Just after his jury was seated this morning, Stephen Grant pleaded guilty to the secondary charge against him, the mutilation of his wife Tara’s body (which carries a possible 10-year sentence). At stake in the trial, which began following Grant’s plea, is whether he committed first degree murder (which requires premeditation and is punished by life imprisonment without possibility of parole) or second degree murder (which does not require premeditation and leaves open the possibility that Grant might someday be released from prison).
In opening statements, the prosecution spelled out Grant’s motive: his affair with 19-year-old Verena Dierkes, their children’s au pair. The defense categorized Grant’s actions as “chaotic and jumbled,” and therefore hardly premeditated.
Grant reported his wife missing on February 14 (she was last seen on February 9, which is when police believe he killed her). Tara’s torso and other body parts were found in and near the Grant home on March 3, and Stephen was arrested in the early morning hours of the 4th, 380 miles from his Washington Township, Michigan home, shoeless and coatless and suffering from frostbite and hypothermia. The defense sought to have his subsequent confession disallowed, claiming his physical and mental state at the time of his arrest made him incompetent to understand his rights, but a judge ruled last month that the confession was valid.
Psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig is the author of Till Death Do Us Part, in which she discusses several dozen well-known spouse killers — including Scott Peterson, Betty Broderick and Mark Hacking — and classifies them according to type: narcissist, black widow, revenge…
I spoke with her about Stephen Grant shortly after Grant’s arraignment, about the case itself and about his relationship with the au pair:
I also heard he’d had a dalliance with an old flame via e-mail.
Here’s a situation where you really want to consider whether there’s a medical condition in addition to a psychiatric condition because you may have noticed, whenever you see any pictures of Stephen, his eyes are bulging. So you want to rule out some thyroid condition that can produce bipolar-like symptoms. His behavior during the whole questioning process was quite bizarre, the fact that he was so in the media, the fact that he dismembered the body the way he did, you have to wonder what the thought process were in his head. I mean, if I were an attorney, I would go for diminished capacity. I wouldn’t go for legal insanity, but it does sound as if there was another process going on there.
The trial resumes Tuesday (December 11).
