Fatal Romance: A True Story of Obsession and Murder

by Lisa Pulitzer

The same week that So Wild a Kiss was hitting the bookshelves, Nancy sent an electronic email to her old friend Mary Kilchenstein. In it, she provided her former collaborator with some insight into her life.

  Subj: Re:??

  Date: 10/11/98 11:35:19 AM Eastern Daylight Time

  From: Nancy Akers

  To: Marykilch

  Hi Mary,

  Now as to my move … the long story goes over a 15 year period; the shorter version over the past 24 months, but in a nutshell, I had been lying and hiding the truth of my marriage for many years, and as the situation deteriorated and yes, the abuse became worse, I could no longer pretend or cope and finally, got brave enough to say I wanted out despite the death threats … yes, it reads worse than a bad novel. My best friend Emily and my writer friend Jim both kind of pushed me along … and Jim for awhile was literally my physical protection … sort of like a bodyguard as at Harpers Ferry. Jeremy refused to leave the house—although he said in June that maybe sometime after the first of the year he might move … The situation was intolerable and really bad on writing with office in house … had been impossible for about two years which is one reason it took me so long to finish KISS … Anyway, on August 1 I moved my office to Jim’s apartment with the understanding that I would only live in the house so long as the children were also in the house. That situation deterioarated [sic] and I don’t sleep there anymore … I go at 5 AM to get Zeb and Isabelle ready for school and do their lunches; then again at night for homework and bedtime etc etc but that may soon end too since Jeremy continues to be abusive to me, and I have a lawyer who—I think is going to tell me that for reasons that I would go into but I am already rambling. I don’t mind talking about this or people knowing, it is just that telling someone about all of this is kind of like dropping an A-bomb and then running for cover. Anyway, I can be reached during the day at 202-XXX-XXXX; I am doing much better away from Jeremy, and Zeb and Isabelle are safe with him in terms of physical safety, but my lawyer is going to get them away from him because that is what I want. Anyway, long story into short email comes out kind of stranger than it should … Byeeee for now, Nancy

  “Byeeee for now” was the way that Nancy signed all of her online correspondence. And while the author’s note to Mary—and to other writers at Avon—clearly implied that Nancy had been exposed to years of abuse at the hands of her husband, Finny and others insist that the allegations are just not true. Nancy’s oldest son said that not once did he ever see his father raise a hand to his mother.

  One month after Nancy’s letter to Mary, on November 15, 1998, the police were called to the Akers residence. Patrol officers from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Second District squared their shoulders and listened as the man and woman who answered the front door described an argument that had sent Nancy to the phone to dial 911. Uniformed in the city’s official navy slacks and light-blue collared shirts, the two officers stood on the front stoop of the gracious red-brick residence and jotted down notes.

  At one point Nancy pleaded with the officers to help her take the children from the house. But she was advised that that was not the proper thing to do and that she should go through the courts.

  An Incident Report was filed with the department in which the officers detailed their findings. In their report, they noted that the couple had been married and was currently separated. They had become engaged in a verbal dispute after Jeremy sought to taunt Nancy by blocking passage at the doorway that Nancy was attempting to exit. Neither party made a case for physical assault, nor did the officers observe any signs of physical abuse. According to department policy, the officers would have been required to make an arrest if there was any indication that there had been a physical assault.

  It would not be the last time that officers would be summoned to the scene. On June 5, 1999, they would again be called to 4632 Reservoir Road, only this time the circumstances would be far more grisly.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  As the fighting between Nancy and Jeremy continued, their children wondered why their mother was so unwilling to entertain their father’s continuous pleas for reconciliation. A pattern seemed to be emerging in which Jeremy would attempt to engage his wife in a friendly discussion, when suddenly she would fly off the handle and begin shouting at him. Within minutes, their conversation would blow up into a raging fight.

  When Zeb saw that his father was trying so hard, and that his mother was refusing to give him a chance, he demanded to know why she was being so cruel.

  “Why aren’t you even trying?” the boy asked to no avail. Frustrated, he began withdrawing from his mother and increasingly sided with his dad.

  Zeb grew even angrier when he called Jim’s apartment and asked to speak to his mother, only to be told that he first had to say “please.” When he hesitated, the trucker hung up the phone, leaving the ten-year-old with just the sound of the dial tone.

  Jim felt that the children had turned on him after their mother moved in with him. When they called the apartment and he answered, they would simply say, “Put my mother on the line,” and then start yelling at him for taking her away. The quarrel with the kids got so bad that he installed a second phone line for himself.

  On December 25, 1998, Jim’s mother telephoned the Akers house. She had heard that Nancy was celebrating the holiday with her children and wanted to wish her a Merry Christmas. When Jeremy answered the telephone, Mrs. Lemke asked to speak with Nancy.

  “Who’s this?” he demanded.

  “Nancy,” Mrs. Lemke replied.

  “Yeah, right,” Jeremy responded sarcastically and hung up the phone.

  Soon after New Year’s Day, Nancy went to see one of the city’s top divorce attorneys. But when she learned the man’s fee, she asked if he could refer her to a less expensive lawyer. She was given the name of Alan Soschin. The stocky, well-educated man from New Jersey had practiced as a criminal attorney in the District for much of his twenty-six-year career, but had made a gradual switch to family law.

  When Nancy went to see him, he was still in his office near the DC court complex. The walls of his downtown suite were decorated with artists’ sketches of courtroom scenes, and a framed bachelor’s degree he had received from Lehigh University in 1969. As Nancy detailed her situation, the attorney took notes. He listened as the clearly angry author matter-of-factly explained that she had been the one to move out of the family house, and gave her new address as 4840 MacArthur Boulevard. Nancy also described the stormy relationship she had shared with Jeremy Akers, and his history of violence during their twenty-year union.

  In spite of her allegations of abuse, Mr. Soschin noted that his client did not seem afraid of her husband, believing that she thought she had escaped the danger when she moved out of the house on Reservoir Road. Yet, she did not seem concerned—or afraid—about going back each morning to ready the children for school, and returning in the afternoons to help Zeb and Isabelle with their homework.

  As their initial consultation continued, Nancy expressed her desire for sole or joint custody of her two minor children, and her need for spousal support. While her books were being well received by the romance-fiction fans, her earnings remained small. So Wild a Kiss fetched an advance that barely exceeded $10,000. To make up for the small stipend, she had resorted to selling evening bags and other handmade crafts.

  The divorce lawyer advised Nancy that the District of Columbia had equitable distribution laws, and that in cases where there are children involved, most judges leaned toward joint custody—unless there is a history of domestic violence.

  Mr. Soschin realized the Akerses’ divorce would not be an easy one to settle. Nancy and her husband were barely talking to each other and the couple did not have enough money to keep two households running at the same time.

  Jeremy, too, sought legal counsel. He met with several of Washington’s top lawyers, but quickly learned that he could not afford their services. In an effort to save money, he decided to try his case pro se, to
represent himself. Jeremy’s family appealed to him to reconsider, and to let them pay for the attorney. But he repeatedly rejected their pleas.

  Meanwhile, Nancy began sending out email messages to fellow authors in New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Colorado describing the “abuse” she had suffered at the hands of her husband.

  “I could not take it any longer, and told my husband I wanted a divorce,” she wrote to one author. “He broke my nose … and I suffered black eyes.” Friends said they believe that Nancy was referring to the day that Jeremy struck her after learning of her affair with Jim Lemke.

  On February 26, 1999, Jeremy Ray Akers was served by special process with A Complaint for Legal Separation from Bed and Board, Custody, Child Support and Spousal Support.

  Nancy’s contention, according to the legal papers, was that the deterioration of the marriage was detrimental to the health and well-being of the children, as well as to herself. “The Defendant’s conduct towards her constitutes cruelty and the Plaintiff is unable and unwilling to continue the marital relationship between the parties and sacrifice her health, safety, and self-respect,” the papers read. “Defendant’s cruel conduct directed at the Plaintiff includes, but is not limited to: unpredictable and random actions including, but not limited to alienation of the children, extreme verbal abuse, ongoing taunting and insults, death threats, physical and emotional intimidation and assault.”

  As for financial arrangements, Nancy’s complaint read, “The Defendant is an attorney who is currently self-employed as an environmental consultant and investigator. His income is far superior to that of the Plaintiff who is a self-employed writer and author of several fictional historical romance novels. The Defendant has the financial ability to contribute to the support of the minor children and the Plaintiff.”

  The issue of custody was also addressed in the statement, “The Plaintiff is a fit and proper person to have custody of the minor children of the parties…”

  In conclusion, Nancy requested that the Court award her a legal separation, as well as temporary or partial use of the house; joint legal custody of the minor children with shared physical custody; permanent child support and alimony; an equitable share of their property; and counsel fees.

  Even as she tried to obtain a legal separation, Nancy was once again forced to confront the pathological nature of Jeremy’s procrastination. Although the four-page legal document was signed by Nancy Linda Richards Akers on February 17, 1999, and delivered to her estranged husband nine days later, Jeremy did not respond to the complaint in a timely fashion. Instead, he waited until the last day before filing a request for additional time to respond. In his motion, which he wrote out in longhand, he stated:

  Defendant Jeremy Ray Akers hereby requests an extension of time of thirty (30) days in which to file a reply to Plaintiff’s Complaint. In support thereof, Defendant states that he is the sole provider of day-to-day care for his two young children and that due to the time requirements of that responsibility plus the burdens of sickness and school work, he has been thus far unable to retain the services of an attorney.

  In reality, the reasons that Jeremy cited were only a piece of the total picture. Receiving Nancy’s official request for a legal separation was like a cold, hard slap in his face. With little hope that his wife would change her mind, Jeremy fell into a depression that made him unable to concentrate on his work. During an afternoon jog with his friend Bill Ranger, he described how his business was suffering due to his inability to concentrate. His friend urged him to pull himself together for the sake of the kids, and get his finances in order. Ranger knew that a judge would never grant Jeremy custody if he could not afford to keep his household running.

  Instead, Jeremy obsessed about what might have gone wrong, and convinced himself that menopause was at the root of his wife’s irrational behavior. In spite of his frustration at not being able to communicate with her, he continued to allow Nancy access to the children—for a while.

  Angered at Jeremy’s procrastination in answering her legal complaint, Nancy responded to him through her attorney, filing a Plaintiff’s Response and Partial Opposition To Defendant’s Motion for Extension of Time. In her two-page filing, she pointed out that Jeremy had waited until the very last day to file his request for more time. She also stated that he was an attorney, explaining to the court that Jeremy’s request for an extension of time was, at the least, misleading.

  The children referred to by the Defendant both attend school during the day. Accordingly, it is difficult to understand how the needs of the children during the day seriously impede the Defendant’s ability to obtain counsel. In addition, the Defendant is self-employed and his office is in his home. With regard to the sickness of the child or children referred to in the Defendant’s Motion, Plaintiff is hard pressed to understand that as a basis for Defendant’s Motion, either, since she is not aware that either of the children had any medical treatment during the time in question.

  Nancy’s attorney urged the court to consider that there were matters of custody and support that needed to be addressed in a timely fashion, and requested that the amount of time given to Jeremy Akers to respond to his client’s complaint be shortened to twenty-five days.

  But, as the fighting between the couple worsened, Jeremy told Zeb that he did not want his mother visiting the house anymore because her presence was just provoking more fights. Nancy, in turn, accused her estranged husband of poisoning her children’s minds against her.

  For months, she had tried not to react when Isabelle and Zeb lashed out at her with harsh criticisms and bitter accusations—fueled and even encouraged, she believed, by Jeremy’s undisguised hostility toward her. The children’s tirades cut through her like a knife but she hoped that as they got older, they’d understand the circumstances that had forced her to flee from the horror of her life with their father.

  She also knew that her leaving was not smiled upon by a society that, feminism notwithstanding, still regarded a woman as the fittest parent. And she knew that she was seen, even by some of her closest friends, as having abandoned her children for the sake of a frivolous affair.

  Somehow, she managed to cope with their raised eyebrows and unsubtle, insinuating remarks. But when her kids echoed these sentiments, telling her that she had “left” them, she felt her emotions being tested almost beyond her ability to control them. Her first impulse was always to scream out defensively, telling them that, No, she loved them and would do anything for them, but that if she had stayed in their home, she would have been no good to them or to herself. She would have gone insane!

  She never spoke those words, knowing that her children were far too young to fathom the kind of adult problems she and Jeremy were having. At every encounter, however, when eleven-year-old Zeb or ten-year-old Isabelle accused her of “not being there” for them, she ended up biting the inside of her lip, forcing herself to speak to them in calm, reassuring tones.

  It was immensely more difficult, however, to hear them echoing Jeremy calling her a tramp and worse. Time after time, she tried to answer their indictments patiently, exhorting them not to use that “bad word” and explaining over and over that she loved them more than she could ever describe.

  She was not as controlled with her lawyer, whom she called the second she returned from visiting the children. Babbling into the phone, she regaled Mr. Soschin with lengthy, rambling descriptions of the unfair insults she had endured. But her recapitulations were so long-winded that the lawyer suggested she put her feelings and perceptions into writing—not only to help her deal with her anger but also to spare himself endless hours of listening on the other end of the line.

  It was the perfect suggestion for Nancy, who had found emotional redemption and a fair amount of professional success through her writing. What started out as a collection of her thoughts and feelings, anger and frustration, ultimately became a journal rich in introspection and reflection in which she detailed the painful experience of lo
sing her children and the emotions she felt about Jeremy over the course of their tumultuous twenty-year connection.

  It seemed a million years had passed since the strapping young lawyer she met through a mutual friend had turned from an object of admiration to one of revulsion and fear. In the beginning, she had been attracted to Jeremy’s quick wit and brilliant mind. To her, he was affable, solicitous, charming, a man of strong values who loved children, was a proud patriot, and was especially kind to strangers, the elderly, and single women.

  In spite of his diminutive stature, his bulging muscles and resonant, Southern-twanged voice, as well as the politeness and civility that so characterized this gentleman of the deep South made him a formidable presence—not only to Nancy but also to just about every woman he encountered.

  Nancy was aware that friends of the dapper former Marine captain were envious of his unerring ability to attract beautiful, interesting, intelligent women. She also appreciated that her “catch” made her the envy of her friends, and she liked that.

  But as she grew to know him better, a different Jeremy emerged and her feelings changed. She began to see a man who was opinionated, aggressive, and off-center in his views and attitudes. As time went by, Jeremy’s eccentricities grew more pronounced. She was not blind to the knowing looks their friends exchanged when his fiery temper erupted. And it drove her crazy that he was always late and such a chronic procrastinator.

  There were times, to be sure, that Nancy’s rage melted into pity. She often theorized that his military background had increased Jeremy’s innately obsessive nature and that in some perverse way he had transformed the natural disorder of married life and parenthood into a violation of everything for which the Marines stood.

  She remembered him telling her tales of his Marine Corps training at the Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia, where he and his fellow officers were drilled relentlessly on the importance of neatness, that cleanliness was next to godliness, and that lateness was a sign of disrespect.