Catherine Crier - Final Analysis

Once home, Eli was continuing with his “out of control drug binging.” Susan noted that her son had a car accident during the Thanksgiving holiday.

“I suggest that his car not be returned to him until he has completed a drug treatment program and either enrolls in school or gets a job,” she advised Felix in the letter. “I also do not believe that he should have access to large sums of cash on weekends for the time being.”

Susan, too, would return to the East Bay by month’s end, and she alerted Felix of her plan. Pointing to their “difficulty agreeing on disciplinary measures” Susan instructed Felix to find a home “elsewhere.” “Eli… is living unsupervised in the cottage in Orinda… which he uses as a ‘party pad’… a gathering place for teenagers to drink and drug,” she wrote. “It seems to me that you attempt to garner sympathy with the children by reversing my decisions. For example, when Adam ran up a $2,000 phone bill in June, and then followed with a $250 phone bill for his cell phone in September, disciplining him was left to me. When he ran up a $540 phone bill for his cell phone for the past month, I finally said enough and confiscated his cell phone OVER YOUR OBJECTIONS.

“You demanded repeatedly that I return it to him. You felt I was being too hard on the boy, which made you very popular with Adam and made me look very bitchy…. When Adam stole $100 out of my wallet… then lied and said Eli or Gabe took it, adding that I was ‘paranoid,’ a term for me he got from you, you supported Adam. You did ask me to tell my side of the story as if I were one of the kids as you have been used to doing….

“You are going to have to set selfish concerns aside and do what is best for the boys.”

On November 27, Gabriel was on a flight for San Francisco and Susan followed by car the next day. Susan was returning to Orinda and to Felix, the man she held responsible for her lifelong misery. Diary entries revealed that the fighting between the couple escalated once she returned to California, and by the end of 2001, Felix had moved out of the house and into a one bedroom apartment.

Nevertheless, the two continued to squabble over money and the payments he owed her. “Meetings with you tend to end badly with threats from you,” she wrote on February 18, 2002. “Your attorney has my phone number. We can communicate through attorneys…. With respect to financial support: your continued support of this family is not contingent upon my persuading the children to see you, my talking to you, or being ‘nice’ to you, or the children’s being ‘nice’ to you.

“You are responsible for supporting the children through college…. I am reducing expenses as much as possible. I have let my cleaning lady go. The boys and I are taking care of the home together. I cannot afford to give Adam an allowance of $100 per week, which I have been doing while he is at college. Adam has gotten a job, as you know. You are legally and ethically responsible for this payment…. Should you continue to shirk your responsibilities, I intend to take legal action against you.”

The scenario was familiar. Felix’s first wife, Sharon Mann, had written similar letters during their divorce, especially in regard to his supposed inability to pay tuition for their son, Andrew, then a freshman at Tufts University. It is interesting that, like his first divorce, Felix’s marriage to Susan was ending after exactly twenty years of marriage, the very year his eldest child, Adam, was a freshman at UCLA.

On February 26, Susan typed what appeared to be a suicide note to her sons that seemed more an introductory lesson in how to invest in real estate—counseling them to consult an attorney before taking any major steps and urging them not to have any rental properties in low-income areas:

Dear Boys

I want to leave you with an explanation for my actions so that you do not make the mistake of blaming yourselves for what has happened.

In the letter, Susan reiterated the abuse she suffered as a child and the abuse she suffered by their father when she was a girl:

I married your father believing that I was in love with him. From time to time, it seemed as if I had forgotten something, and I would begin to remember what he had done, as well as the horror of my childhood that I had put away….

After years of being blamed for every mishap in our lives, after threats to take you away from me and have me confined to a mental hospital, I attempted suicide last year believing that perhaps your dad could do what he threatened to do….

Susan reassured her sons that she loved and admired them, noting their many talents and attributes:

The series of misfortunes that have dogged our lives just leaves me tired…. It is through no fault of yours that I have decided to give up. I just need to rest.

In wanting to leave her children with some guidance after her death, Susan outlined some advice they could follow:

Marry wisely.

Don’t spend all the money I leave you. Money is freedom to a certain degree although it also brings responsibilities.

Never relax your guard.

If anyone offers to include you in any get rich quick or quicker schemes, say NO….

Do not invest in real estate partnerships…

…but choose carefully. Avoid low-income areas for rental property.

Hold onto the rental properties, which you have.

Consult an attorney about rent laws….

Be extra careful in Berkeley….

Forsake violence.

Do not follow your father’s example, or anyone else’s for that matter.

Drugs and alcohol cloud your good judgment.

So do your emotions. Make your decisions when you have calmed down, but be flexible….

DO NOT BE SUGGESTIBLE….

You are inheriting enough to last you the rest of your lives if you don’t spend it all when you get it…. Don’t touch your investments….

I leave you all of my love. Find good homes for the dogs. You can’t take them with you, and they won’t want to go where I’m going.

Despite the letter’s pessimistic tone, Susan was aggressively pursuing the divorce. She contacted Felix’s lawyer with solutions to their divorce settlement. While there is no indication that Felix agreed to her terms, Susan’s entries remained upbeat as she wrote of the vast improvements to their lives since they returned from Montana and Felix moved out of the house.

“So much has changed in the last few months… we returned to Orinda, booted Felix out, and began having the time of our lives. Eli got off of drugs. Gabe worked hard in school. And we all had fun together. Then Dad happened. He filed for custody.”

Detailing the unfortunate turn of events, Susan discussed Eli’s arrest in late February for hitting a boy, an action which landed him in juvenile hall. “He [Eli] was placed under a program called ‘home supervision.’ He wears an electronic monitoring device on his ankle. He has to get permission from ‘peace officers’ at juvenile hall to leave his dad’s cottage.”

Susan noted that Eli was sleeping on the couch of Felix’s one-bedroom apartment in downtown Berkeley. But the arrangement was not working out.

Susan acknowledged that she was accused of being in contempt of court with regard to Eli’s court case, and, sentenced to five days in jail, “The judge gave me a few days to think about it. I did, and still I refused. Eli continued to come over, and finally just began to live at home again.”

Her diary continued, “When Eli was arrested, I made an offer to F’s attorney to settle our differences by leaving the country and relinquishing custody of the children…. I would not return or have any contact with the children until after F’s death. In exchange, he would not bother me. I would inherit my share of the property at his death, the kids would inherit their share, F’s kids would not inherit from what we had acquired during the course of our marriage. F has salted away millions. They could inherit from that.”