting it at the same time.

It's a bonus episode on top of our two episodes.

Happy Valentine's Day.

I think that'd be fun. wide and isn't it wide and it's a simultaneous release so it's everyone's getting it at the same time it's a bonus episode on top of our two episodes happy valentine's day happy fucking valentine's day because guys well i guess it'll be later but this is a fucking banger of an episode i'm it's gonna be we haven't actually recorded it yet so it's gonna be really interesting to see if elena's alive afterwards yeah you're gonna have to see if i survive this one because that's all we can say i'm very excited to record it we're gonna be recording it in the next few days and ah it's a big deal so like be on the lookout if you're listening to this episode right now set an an alarm.
Know that tomorrow, in the future, tomorrow, a banger of an episode is being released to everybody as a bonus. Big things are happening.
It's our gift to you and also a gift to me. When they say treat yourself, Elena went.
I treated myself. Went big or went home.
She did not go home. Yeah, I did not.
not i went big it's wild so it's very exciting for that it's very exciting very awesome this has been a week that i can't quite grasp i don't think you ever will no i think that's all of our bid nasty yeah i think so aka business been. And with that, we'll get into this.

Let's go.

It was a very exciting intro

and super happy.

We're going to take it home.

We're like,

oh my God,

it's Valentine's Day.

This is a story about two lovers.

It's not happy

or celebratory

or any of the above.

No one expected that,

I think.

Yeah,

I would hope not.

You came to the wrong place

if that's what you were looking for.

It is an interesting story. Okay.
And I'll tell you up at the top, it's going to be two parts. Part one is definitely going to be a little bit longer than part two because there's a lot of kind of setup that we have to get through.
Okay. So this is going to be titled, if you're listening, Jean Harris and the Murder of Herman Tarnower.
So we're going to start with Jean first. Jean was, Jean Struven was her maiden name.
She was born April 27th, 1923. She was the second of four children born to Albert and Mildred Struven.
Struven. Isn't that a fun last name to say? I like that.
Struven. Yeah.
From an early age, she felt like she could never really live up to the high standard of her older sister, Mary Margaret, who was described as the family's good girl.

Mary Margaret just seems like a good girl name.

She's got to be.

Despite feeling like the underdog a lot of times, Jean did remember her early life fondly.

Albert and Mildred raised the family in Cleveland, Ohio, and they were definitely wealthier than most families at the time.

They had a maid, a laundress, the kids all went to private school. Oh, damn.
Yeah, they were doing well. In 1983, Jean said, I was raised by my mother, but my father was almost never home, which is sad.
That is sad. And while she looked back on most of her memories from childhood with a certain fondness, it wasn't without its traumas.
Her dad, Albert, by all accounts, was a very brilliant,

very successful man. But he also was remembered by most as a, quote, champion tyrant, bigot, and snob.
Oh. So like, not somebody I want to hang out with.
I was gonna say none of those things sound good at all. No.
But go off. But successful, I guess.
Yeah, that's usually the case. His temper was notorious, and bouts of anger and rage were set off by very minor inconveniences, which is not great when you have children, because I'm sure that comes with a lot of inconveniences.
I also think that's such, like, get it together. Yeah.
Whenever adults, like, go off the handle at the smallest thing, I'm like, I don't know. Children can figure it out, So why can't you? We don't tolerate that from children.
So I don't know why we're tolerating it from adults. And as a parent, your kind of entire job is to teach kids not to do that.
So how are you going to teach them not to do that when you're doing it yourself? Yeah. Just like figure out emotional regulation, man.
Yeah. It sounds very of the time.
Oh, for sure. very a father of the time very of the time yeah

shortly before her dad died in 1980 jean put it pretty simply when she said my father should not

have had any children that's so sad it is especially as his child saying that yeah she

did love him she admired his intelligence but she also recognized that he was a very unhappy man

and a lot of his anger and temper came from basically like taking out his own disappointment

I'm going to... recognize that he was a very unhappy man.
And a lot of his anger and temper came from basically like taking out his own disappointments on other people. Like his feelings of unfulfillment kind of thing.
Yes, exactly. One of Jean's oldest friends said, I think Jean admired her father very much.
And she also hated his guts. He was cold, ever complaining, impossible to please, autocratic, and nasty.
It's so sad that like, like children just autumn, like have this natural thing of loving their parents, even when their parents are like, so awful to them. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's like, it's almost sad.
You have to learn, I think sometimes to unlove your parents for your own. I can, yeah.
Peace of mind and like well-being. That was a deep statement.
It was a little bit deep and relatable. Yeah.
Anyway, the home environment in general, mostly thanks to Albert, was one of constant competition because he set his kids up against each other. That's not good.
And just tension because he was always angry. The only one of his kids who he seemed to approve of was Mary Margaret.
She was the oldest.

And like I said earlier, Jean just could never measure up to her no matter how hard she tried, which is really sad. I hate that idea of kids like trying to measure up to each other.
Yeah, you should all be equal and you should be loved exactly the same. You're each your own thing.
Yeah. Like you're your own entity.
And we love you because of that. Yeah.
That should be the message. But this type of environment was probably where Jean developed some of her worst and what would become most harmful instincts, especially when it came to pleasing men.
Yeah. I mean, things like that are set up in childhood.
She's being programmed to. Yeah.
That's her whole life is trying to please a man. Mm-hmm.
But at the same time, she also developed more positive perspectives, especially from her mom. When she was young, I love this, this her mom would tell her a curtsy doesn't mean one doggone thing i want you to always look people in the eye and tell them the truth you measure people from the neck up jean yeah bitch she sounds like a bad bitch i love that i think that quote is fucking great damn yeah you measure people from the neck up a curtsy don't mean one doggone thing that's badass.
I like that. I fucking great.
Damn. Yeah.
You measure people from the neck up. A curtsy don't mean one doggone thing.
That's badass. I like that.
I love doggone. No, not one doggone thing.
Nope. So while her father was pretty terrible overall, Jean's mother was stern, but in a different way, and she could learn a lot from her.
And it was from Mildred that she learned to treat others with respect and kindness and to actually value things like intelligence and talent over just money and social status. I love that.
They had money and they had social status, but her mom was like, these are important things, but intelligence and kindness and respect are more important. Yeah.
So for the rest of her life, these two very enormous influences would be at war inside of Jean and play a pretty critical role in her adult life. Yeah, because they're very like conflicting.
Very conflicting. Ideals.
Yeah. In elementary school, for example, she studied hard.
She did really well, but she never wanted to let her intelligence be seen as a bad thing. But the lessons that she learned from her parents that helped her succeed academically kind of became a hindrance when it came to making friends.
She was smart. She was very pretty, very well liked to a degree.
But there was also distance between her and her peers. One classmate who seems like a very surface level individual recalled, I never could be fond of Jean because she wasn't interested in clothes, styles, all the giggle dumb things that we used to do.
And boys, she hardly seemed to care about about them at all it's like yeah first of all not everyone is attracted to the opposite sex gene was but like that's a weird thing yeah well it's just like that i don't know if that really should be part of your entire personality style like like your likeability is based on whether you're like obsessing over boys and your appearance and like makeup and shit it's like uh-oh good luck with that damn school though quickly became jean's refuge where because there she got the approval and praise that she was really craving from her father yeah but never got later she would say i loved school i loved having a star on my forehead when i was little i loved sitting in the sunroom of our big house and doing my homework and i loved my teachers oh which really tells you that like she got everything she needed there and then going home like creped yeah which is also kudos to those teachers hell yeah we like hell yeah teachers but she threw herself into academics and extracurriculars she joined as many clubs as she possibly could attended as many school events as she was able to, mostly as a means of avoiding her dad. But ultimately, she built up a really impressive resume by the time she graduated high school.
Good for her. Yeah.
I have no idea what this case is, by the way. So I'm just like, fully riding this way.
I literally don't know what happens. I've never heard of this.
Yeah. Just putting that out there.
So if I'm sitting here being like, good for her. I don't know if she does something later.
I don't know what happens I've never heard of this yeah just putting that out there so if I'm sitting here being like good for her I don't know if she does something later I don't know what happened well it's very you know like it's like when we say you can be sad for the child or you can you can say good for her for who she was at one before all yeah whatever happens I will Jean lost her way okay but it's a lot more complicated than that. Okay.
It's, this is a very layered story. I ultimately don't agree with what she does ever.
But there's a lot of layers to it. There's a lot of layers to it.
This is not, there's a lot of gray area in this story. Yeah, I just wanted to be clear that I'm like, I don't know what happens.
No, honestly, good to say that at the top. No one think I'm like praising someone that I know what they did.
No. Well, and right now you're praising her for the good things that she did.
Yes, that's all I'll do. That's all you know.
And when we get to the, we're going to get to a part and I think you and I are going to feel. And I'm going to go, oh.
Well, and I think you and I are going to have very similar opinions. Okay.
There's a fall from humanity. Oh, wow.
Yeah. So after, but we're not there yet.
After her graduation in 1941, Jean enrolled at the Smith College in Massachusetts. Oh, shit.
She studied economics there and she actually minored in Spanish. Damn.
Like her high school experience, she threw herself into those studies completely. In her free time, she sang in the Glee Club and she joined the water ballet team.
Water? Is that just like a... I think it's ballet in the ballet in the water.
I don't know. Kind of thing? Probably.
Probably. I didn't know water ballet was a thing.
Sounds beautiful. But now that I think of it, is that at the Olympics? Synchronized swimming.
Synchronized swimming? I could be wrong. Maybe it is called water ballet.
Artistic swimming. So yeah, I think it used to be called synchronized swimming.
Yeah. But I think artistic swimming sounds better for sure.

It definitely does.

And it's definitely more what it is.

Well, I guess you could probably do it solo.

Yeah.

Because then technically it wouldn't have to be synchronized.

True.

Yeah.

So look at us.

We really worked through that there.

Look at us.

We logicked our way through.

But while she wasn't engrossed in her schoolwork, she spent her time writing to her boyfriend,

Jim Harris, who she'd started dating while she was still in high school.

After graduation, Jim went

and joined the Naval Air Corps

and was stationed in the South Pacific,

so they really stayed in touch primarily through letters.

And toward the end of Jean's junior

year at Smith, Jim got leave

and arrived on the Smith campus

to surprise Jean and asked her to

marry him once the war was over.

Wow. Which is so romantic.

That does sound very romantic.

It's very short-lived.

Oh, no.

But she happily agreed.

In 1946, when she was 23, they did finally get married,

and they settled down in Michigan.

Jim's parents were thrilled to add a daughter-in-law to the family.

They loved Jean.

But Jean's father could not have been any more disappointed.

In fact, he made zero zilch null attempt to hide oh he was outright with the fact that he did not like this guy according to journalist shana alexander albert was furious he warned gene that she was throwing her life away it was certain jim harris was not good enough for her and he made sure that jim too knew how he felt. Oh boy.
Which is shitty. Well, it's also hard because he spent a lot of time her life basically making her feel she's not good enough for him.
And now he's saying this guy isn't good enough for you. And she's like, what? I thought you didn't even give a shit about me.
She's like, what do you mean? Like, where's my standing here? Right. Yeah.
It's just a conflicting message.

Well, and it's also just, it's kind of a continued message of like,

nothing you ever do is good enough. Exactly.
Like, you can't even pick a guy.

Right.

Yeah.

It wasn't only that Albert disliked Jim Harris,

but he actually thought the entire Harris family were ignorant fools.

Damn.

Mostly because of their progressive political opinions

and support of the Roosevelt administration.

Damn.

It tells you a lot. Damn.
damn damn whether or not jean was throwing her life away was obviously a matter of opinion but in hindsight she did recognize that her marriage had a lot less to do with love than it did uh with defiance of her father eek she was she wanted to go against she liked that it She said, when I got married, I had no conception of love. Defying dad was the main reason I married Jim.
Also, unlike dad, he was very quiet. Which is kind of a baller statement.
Damn. She's like...
Again, I say damn. She's like, listen, my dad sucked.
He didn't like this guy. This guy's quiet.
I can do what I want. This guy's quiet.
This guy's quiet.

This guy shuts his fucking mouth.

He's going to let me live.

I appreciate that about him.

And I love that she's like, unlike my loud ass snobby motherfucker of a dad, this guy's quiet. This guy shuts the fuck up.
Wow. Yeah.
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Obviously, in the 1940s, women didn't have a ton of options for independence. So if Jean wanted to get away from her dad and her family home, which she very much did, marriage was the easiest and the fastest way to do that.
For sure. And at the very least, she did choose somebody who treated her with kindness and was entirely predictable.
Okay. Yeah.
It's a safe life. Yeah.
To those who knew her well, though, Jean's marriage to Jim didn't make any fucking sense she was very smart she was an independent woman we know she loved the art she loved culture she was the ultimate conversationalist she was passionate she had a lot of big dreams jim had smaller ambitions and he didn't seem to want a lot out of life he was he was a simple guy yeah you know yeah he's just jim well people are different all want different things out of life. It doesn't make him a bad guy for not wanting...
No, for not like, you know. For just wanting a simple home life, you know? Yeah, whatever fulfills him.
Yeah. Gene's friend Leslie McDougall recalled she was desperate to marry Jim Harris.
I never understood it. He was a little man in every way.
Gene had intellect. She was brainy.
Everything she got into, she did well. He loved to putter to trim the hedge.
As she got more interesting, he got duller. And in the notes, Dave wrote, damn, what a savage read.
I was dying. Honestly, yeah.
Yeah, chin chin. That is like shit.
I was like, whew. after the wedding though jean settled into married life and she was to be the perfect housewife.
But she also wanted to keep her regular job, which was she was a teacher at Grosse Pointe Country Day School. And she also found the time to keep a spotless home.
She cooked all the meals. She kept up with all her appearances that she needed to do.
She was doing it all. Now, while the schedule was without a doubt exhausting, very taxing, it was important to Jean that she apply her training and her intellect to a job that she saw as valuable.
And to her, there was nothing more valuable than helping to mold the minds of children. She loved teaching.
Oh, I love that. And she loved being a part of kids' lives.
Well, and it sounds like she had so many, like, influential teachers in her life. You can tell when a kid has great teachers because they immediately are like, I want to be a teacher.
Yeah. Because they see what happens.
Exactly. My kids have like this fucking, like the older girls have an amazing fucking teacher.
Oh, she's a queen. She's a goddamn queen.
I wish we could like literally say her name, but we obviously can't. I would love to say her name just because she's so amazing but she's she's amazing and they one of my kids is like i want to be a teacher like i love that and it's like that's a sign oh absolutely it is the right thing yeah i also think you're one who says that would be the best teacher ever oh my god yeah she's so patient yeah and sweet especially with like my god yeah i could go on for like an hour Also, if you're one who says that would be the best teacher ever oh my god yeah she's so patient yeah and sweet especially with like my god yeah i could go on for like an hour also if you're looking for anybody to follow on tiktok we haven't done a tiktok follow like go mr williams mr williams on tiktok his name is tell williams we left mr williams with our entire heart and soul he is a fucking phenomenal follower yeah a follower follow and and he's a preschool teacher and also a therapist yeah and he does it all he does it all he really does he also does savage reads he does savage reads he's hilarious i remember watching him in the beginning of tiktok and being like i want him to be my child's preschool teacher like he was he's so good and you can tell he cares so much.
Pre-K pause. Pre-K pause.
He always starts with that. Go follow him because he deserves all the follows.
He's Mr. Williams on TikTok.
And you will not regret it. You will not.
He's hilarious. Even if you don't have kids, great follow.
Exactly. He's a great follow no matter what.
Yeah. Well, back to Jean.
Her domestic responsibilities increased a year or two later when Jim's newly widowed father moved in with them jean really loved her father-in-law and she never complained about living with him but according to several neighbors albert harris expected to be treated as a guest in the house rather than an occupant who contributed to the work of a running home ah but you know what you live that long you lose your wife yeah your kid's got to take care of you at some point. At this point, he's probably like, you know what? Fuck it.
Treat me like a guest. I get to a certain age and I've raised you all up.
Yeah, you treat me like a guest. Yeah, come on.
But also, it doesn't sound like Jim was really doing a lot. And it's his dad, so that's a little tough.
But the workload increased again two years later in 1950 when gene gave birth to their first child david and then a couple years later a second child jimmy so they had their hands full yeah the expectations of motherhood were made even more stressful by gene's postpartum depression after jimmy's birth and remember this was not a time even now i feel like we don't have a full understanding of postpartum depression. Truly.
Picture it in the 1950s. That sounds nightmarish.
They'd give you like some meth about it. Yeah, that's a nightmarish scenario in the 1950s.
It's sad. So a lot of times, Jean found herself crying over what most people would consider very small things or no reason at all.
Like she didn't know why she was crying. She just was.
Oh, that sounds awful. It's very sad.
But fortunately, her postpartum didn't last super long. Well, that's good.
Even after it passed, friends did notice changes to her behavior. I think it left.
Well, you wonder what? Yeah, it probably leaves some kind of mark. I fortunately did not go through it.
I know people do did though. And I can't if you're going through it.
I'm really sorry. Yeah, it's you on the other side, I promise.
It's one of my biggest fears like when I do end up having kids. Well, people don't take it.
I feel like it doesn't get taken seriously a lot. No.
When you try to get help for it. It's scary.
It's very scary. Yeah.
But one friend said she made such an enormous effort, but she was extremely volatile. We had a cup of tea together every single day and I never knew whether I'd find a happy woman, a sad woman, or an angry woman.
Oh, that's tough. So it sounds like, I think I shouldn't have said that it didn't last very long, because I really don't think there's a way of measuring how long she was going through it.
I think she might have just got better at managing it. I was, maybe she was just pushing it to the side.
Yeah, but it was still affecting her in her daily life. But although she never hesitated to join the pta or engage with neighbors and parents of her kids classmates her ability to integrate with others did remain somewhat of a problem into her adulthood okay at the time gross point where she was living and teaching it's a suburb of detroit was home to some of the automotive industry's wealthiest families and there was a very rigid social hierarchy that was all based on wealth, of course.
As a school teacher and the wife of a middle class husband, she never really cared about material things. And since her childhood, she actually really tried to find value outside of monetary terms.
But because of the way that everything worked, she was a little bit of an outcast among everybody else. That makes sense.
Yeah. And she really struggled to make strong connections because of that.
That's rough. In the early 60s, Jean's dissatisfaction with her life was becoming even more apparent to those around her.
Her friend Bob Scripps recalled, Jean did not lead a very exciting life here. Her marriage to Jim was a real drag.
He was a genuine tightwad and very conservative, really a man of no imagination, whereas Jean had so much. Wow.
Everybody's really reading. That's the thing.
I'm like, I couldn't find anything to, like, outright say that Jim was an asshole, so I'm just like. It just sounds like he was kind of like a.
He was just kind of like a plain Jane, a plain Jim, you know? Yeah, a plain Jim. Yeah, Just vibing to his own beat.
I'm like, wow, nobody likes you. Nobody thought you were addressing.
Like, that's rough. That's sad.
I know. I feel a little bad for Jim.
Yeah. Does Jim do anything that I shouldn't feel bad for him? No.
Okay, cool. Not that I know of.
I couldn't find it. That's the thing.
I couldn't find anything that I could call him an asshole about. Yeah, like truly negative, like he's abusive or something like that.
No, it doesn't sound like it. Like, by the sounds of it, I'm just like, you know, don't care when everybody else thinks, Jim.
You know? I feel like he needs like a high five. I think you're happy with you.
For a burger. I'm like, come on.
Let's. You be happy with you, Jim.
Yeah. I want to take Jim to a theme park.
Yeah. Let's find a little excitement here.
I'm like, you know what, Jim? Like, there's these things called book nooks that you can make. I think you would love them.
There you go. And you sit down.
He strikes me as somebody. He would love a book nook.
The very minimal amount I know about Jim, I think he would fuck heavy with a book nook. Yeah.
And I'm saying that as somebody who fucking loves book nooks. I sit down and do them at night.
I love that. That's not a read on book nooks.
No, it's not. I got Alina multiple book nooks for her birthday.
Hell yeah. But by then, by that point, Jean had started taking courses in a master's program where she was finding a lot of purpose.
But when she thought about her future as a housewife and a mother in Grosse Pointe, that idea became increasingly unsustainable. She was finding a lot of purpose, kind of like pouring into her own cup.
Yeah. But I think she kind of like took a little like a scope out and was like, I don't know if this is going to last.
If this will sustain. Yeah.
Like, yeah. So her life with Jim didn't exactly end.
It kind of just fizzled out. There wasn't a lot of drama.
There wasn't a lot of anger. Everything just fizzled.
It just kind of was like, this isn't going to be forever. Yeah.
forever yeah all right by 1964 she came to the conclusion

that she did not want to be married anymore and she reached out to her friend and lawyer jeptha sherman i think it is who helped her navigate obviously a pretty complex divorce process at that time yeah sherman said some people should never marry and gene is one of them she's a superior person and there are not too many suitable matches for a person like that Jeez.

I know.

People are really talking her up.

They do.

Yeah.

So Jean andim's marriage uh jim harris's marriage officially came to an end in 1965 and while it wasn't the most amical divorce in the world i don't really know if there are many there are a few i feel yeah gene said gene was said to navigate it with a remarkable grace her lawyer said she was never accusatory about about Jim Harris. Everyone knew what he was.
He was never guilty of false advertising about himself. But Jean would never say a word against him.
She was an admirable client and a real rotten divorce. So it all, and in that sense, it like, it seems like he wasn't a bad guy.
It just wasn't going to work. And maybe he didn't want to divorce.
So it probably got kind of gnarly then gnarly then messy yeah but it's like when she won't even say like a bad thing about the guy it's like yeah feels like he just wasn't a bad guy that's what i think didn't really work yeah they just weren't meant to be i don't think they were meant to be no it doesn't sound like that and like obviously there are relationships where like it's your high school sweetheart and it works out but like for sure not all the But it's a tough one. And the older you get and the more life changes, you change a little bit with it.
Yeah. But by that point, everybody could see how unhappy Jean was in her life.
So when it came to an end to the divorce and the marriage, everybody was rooting for her. Yeah.
So after leaving Jim, Jean and the kids moved in with one of her close friends, Dodie Blaine.

She needed to move in with a friend to make it for a while.

And Dodie had also gone through a divorce around the same time.

So they spent a lot of time reflecting on and discussing what had gone wrong in their respective marriages.

And they both reasonably concluded that they had just simply chosen the wrong man, which I'm sure a lot of people who get divorced can relate to.

But this, of course, led to the question, if their respective ex-husbands were the wrong man, then who was the right man?

Who is he?

Who's the right man?

Who's this man for me?

Well, Jean had given this matter a great deal of thought.

Oh, had she?

And she said her answer was very simple.

She said very probably he was a Jewish doctor.

I like that she's just like, I know.

Specific. I know who the right man for me is.
It's giving Charlotte. It is.
Charlotte York from Sex and the City. Yes, absolutely it is.
During one of their many talks, Jean told Dodie, being Jewish, he'd be a man of superior intelligence and education, and that his, quote, Semitic background would also make him warm-hearted and passionate yet protective. She said Jewish husbands really take care of their women.
Wow, she really thought this one through. She did.
Yeah, I like it. So her desire to find the right man might have fueled her fantasies, but she never let it interfere with the responsibilities of her real life.
After the divorce, she felt a lot of guilt for disrupting her two sons lives. And she tried every chance she could to make it up to them.
She wanted to make sure that they had the best of the best and that they would have a great start to their adult lives once they were done with high school. Yeah, she seemed like a good mom.
That's good to hear that. Yeah, for a lot of women in her position, it was possible to rely on their parents for help in raising kids as a single parent, but not the case with Jean.
Albert, her father, seemed to have about as much fondness for his grandsons as he did for their father and, quote, flatly refused to contribute to the cost of their education. This is their maternal grandfather.
And I'm sorry. I think about how rad it must be to be a grandparent all the time.
All the time. Because, like, I love being a parent.
Yeah. Like, it's fun.
It's obviously, it's, like, hard. Well, that's the thing.
It's so fucking fun. But when you're a grandparent, you don't even have the hard stuff.
It's being a parent without any of the responsibilities. Exactly.
So it's just really like, you know, which I guess there's your answer right there. It's like, if you like being a parent, my goodness, you're going to love being a grandparent.
Yeah. Because it takes away any of the stress that you even were fine with but it doesn't sound like he loved he did not like being a parent and it's like but it's like damn yeah it sounds so fun what do you mean i think it's really shitty to he didn't like their dad and he took that out on them yeah it's like sure that's their father and like that's half of who they are.
But yeah, it's like that's not their fault though. Well, that's the thing.
That's not their choice. So why are you holding that against them? Yeah.
It's just, it's strange to me. Yeah, it really is.
But also Jean hadn't requested any alimony during the divorce process and she was only getting about $200 a month in child support, which for two kids was not a lot. No.
So if she wanted to ensure a bright future and this world-class education that she wanted to give her sons she was going to have to find a way to increase her income dramatically so now singularly focused she put her own phd work on hold and contacted the vocational office at smith college for guidance and finding a better job because she's an alum there yeah she told them she wanted to move on from teaching and work her way up to school administration

because obviously she knew that paid better.

Before long, the vocational office got back to her and they had an offer of a position

of director of the middle school at Springsdale, which was an elite all girls prep school in

Chestnut Hill, which is a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia.

Okay.

And this would pay about $12,000 a year, which right now would be about $117,000. So that's a great annual salary.
Hell yeah. She eagerly accepted, of course, and started making preparations to move to the East Coast.
So a few months later, she was settling into her new life in Pennsylvania and was already thriving at her position in Springsdale.

While she was dedicated to the new position

and dove in with a lot of enthusiasm,

she still managed to find the time to make sure

that her kids were also adjusting to their new home,

keeping up with their requirements

because they were both on scholarship,

you know, helping with their schoolwork, mom duties.

In late December, though,

she called up her old friend Marge Jacobson in New York.

And Marge was like, girl, you got to come out to New York. I am throwing a dinner party this weekend.
And, you know, you got to relax a little bit. You got to let loose.
You got to come to my party. Oh, damn.
And Jean was like, I don't know. Like, it's going to cost money to go.
And, you know, we just got the kids settled. But ultimately, she did agree to go to the party.
Good. Yeah.
She needed a little bit she had gone to like a different party but oh the party's fine but you know so among the attendees at marge's party that night was dr herman tarnower he was a prominent new york cardiologist at the time and obviously a friend of the jacobsons gene didn't know a lot about him and other than the fact that he was a friend of marge and marge's husband yeah but she was immediately captivated by him he had quite the presence he was very charming he had that like commanding presence it seemed everybody around him from his friends to his patients had an unyielding devotion to this man oh he's got charisma charisma uniqueness nerve and talent so that night gene and herman spent entire evening chatting. They were obviously each trying to impress each other with intellect and quick wit, banter.
Banter. When the party came to an end and they parted ways, Jean assumed she'd probably never see this guy again.
But a few days later, she was at home in bed with a backache and a gift unexpectedly arrived from Dr. Herman Tarnower.
Oh, girl. And when she opened the small package, it a book on israeli art and a brief note that read it's time you knew more about the jews he was a jewish man okay yeah although she had only spent one night talking with dr tarnower gene was completely taken with him and was convinced that she had finally found that quote-unquote right man that she described to her friend doty oh yeah she nailed it he he's a jewish doctor he really he fits the bill that she described and then a few days after the little gift the book arrived at her house a card arrived in the mail from dr tarnower and it read you were a delight to be with kept wondering if you could keep up with the pace also whether or not you were a good dancer okay Okay.
I don't love that note. Okay, thank you.
I don't love that note. I was like, okay.
It's a backhanded compliment. I kept wondering if you could keep up with the pace.
Like, okay. That would be my, all right.
That's very condescending. And also, oh, we get it.
Like, oh, yeah, you're so're so quick wedded you're such a hot shot like i

wonder if you can keep up with me oh fuck off yeah i very different time i don't love that that

would not tickle my fancy no that would not get me but gene gene was swept away by this hey to

each their own you know so this was gene's thing and she was very excited when another card arrived

a few weeks later this time from kenya where dr town hour was visiting asking whether, and she was very excited when another card arrived a few weeks later, this time from Kenya, where Dr. Townhour was visiting, asking whether or not she'd be interested in getting together with him in New York in March.

As it just so happened, Jean was actually planning to be at a conference in New York that very weekend.

Sounds kismet.

Sounds kismet.

So she eagerly agreed to meet him for dinner.

Now, throughout her marriage to Jim, one of the things that really irked Jean about him was his lack of initiative and, like, creativity.

Yeah.

He didn't really have any ideas or wants of his own, which made it so that she had to always decide everything. Yeah, and I can understand why that would be frustrating.
Yeah. So to her delight, Herman was the exact opposite.
He was decisive and firm, happy to choose the restaurant or the evening's activities. And Hai, as she began to call him, was thoughtful, adventurous, and very romantic.
So within a few days of the dinner in New York, flowers arrived at Jean's office and her house. Two sets of flowers.
And Hai called to check back in. It was like everything she wanted in a man, like she described to Dodie a few years earlier, had materialized and been handed to her.
It really sounds that way. Yeah.
So a few weeks later, Jean was back in New York, this time to celebrate Hai's 57th birthday. And over the course of the weekend, they saw a Broadway show together.
They saw all the New York landmarks, ate at some of the nicest restaurants. Unlike her ex-husband, whose interests were, according to her, pedestrian and vapid, at least to Jean.
High was cultured and seemed to pursue his interests with enthusiasm, which is, again, exactly what she was looking for. So within a few months of dating, Jean and High had completely fallen in love.
And High disclosed to his friend, Mark Jacobson, that he was planning on asking Jean to marry him. Whoa.
By then, Jean had met a lot of High's friends at the galas and the country club events that they went to on weekends or at the dinner parties that he would hold in his very opulent home. To those who knew them, their affection for one another was obvious.
So it came as no surprise to Marge that High wanted to marry Jean, even though their romance had been pretty short up to that point. Yeah, it feels that was like it wasn't a surprise but it was like a little like right now it's just like oh are you sure okay all right like i saw this coming but like i would have talked you out of it yeah i saw this coming but i was thinking maybe like a little more down the road yeah but in a letter dated uh march 1967 to gene from high he expressed those feelings in writing.
So he said, Darling, I love you very, very much. How can I tell? I miss you and want to share so many things with you.
Sharing that must be love. Are most people who marry in love? Yes.
I hope so. What happens? So few are really happy.
You will give me all the answers this weekend. carefully you will be transporting valuable cargo wow yeah he is he'll that's that's fucking molasses thick yeah that he's laying it on it's giving i'm in a place of sex in the city it's giving richard oh my god yes it's got richard vibes richard wow i kind of loved richard you can't not love Richard.
That's the thing. You got to hate him later, but you can't love him.
Yeah, I hate him at some point, but. You'll love him till then.
I get it. You did.
So that spring and summer, the romance deepened, which was reflected in their regular communications. High people get a wild haircut or book a spontaneous trip when life throws them a curveball.
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You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Spotify or Apple podcasts. It was clear from the letters that high was building to building up to ask gene to marry him hell yeah and over that long memorial day weekend he did just that giving her an emerald cut diamond ring oh damn posing in a very traditional fashion love that i love an emerald cut i love an oval cut that's what i have but i also love an emerald cut you're like just to be clear i'm like i love both hi's proposal came as kind of a shock to everybody who knew him best and had seen the way that he had dodged commitment time and time again in the past mrs arthur schulte a friend who had known hi for years said he always had very attractive women friends he was always very generous with time and money but he never married gene on the other hand little, if anything, of Hai's history with women and just happily accepted his proposal, which you can understand.
Since the early days of her marriage to Jim Harris, she fantasized about having a partner who was her intellectual equal, but who could also provide a sense of security, and she felt like she had found that in Hai. But the problem, though, is that fantasies don't usually hold together when they're subjected to all the complexities of the real world.
No. They tend to bend under pressure.
They do. And, you know, we're going to get there.
But Jean was ecstatic about Hai's proposal of marriage. And despite the fact that marrying him would require uprooting her life and starting over in New York, she didn't hesitate to say yes in the moment.
What she hadn't thought about, though, was how uprooting that life would affect her teenage sons, who had already had their lives disrupted by their parents' divorce just a few years earlier. Yeah, you're right.
But it did occur to her at a certain point. That summer, during a visit with Marge Jacobson, the reality of everything started to sink in for Jean.
And she said, Marge, I cannot marry high for a year. I cannot take those children out of school again.
I took them away from their father already. Well, that was, I mean, that was thoughtful.
Yeah. And I feel like that speaks to the kind of mom that she was.
Yeah. But you know, her concerns were reasonable, but they turned out to be actually completely unnecessary.
In August, just a few months after he'd proposed, Jean raised the issue of setting a date for the wedding so she could make longer term plans. And to her surprise, High hesitated, something that he rarely did in conversation, and said, Jean, I can't go through with it.
I'm afraid of it. I can't go through with it.
And I'm sorry. Wow.
Yeah. I didn't see that coming.
Yeah. everyone who knew gene expected hi's response to come as a big shock to her actually like it just

was to you but she responded very coolly she told friends it hurt for a while i suppose but i'm not very surprised he isn't a marrying man i don't really know what all the reasons are huh yeah so interesting yeah it took quite the turn it was like i it was so, you know, hot and heavy for lack of a better term. Yeah.
And like really reached a pinnacle point. And then it burned out.
Like. Yeah.
But it doesn't burn completely out. Yeah.
Eventually it does. But it kind of like burns out then goes.
It's like a heartbeat monitor where it's like up, down, up, down, you know. And then it kind of flatlines for a minute forever yeah okay so with marriage off the table jean put her engagement ring back in its box wrapped it up and sent it back to high not wanting to reveal her disappointment to her former fiance damn but to her surprise high called to the moment he received the ring and insisted that she keep it and a few days later he actually drove down to phil, ring in hand, and again insisted that she keep it.
Wow. That night, according to Jean's sons, she and Hai locked themselves in the bedroom and argued about the future of their relationship for hours.
From Hai's perspective, Jean deserved to be with somebody who wanted to marry her, and that just wasn't him. He just simply didn't want to be married.
So in his mind, the right thing to do was to remove himself from the equation. His decision not to get married appeared to put an end to the relationship altogether.
But in the weeks that followed, they did continue to see each other from time to time. And in the meantime, and between all of that, Jean threw herself completely into work to try to distract herself from just the disappointment of it all.
and at the same time, her chronic back pain, which she had actually struggled with for most of her life, started flaring up worse than ever. It seems like stress.
Yeah, anxiety and stuff. Yeah.
As soon as Hai heard about Jean's back pain from friends, he called her immediately and recommended a new painkiller and even went as far as sending her a prescription for the pills. So the distance from Hai, the painkillers, altogether, appeared to have given Jean some clarity around their relationship and she started to consider if she might be willing to compromise her wants, especially if it meant that she was not going to lose him forever.
What seems to have occurred to Jean was the fact that Hai's desire to no longer see her or marry her didn't mean that he didn't love her, just that he wanted to protect her reputation from anybody who might see their not being married as somehow abnormal. Because at the time, you didn't have like a long-term partner, you got married.
You're living in sin. Yeah, living in sin.
after all though high tarn hour was a fiercely independent strong strong-willed man who rarely compromised, and that aspect of his personality was probably not going to change so late in life, and she knew that. So one night, a few months after they separated, Jean wrote High a letter saying, Dear High, what a strange and wonderful and awful three months these have been, and what a lot of soul-searching thoughts they have evoked.
I know a letter from me is not what you want most in the world, but there are so many important things to say. Everything about us is important to Mihai, because I've never experienced love before until you, and love, I've discovered, means wanting to share every thought and sensation, in fact needing to share.
As far as never seeing you again is concerned, I won't let it happen, however much you protest. If your social engagements continue to be as pressing as they.
I know, this whole letter writing thing, I'm like, wow, this is so much more, like... Passionate.
Yeah, and dramatic. Yeah.
All that. I love a letter.
Yeah. Shana Alexander, the journalist I mentioned earlier, wrote, To Jean, the letter was a proclamation that she was a modern woman.
To Herman, it may have seemed a license to resume his lifetime bachelor habits. But whatever the case, the letter worked.
High called a few weeks later and did arrange a date to see her and the children in New York in the winter of 1967, thus beginning a new phase of Jean and Hai's relationship. It's impossible to know what Dr.
Herman Hai Tarnauer understood his relationship with Jean to be, but it is clear that they probably would have described it in decidedly different terms. To Jean, everything that was starting back up again was a restoration of the way that things had been, even though it was on a restricted schedule where she could only see him on the weekends or holidays or when he had time to see her.
For High, on the other hand, Jean's apparent compromise seemed, as Shane Alexander suggested, to have been interpreted as her implicit permission for him to carry on his bachelor lifestyle and just be able to casually see her when their lifestyles or when their schedules would allow yeah so basically she was like it's just gonna be that i'll see him on a limited schedule and he was like it's just that i'll see her on a limited schedule and in between then i can fuck whoever i want yeah this just doesn't sound like this doesn't sound good yeah Basically, it became an open relationship without ever having a conversation about it. Yeah.
Which is never good. Yeah.
An open relationship, I'm sure, can work. But there's got to be a sit-down conversation where limits and parameters are set up.
No matter what, you both have to be on the same page with what your your relationship is you're in a relationship exactly so to high's closest friends the turn in in his relationship with gene and his selfish desire to carry on exactly as he pleased did not come as much of a surprise when she learned that the marriage had been called off marge jacobson reached out to high to find out what had happened and she really only got a basic explanation. He said, Gene understands that we won't marry,

but I have promised her that I would take care of her,

and I mean it.

She's remembered in my will.

So she was in his will.

Damn.

Yeah.

This is so, this is so, like...

It's kind of progressive.

Yeah, it's very interesting.

It's progressive, but, uh, but not at the same time.

But, like, the complete opposite of progressive,

because it's Gene giving in to him you know yeah yeah so like it it comes off as this very like wow like they're so forward thinking and they're kind of like removing boundaries to make this work for them and it's like but it's not and well and ultimately that's not working for half of them you know like one of that half of them is completely compromising while the other one is not at all right and it doesn't sound i couldn't find any information to see that gene had other relationships too that she yeah you know filled her time with when she wasn't seeing hi so it was kind of like a one-sided open relationship which yeah that's definitely not ideal yeah and and again it's not i don't think it's what she ultimately wanted. No.
Which... Yeah, that's definitely not ideal.
Yeah.

And again, it's not...

I don't think it's what she ultimately wanted.

No.

I think she just didn't want to lose him.

This feels like desperation.

Yeah.

So she gave up her own wants and needs.

Yeah.

Which was really unlike her.

Yeah.

But to Marge,

the response was characteristic

of Dr. Tarnower's typical cold detachment.

Years later, she said,

the truth is,

I think High was incapable of loving.

He's Yeah. But to Marge, the response was characteristic of Dr.
Tarnower's typical cold detachment. Years later, she said, The truth is, I think High was incapable of loving.
He had tremendous family feeling, but without love. High only loved himself and was quite insensitive to everybody else.
Oh, that's sad. I know.
That's a sad way to be. It is.
And you wonder what he came from. I was going to say what led to that.
Yeah. Yeah.
For Jean, high selfishness was one of the things that actually made him such a great man in the eyes of others,

though.

He was driven to succeed despite the odds and that drive had pushed him to

become one of the most well-respected doctors in New York.

She once told a close friend,

high is great to be with because he's so selfish.

He does what he wants and that makes him a damn good company.

Is there anyone worse to be around than some self-made martyr forever telling you i did it for the children's sake it sounds like she was convincing herself and i think i'm sorry what i think a lot of people can relate to this sentiment of convincing yourself that you're 100 that a terrible quality in somebody is actually their best quality it's actually it would be awful if they weren't like this it's like that's that that is like the most like desperate please just believe me that that this is totally fine and that i would hate this any other way to say like somebody who's selfish is the best kind of person to be around. No.
They're actually, they're the worst kind of person to be around. That's just like diabolically untrue.
And it's also like, it's like this weird form of self-sabotage. It really is.
Because it's like, no, it's you be selfish. Yeah.
If you think that's a great quality, possess it for a little bit. Be selfish.
Do what you want to do, Jean. That's the thing.
You know? Yeah. And you don't even have to be selfish to do that.
No. But he is, you know, he was being selfish.
Yeah. And I just, you feel it really is like, it's like a form of Stockholm syndrome.
It really is. It is.
Well, and it's complicated because she let it happen. Absolutely.
So there are a lot of men that if they're allowed to be selfish, they're going to be. There's a lot of women.
I was going to say, and on the flip side, there's a lot of women who are super selfish and crazy. Yeah.
So anyway, going back to the story, one woman who dated Dr. Tarnower described him as, quote, aish bachelor prince accustomed to being pursued but at the same time high seemed to proudly reject the need for love and connection as a human weakness shana alexander wrote i don't love anybody and i don't need anybody became his proud and oft-repeated credo oh man yeah which clearly yeah something happened along the way.
Very clearly. Yeah.
Maybe something in childhood. There's got to be something in that.
Yeah, maybe like a first relationship. For sure.
Something is there. Yeah.
It's possible that Jean's perspective on Hai's personality was some kind of a defense mechanism, like we were just saying. Or it's also possible that she just completely romanticized his behavior to make it more tolerable.
I think it's a mixture of both. I think it is too.
But whatever the case, it seems unlikely that she expected high selfishness or his callousness would extend to his romantic relationships when it came to the emotions that he claimed to have loved. Yeah.
Yet in the years that followed, as they continued to see each other on a truncated schedule, Dr. Tarnour was carrying on relationships with several women during the week while Jean was in Pennsylvania.
It's also like, isn't that like, it's just, it sounds like a lot of work. I mean, yeah.
Aren't you tired? But it sounds like a lot of work, but it also sounds like it was filling his cup in a different way. And again, I think it points back to, I think he actually needed to be loved on a mass scale.
Yeah. And I think I'm looking at it probably, he's not looking at it through an emotional lens.
No. So it's not a lot of work.
No. Because there's no heavy lifting in the emotional department.
And he's kind of getting everything he needs out of it. Having his cake and eating it too.
So it's like, for him, it's's really not a lot of work he's not carrying on full-blown love affairs with people you know what i mean it sounds like no he kind of is or like his version of a love affair which is just to me it sounds like the flowery language and everything kind of comes naturally to him like he's a the charm thing like when he goes doesn't sound like a lot work. He goes right up to the point of commitment.
Exactly. And sometimes even makes that commitment and then back out.
I mean, proposes. Well, listen to this.
Yeah. There was, in some cases, these relationships that he was carrying on were short term casual relationships, but some of them were what I'm sure the women considered to be serious.
Yeah. There were two women that he proposed to, one in 1970 and one in 1971,

before ultimately calling off those engagements,

just like he had with Jean.

Damn.

So like, he would get right there.

Yeah.

And I do wonder, I could see this going both ways.

I could see it as he maybe was like,

I want to get married.

Like, I'm supposed to get married.

This is what I'm going to do.

Or it's what those women needed to stick around for the extra mile. Like, he knows what he needs to do to keep it going for as long as he wants to keep it going.
Or maybe he thought that that's what he wanted. Yeah, who knows? Decided to call it off.
Because it's pure speculation. Because, you know, I don't know him.
And he's not here to say, unfortunately. Oh.
So whether he was just completely oblivious or cruel can never be known. But High seemed, at least on certain occasions, to be under the impression that Gene did share his casual attitude toward their relationship.
In the two instances that he proposed marriage to other women in 1970 and 1971, he actually called Gene to announce his engagements. Which is a cruel in my opinion but i don't know if he thought yikes you know we're in an open relationship i'm also like did you think that like those women were gonna be down for that it's like he because i'm like is he just trying to like abide by the quote-unquote open relationship of it all and be like you need to know when I am because who knows if they had they did talk about a thing and again pure speculation possibly had a conversation maybe they had a conversation where it was like if you are getting serious about someone I need to know yeah so like you need to tell me so maybe he's like I'm I'm getting the most serious that's absolutely possible you never know I don't it's possible yeah I don't think that doesn't sound like there was a lot of like discussions around this the form of this relationship i also and again pure speculation i think this became a little bit of a game yeah and i think there was some satisfaction in stringing along and yeah pull holding off in some i, I mean, some relationships,

like these kind of toxic style relationships,

that's the thing, they become addictive.

Yes.

And you become addictive. To both parties.

Yeah.

To the-

The drama.

The back and forth and the drama and the, you know,

the love bombing when you make up and how everything's great.

And then, you know, like the ups and downs become this like ride

that you just can't take yourself off of.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, to most who knew him, those around him,

this, you know, calling her and being like,

hey, I'm engaged.

Oh, that didn't work out, but I'm engaged again.

Was just further evidence of his tendency to be a little cruel

and a little thoughtless.

But Gene, Tarnower's consummate apologist, tried to maintain a sense of humor about it, at least in public situations. She once joked to a friend, when he told me she had four children, I knew he'd never marry her.
Wow. It's just like, oh.
Damn. Again, I say, damn.
I know. As time went on, though, Jean took whatever high was willing to give, but otherwise focused her attention on her career.
In 1972, she left the school she was working at for a position as headmistress at the Thomas School, another all-girls private school. This was in, I think it's Rowayton, Connecticut? But the relocation to Connecticut brought her closer to New York, and a lot of her friends speculated that that was not an accident.
That she probably took that job so that she would have a shorter commute to see hi. That makes sense.
Should he want to see her, though? Mm-hmm. Because it was like she's, he told her when they were going to get together.
Yeah. Yeah.
Hi, weirdos. I'm Candace DeLong, retired FBI criminal profiler and the host of Killer Psyche.
If you enjoyed Morbid's coverage of the tragic murder of Jennifer Levin, known as the Preppy Killer case, you should check out my episode of Killer Psyche, where I dive deep into the psychology of Robert Chambers. I explore his troubling behavior, privileged background, and the psychological factors that led to this devastating crime.
On Killer Psyche, I use my decades of experience to uncover the why behind some of the most shocking crimes in history. If you are fascinated by what drives

people to commit such anus acts, join me for a closer look into the twisted minds behind them.

Follow Killer Psyche on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Wondery Plus

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Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today. Anyway.
I just know this. I know this.
Yeah. I know this relationship.
Yeah. Like, I'm listening to it.
I'm like, ugh. It's sad.
And the desperation on the other side is, that's rough. Well,, and again, going back to her childhood, think about what was ingrained in her.
Yeah. I mean, she grew up with somebody who was a man.
Who never saw her. Who never made her feel like she was enough and who she had to always constantly beg and fight for the attention or any kind of pat on the back or any kind of compliment.
And it's like, it does carry into, you know? Well, and then in going even further, so that was her whole childhood. And then she married a man who she felt was the complete opposite of that.
And that didn't work out. So she went right back to square one.
Yeah. And she was like, how do I, how do I manage to keep this? Yeah.
You know? And I'm sure she saw it as like a, her problem when obviously it wasn't. For sure.
It was just, that was, it was the kind of relationship she set out. And sometimes you don't even need to, yeah, sometimes you don't even need to have that kind of upbringing or anything like that to fall into that.
No. You know what I mean? I think it just adds a layer when you do, but you're right.
Yeah. Like sometimes that just happens.
I have a great father. Oh, Papa fucking rocks.
Who thinks i'm the bee's knees and always told me i was the bee's knees and like was great and is great and remains great and will be great forever and i still dated somebody and there was a similar kind of relationship where it was like i was constantly trying to hold on to this awful situation and it kind of was like i'll I'll see you when I see you. Which was literally like, I have control of the situation kind of thing.
So it's like, you don't even need to have that background. But when you have that background, I'm sure it's, if that was, and I'm only thinking of my own thing.
Yeah. If it was, that was hard to get out of, for me, who has no psychological reason to be trapped in that way of thinking.
To have a background and a trauma that builds upon that that's keeping you there must be like being in quicksand. Oh, yeah.
I can relate to it. My dad is not Gene's dad by any sense.
But we have a strained relationship. Yeah.
He wasn't a huge part of my childhood. And, you know, like I love my dad, but it's not my relationship with my dad is not my ideal relationship.
No. And my relationship with my mom, as we all know, is not super fuego.
No. So in my early years, like in my teens and like very early 20s, I was seeking out relationships where I would get the most most attention but they weren't great relationships by any means or any attention yeah any attention was good attention even like you know yeah but then you you either realize that that's a pattern and you divert from that pattern which I did because Drew is the most amazing man on the planet yeah or you stay on that road and it doesn't work out.
But it's hard. Yeah.
It is. Because I mean, I didn't understand, like my John, I didn't understand why he was being so kind and why he was saying like truthful things and being open.
I was like totally averse to it because I was like, what? Like, who are you? Well, and you know what? I also think obviously the father is a big part of the way that women pick partners i also think other experiences in life for sure like not to like bring it to a dark place but you were bullied yeah your first relationship was not iconic no and then your second one was not even less of a better relationship but then you as you get older you do you can die again divert from that path and kind of start to find the things that you like about yourself. Yeah.
And then when somebody is then, you know, confirming those things that they like those things too. It can be a little jarring at first.
Yeah. Because you're like, but then you're like, oh, shit.
You're like, shit. I do deserve this.
Yeah, that's the thing. I think, I hope, and I wish that every woman or person got to that point.
Well, that's why like I'm like everyone listening yeah you deserve it you deserve if you think you don't deserve it and you're being like this person's too nice I don't deserve this you deserve it you absolutely so shut up yeah everybody deserves some kind of shut up yeah take it we've been so like self-help lately we yeah because I just feel like it's just necessary we're in a place of positivity we're trying to i'm trying to bring more positivity more light around everywhere yeah you know we need it the world needs it yeah well so back to the story i know we're really going off it's like old school today some some of you guys missed that so this is i know and we missed that we missed that and we're allowed to go off track so bitch here it is i do what i want yeah so most of the time uh like so she took a new job and again she took the job at least in part to be closer to be a little closer so she took her new job at the time of her move private schools around the country were going through kind of a rough period there was a national recession going on and obviously widespread financial difficulties were causing enrollments to drop, which of course then dramatically affected the budgets at the Thomas School and others like it. In her time at Springside where she used to work, Jean had actually gained a reputation for being a very tough but very efficient administrator.
So the offer of the new position at the Thomas School came with the understanding that she would be expected to turn things around for the struggling institution. And one of the big things that they needed from her was to improve enrollment, among other things.
So that was a very high stress, very high pressure job. And I think in a previous point in her life, it would have been a great job for her.
At this point in her life, it did not suit her in the slightest. She had always been a little bit moody and kind of irritable at times.
But after taking the job at the Thomas School, everybody noticed that she was becoming even more unpredictable. She would often lose her composure and even scream at students over the slightest things.
And things at the school were a lot more dire than she even anticipated. and she was very much in over her head.
It was a lot more than just one person was going to be able to pass. In 1975, the Thomas School actually closed permanently.
Oh, damn. And Jean found herself out of work, and she was forced to take a job with the Allied Maintenance Corporation, which was a janitorial supply company.
It paid well, the job, but for Jean, who always wanted her work to contribute to the betterment of children, it was a slog. And even worse, it didn't really carry any of the prestige or social status that she enjoyed as being a headmistress at an elite private school.
So while her professional life had become mundane and disappointing, her personal life was really in no better shape. Things with Hai hadn't changed,

and her chronic back problems were persisting, even getting worse, and actually caused her to develop a heavy reliance on desoxin, which was a prescription painkiller prescribed to her by Dr. Tarnower.
Oh. It's an interesting choice of a painkiller.
Yeah. Throughout the 1970s and into the early 80s, desoxin uh a brand name for the generic drug methamphetamine was technically approved for the treatment of adhd but was also approved by the fda for the off-label treatment of obesity and narcolepsy among other things essentially they said just do meth about it that i was just i was like they were so wily back then like they were just like just do meth about it and when you think about it this is the 70s that's like not that long ago i mean now now it really is fuck we're all thinking of it in like 2000 i think of everything yeah 50 years yeah damn because i always Yeah, damn.
Because I always think the 90s were 10 years ago. So it's like this is hard for me to comprehend.
Yeah, I'd be like 12 if that was the case or even younger. Or just not even exist.
I don't know math. But let's get back to the math.
Like many stimulants, disoxone, aka meth, had some serious physical and psychological side effects. Including, it's a last resort for a lot of people at this point.
Yeah. But back then, they just threw it right at you.
But a resort. Well, back then, they were just like, here, do this.
But the side effects included increased heart rate, rapid breathing, tremors, restlessness, increased body temperature, euphoria, but unfortunately, dysphoria as well, grandiosity, repetitive and obsessive behaviors the list goes on oh boy these side effects also tended to be more common in people who were not diagnosed with adhd because this was a medicine to treat adhd so if you don't have that the side effects are going to be worse yeah for sure gene experienced many of those uh side effects listed above because she did not have adhd and she even experienced other side effects as well oh man according to sheena alexander desoxone is not just speed but high speed it hits the central nervous system five to ten times faster than ordinary amphetamines rather in the manner of cocaine wow so it's snap instant like it hits you Oh, that's scary it is it absolutely is yeah so aside from that yeah things started looking up in mid 1977 aside from the aside from the meth of it all things were looking up in mid 1977 jean learned about an opening for another headmistress position at the madeira school which again was one of the most uh the nation's most prestigious private schools in Washington, D.C. The job actually paid less than what she was making at Allied Maintenance and would require her to move further from New York, and that meant further from high turnover.
But for somebody in her field, the job was considered a crowning achievement because of the prestigious nature. Thanks to the desoxen, Jean's back pain was manageable and helped her accomplish far more than she might have otherwise been able to, which impressed the board at Madeira, and soon she was installed as the school's new headmistress.
Damn. So the job was a welcome distraction for her because her life had become really lonely at this point.
Her kids had left for school for college college, and after college they went on to starting families of their own, going to find jobs, that whole thing. So she was by herself.
And when she wasn't at work, she spent a lot of her time just alone. And on the increasingly rare occasions when she and Hai did spend time together, it was clear that things between them had really changed.
Once assertive and vibrant, Jean was very demure now in High's presence and didn't participate in a lot of conversations the way that she had in the past. Ooh.
And for his part, High seemed more distant and cold with Jean than he had ever been. Oh, no.
He rarely told her that he loved her. And actually, according to people who knew them, kind of seemed to delight in withholding affection from her.

That sucks.

I think it got to his head a little bit.

Yeah.

Like the nature of their relationship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could see that.

You know?

It's easy for that to happen.

It is, yeah.

The change in Dr. Tarnower's attitude towards Jean

may have had something to do with his ongoing relationship with a woman named Lynn Tyferos, who was his lab assistant at the Scarsdale Medical Group. Lynn and Hai dated kind of casually for a few years, but by the time Gene started at the Madeira School in 1977, Lynn and Hai had become more serious.
Like his other relationships, Hai's relationship with Lynn was not a secret and obviously wasn't something he was trying to keep from Jean. But in the past, Jean had always tried to maintain a casual attitude about Hai dating other women, including Lynn herself.
But the more and more time they were spending together, Lynn and Hai, it was clear that something was different here. The relationship seemed far more serious.
And for probably the first time in her relationship with him, Jean started to feel uncontrollable jealousy. Oh, no.
Which I'm sure the meth didn't help. I'm sure that did not help.
Probably not. Jean's feelings of jealousy were often exacerbated by the overlapping presence of she and Lynn in Dr.
Tarnower's life. Yeah.
That's going to hard. Oh yeah, like for instance on one occasion in July 1976, Jean was spending the weekend at High's apartment in New York and Lynn just arrived to the apartment with her kids to use his pool.
Oof. So his kids just hop in the pool and Lynn starts painting the patio furniture where, like around where Jean was sitting.
So Jean tried to ignore her for a little bit, but finally turned to Lynn and said, does it not seem bizarre to you, Lynn, that you're here painting his furniture while I'm here? It seems real bizarre. It seems bizarre.
The whole thing seems bizarre to me, Jean. Lynn apparently didn't understand what she meant.
And Jean rephrased the question and said, Lynn, why the hell are you here? And in response lynn said i'm here because i'm allowed to be and she kept painting oh damn i'm like girls why do you want this yeah it's like girls that's when you do what what i did you band together up you get those girlies together have you ever oh my god if anybody is looking for like, like, it's not even like a rom-com. I hate to say this, but it's a chick flick.
Yeah. The Other Woman.
Oh, yeah. Such a good movie.
Remember we watched that with Ma once? Yes. It's such a good movie.
We absolutely did. I love that movie.
I'm telling you, best thing you can do. Band together and ruin his life.
Yeah. That's all.
Not in in this case but no so lynn has never uh spoken publicly about her relationship with herman tarnauer and dr tarnauer is unable to speak for himself so we only have gene's interpretation of events which are probably biased yeah but still to the outside observer it did seem that while he might not have orchestrated the run-ins between lynn and gene dr Tarnauer still got a certain amount of pleasure that came from the drama, you know? Yeah. In fact, according to Alexander, many observers surmise that Tarnauer deliberately encouraged each woman to be jealous of the next in order to feed his own ego.
He encourages Jean to think of Lynn as a slut. To Lynn, he evidently portrays Jean as a bothersome old lady.
Oh, man. By the way, that's a quote.
That's not my words. Yeah.
In 1977, shortly before she started her job at the Madeira School, Jean actually started getting harassing phone calls at home from an anonymous caller. Sometimes it was a woman's voice on the other line, and sometimes it was a man's, but it was never a voice that she recognized.
Rather than a prank call from some random person, though, the calls seemed to be targeting Jean specifically, telling her that she was old and pathetic, quote-unquote, and that she should, quote-unquote, roll over and die. Holy shit.
Other times, the caller would describe explicit sex acts that Dr. Tarnower had performed on other women.
Oh. And the caller suggested that Jean should, quote, take sex lessons, implying that like

she wasn't pleasing him anymore.

Wow.

So she started with getting these calls at home.

But before long, the call started coming in at work, where the anonymous caller would

leave a phone number with Jean's secretary and request a return call.

And when Jean would call the number, they would start up again with the harassing comments and just hang up abruptly. Wow.
Yeah. Also, what are sex lessons? I don't know.
I'm sorry. That's just like, imagine literally taking it to a place of sex in the city again.
That's not even a good like, that's not a good read. You should take some sex lessons.
Like I'd be like that's stupid. I would say fuck you.
That's a dumb thing to say. Remember though in sex in the city when they go to that tantric sex class together.
That's all I can think of. I feel like that's a sex lesson.
I guess so. But like.
Maybe there's more. But what a bad.
That feels like something you say when you ran out of, you didn't plan ahead. Yeah.
You didn't plan your insult ahead. Yeah.
Why don't you take some sex lessons? Like what? Stupid. It's just like, where? Okay.
Where are those? Okey-doke. Okey-doke.
Whenever Jean received one of these calls, she would immediately call Lynn and accuse her of making the calls, even though she didn't recognize the voice. Or she figured maybe Lynn arranged for somebody else to to make the calls yeah but every time lynn claimed she had nothing to do with this and demanded that jean just stop calling her she even went as far lynn went as far as complaining to high that jean had been harassing her and high took lynn's side and demanded that jean stop the foolish behavior or he would end their relationship you gotta end the relationship then it's if he's Taking another woman's side, he's declared.
Like that's, you've heard all you need to hear. Move forward.
He quiet quit. He kind of absolutely, he like loudly quit.
And it's like, that's, get out of there. Yeah.
Well, the calls were soon followed by obscene letters sent to Jean's home and office, which were always written in a very unfamiliar handwriting. In time, she changed her phone number actually multiple times, but every time this caller managed to get the new number and the harassment continued.
Jeez. You have to assume it was somebody that he was seeing.
Absolutely. Because I don't think Lynn and Jean were the only people he was seeing, so.
Doesn't sound like it. I'm sure he had some kind of, um, what is it? Rotodile? Is that like what it is? Were you like writing? what it is where you like rolodex rolodex i liked your version what is it rotodile oh we had a rolodex at mom's office house i remember it yeah i used to flick through it when i was little um but i'm sure he had one of those 100 and would write down gene's new number and someone would get it yeah but before But before long, the stress started taking a toll on Jean, which only exacerbated her depression and anxiety.
And one day in 1978, she got a call from a former coworker at the Thomas School, psychiatric social worker Sig Gerhart, wondering if she might be planning to be in New York City soon. Gerhart always respected Jean and really loved working with her.
He said, to me, she represented everything I think an educated woman should be. but I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

I might be planning to be in New York City soon. Gerhart always respected Jean and really loved working with her.
He said, to me, she represented everything I think an educated woman should be. But for all her professionalism, he could tell that she was in distress.
He said later, she was in great fear of something, like she was paranoid. So he had no immediate plans to be in the city, but he told Jean that if it was important, he would make the time and go see her.
So she declined to take him up on the offer, immediately minimizing her needs. He said she wouldn't open up, she wouldn't tell me what it was, and I never heard from her again.
But it was very clear she was not doing well. No, it doesn't sound like it.
Yeah. The mysterious phone calls and letters, which would literally never be solved, weren't the only harassment that Jean experienced at the time in 1979 after returning home from a trip to the caribbean with high she found several pieces of her clothing that she kept at his apartment had been slashed and ripped and it also appeared that several items of clothing had been speared with something quote brown and sticky.
That Gene concluded was feces.

Fuck that.

Yeah. items of clothing had been speared with something quote brown and sticky that gene concluded was feces fuck that yeah yeah nothing's worth this everybody it's not nothing and no one is worth this yeah no that's what it feces on my clothes i'm out out.
Yeah, you got that's if that's that's where it is. I mean, my personally mine is way before that.
But like your boundaries should be there. Yeah, that should be really when you.
Yeah, that's what you should know what. We did what we had to do.
We said what we had to say. This is not fine anymore.
If it's getting to a point where shit is getting smeared on my clothes, I'm going to go. Rule of thumb.
To a point of feces, I'm not. Peace out.
I'm not. I am ride or die until feces become involved.
Then I'm. When feces enters the chat, you leave the chat.
I leave. Yeah.
That's when I leave the conversation. That's really upsetting it is and you just wonder who it was that's the i'm like who the fuck did that we never find out god i don't want to i don't yeah i don't even want to know but like the harassing phone calls jean herself concluded that lynn was behind the district the destruction of her clothing of course but she could never say with complete certainty no she never would be to.
But she would devolve a lot further into madness, I would say.

Yeah. And a lot of just other really sad things that we're going to get into in part two.

Oh, man.

I think we really set the scene there.

We got to know Jean in early childhood.

We're ramping up.

And we're on a downward trajectory now. Yeah.'re gonna save that for part two i feel like it's i feel like the pressure cooker is it's strategically placed and i think it's coming yeah it's on and it's full of feces oh no yeah no there's no more feces okay good i was like oh no can you imagine tell me there's not a ton of feces here.
No, that's it. So in the meantime two.
Okay, good. I was like, oh no.
Can you imagine? Tell me there's not a ton of feces here.

No, that's it.

So in the meantime, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird.

Do you want to do it?

So weird that you join us for our bonus episode that's going to come out tomorrow on March 7th.

And it's going to be a fucking banger.

Please stay with us, even though we said feces a lot.

Feces is better than shit.

Come back tomorrow.

See ya.

Shit. Thank you.
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