Fatal Jealousy: The True Story of a Doomed Romance, a Singular Obsession, and a Quadruple Murder

by McEvoy, Colin

  * * *

  Details that Fabian shared with the police slowly started to become available to the public. The newspapers took particular interest in Ballard’s connection, however vague, with the Ku Klux Klan. Prosecutors made clear that Ballard was not a member of the KKK, and that the killing was not sanctioned by the group, but the fact that Donald Richard was gay made speculation about Klan involvement inevitable.

  “Mr. Ballard has never been a dues-paying, card-carrying or robe-wearing member,” Ralph Hodges, a Imperial Investigator with the Klan, told the Morning Call. Hodges said the police were involved in a conspiracy to pin Ballard’s crimes on the KKK, and even claimed that an unnamed police officer had secretly filmed officers talking about it.

  “They’re attempting to make this a gay-bashing hate crime,” Hodges told the newspaper. “They’re way out in left field right now.”

  Lehigh County District Attorney Robert Steinberg denied any such conspiracy, of course. Ballard himself insisted that he wasn’t homophobic but had never really had any exposure to homosexuality in the past, so he reacted like a scared child when Richard came on to him.

  But Ballard didn’t think Steinberg had any interest in the truth of the case. It was an election year and, according to Ballard, Steinberg was reveling in the media attention that the Richard murder was affording him. That made it important for Steinberg to get a conviction, Ballard thought, and so the district attorney took great pains to portray him as—in Ballard’s own words—“the most vile piece of shit to walk the Earth.”

  Over the next few weeks, Ballard met with what he called a “revolving door of attorneys.” First his father talked about bringing in a lawyer from Arkansas, but they couldn’t afford the fifty-thousand-dollar deposit he required. Next his father hired a lawyer from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, but he dropped the case after Ballard’s family had already spent three thousand dollars on his services. Ballard finally got a public defender from Allentown, but had to get a second one after the first quit the case.

  Eventually, Ballard was offered a plea bargain: He could plead guilty to third-degree murder, meaning he had not had a specific intent to kill. That would eliminate the possibility of life in prison under a first-degree murder conviction. Prosecutors said they made the offer due in part Ballard’s young age, and because Donald Richard’s family was willing to accept it.

  The prosecutors also knew that given Richard’s shady personal history, it was likely that the defense could try to blame the victim. It was a strategy that had worked in the past, and juries could be unpredictable. Besides, it’s illegal to provide alcohol to someone underage, and the fact that Richard had done so could also have proved problematic at trial.

  Ballard later said he believed the plea deal was offered quickly and haphazardly, and he would later second-guess whether he should have taken it. But at the time, he knew next to nothing about the legal system, and the problems he had retaining an attorney made him wary about the prospect of facing a trial. He accepted the plea deal.

  On November 5, 1992, Ballard appeared before Lehigh County Judge Lawrence Brenner. Wearing a prison jumpsuit and shackles on his wrists and ankles, he pleaded guilty to murder in the third degree, along with additional charges of theft by unlawful taking and illegal use of credit cards.

  Ballard reappeared before Judge Brenner on December 14 for sentencing. Detective Sergeant Dean Schwartz was present in the courtroom, as were members of Donald Richard’s family, who sat in the front row. They wanted to look Ballard in the eyes before he was incarcerated.

  After entering the plea, Ballard turned and spoke directly to the family members. He claimed that he had been trying to forgive himself ever since killing Richard, but that he did not expect the family to forgive him, nor would he ask that of them. He only hoped they could “find it in your heart to understand,” according to a report in the Morning Call.

  Ballard was sentenced to a minimum of fifteen years in state prison and a maximum of thirty years: ten to twenty for third-degree murder and another five to ten years for the theft and credit card charges.

  CHAPTER 8

  By the end of the day of the quadruple slayings, the police had already prepared a request for a warrant to search Denise Merhi’s home. Since the crime had occurred on a weekend, only one of Northampton County’s fifteen district judges was on call that day, leaving her to handle everything from minor misdemeanors to homicides. The judge that night was Jacqueline Taschner, a former Northampton County assistant district attorney whose courtroom was in Palmer Township, about a thirty-minute drive from the borough of Northampton.

  Taschner, who had prosecuted no shortage of grisly crimes during her time as a prosecutor, wasted no time in signing off on a search warrant before the evening was out. It was in the police officer’s hands by nine-twenty that night.

  Police gathered sixty-three pieces of evidence in a process that would ultimately take two days to complete. Trooper McLean Peeke started the collection process the night of the murder and obtained and documented twenty-seven items. Trooper Louis Gober, another forensic services unit officer out of the Bethlehem barracks, resumed the collection shortly after noon the following day.

  Among the items seized were several knives—including two with broken tips—and a small green duffel bag Ballard had been seen carrying on his travels the day of the murders.

  The troopers also cataloged a piece of human tissue believed to be part of one of Ballard’s fingertips, according to published reports.

  The two broken-tipped knives and a third knife were all recovered in the living room, the same place where Steven Zernhelt’s body had been discovered, according to reports. Police also obtained several samples of carpet, draperies, and other stained materials, and investigators took a number of greeting cards—including two sympathy cards—and at least three laptop computers from the home, the Morning Call reported. Among Ballard’s belongings, the police found a parole notice, a knife sheath, two silver rings, and a silver necklace, according to the newspaper.

  State police had seized the car Ballard had crashed not long after the accident, but they did not get permission to search it until three days later. On June 29, they cataloged dozens more pieces of evidence recovered from the car, including two more knives.

  At least one of the knives recovered was stamped with the brand name CHICAGO CUTLERY. The name jogged Trooper Raymond Judge’s memory: Denise had owned an entire block of knives by the same company.

  There was another piece of evidence that the state police were looking to connect to the home: Ballard had been found with one of Dennis Marsh’s checks in his pockets. The police believed that Ballard likely had found the checkbook in Dennis’s room and ripped out the check after killing Dennis. Police later returned to the house to obtain both Denise’s knife block and Dennis’s checkbook.

  * * *

  Trooper Judge made arrangements to speak with Marilyn Rivera the morning of June 27. It had been just under twenty-four hours since Denise and the others had been killed, and during the course of Judge’s investigation, he had learned that Marilyn Rivera was one of Denise’s closest friends. He also learned that Marilyn had spoken to Michael Ballard just a few hours before the murders.

  Judge met Marilyn at Denise’s home in Northampton borough, which was still roped off with yellow police tape. For obvious reasons, they couldn’t go inside the house, so they walked around to the patio setup in the backyard, where they would be out of sight from any passing reporters or curious observers.

  It was more than ninety degrees that morning, and both felt extremely uncomfortable in the heat. But they both knew that this interview was an important part of helping the authorities understand just what had happened between Denise and Michael Ballard.

  Marilyn explained that she had met Denise about six years ago, right around the time she’d first moved to Allentown. All of her family lived in New Jersey, so she knew very few people in the city and had yet to develop any close fr
iends. She had three children named Robert, Julia, and Carlos, who were sixteen, six, and five at the time.

  One summer day, she took her children to Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom, an amusement park just a few miles outside of Allentown. It was a fun afternoon for the family until Marilyn turned around for just a moment then realized, with horror, that she had completely lost sight of Julia. Panicking, Marilyn started looking everywhere, screaming her daughter’s name, but Julia was nowhere to be seen.

  That was when a stranger came up behind Marilyn and tapped her on the shoulder. Her name was Denise Merhi, and she explained that Julia had wandered onto a ride in the Camp Snoopy attraction along with Annikah, Denise’s own daughter.

  Marilyn and Denise exchanged numbers and very quickly became good friends. Their kids were about the same ages, and soon they were doing everything together. Carlos and Annikah attended the same preschool, while Annikah and Julia took the same dance lessons at the Suburban North YMCA in Catasauqua. Robert and Denise’s son, Trystan, played video games for hours on end with each other. They played soccer, attended dances, had sleepovers, and went for visits to places like the beach and the zoo.

  Marilyn and Denise themselves were equally inseparable.

  “We kind of had this connection that nobody could understand,” Marilyn said. “I felt like she was closer to me than my sisters. We just understood each other.”

  Marilyn described Denise as a very friendly, bubbly woman who loved everybody. But she also had a very strong, domineering personality, Marilyn said, and didn’t care what others said or thought about her.

  Marilyn’s own personality differed from Denise’s in this way, but that didn’t make them any less close. Marilyn’s sisters found Denise obnoxious, and Marilyn’s husband hated the woman, but if Marilyn had been asked to make a choice between the two, the truth is she would have chosen Denise.

  “She just got me,” Marilyn put it succinctly.

  But it wasn’t always happy times between the two. Denise was going through a very difficult period when she met Marilyn, having recently separated from her husband, a man who Denise told Marilyn seemed to delight in playing head games with her.

  At one point, Denise suspected he had been cheating on her, but he assured her that she was delusional and had imagined the whole thing. Nevertheless, Denise took the kids and left Puerto Rico, where she had lived with her husband, to start anew.

  But she was having trouble coping with life away from him, especially as she struggled through long and dramatic mood swings brought on by bipolar disorder. Sometimes Denise would cry to Marilyn for hours on end. Marilyn tried to convince Denise to again start taking her bipolar medication, which she had long since given up on, but Denise refused. Nevertheless, Marilyn was a good listener, and Denise needed someone to talk to.

  Marilyn first met Michael Ballard in the summer of 2007. Denise had recently broken off her engagement to a man named Brian Miller specifically so she could date Ballard, although she spoke very little about what he did or how they met.

  That summer, Marilyn hosted a birthday party for one of her sons at her Allentown home, and Denise asked if she could bring Ballard as her date. When he arrived, Ballard particularly stood out among the children and their parents: His sleeves were rolled up, revealing tattoos on his arms, and he had a silver stud piercing in his tongue.

  Ballard sat quietly at the table during the party and barely spoke a word to anyone. He obviously made the others guests feel very uncomfortable, although once the party was over he helped clean up and politely thanked Marilyn for having him over.

  Marilyn wasn’t sure what to make of Ballard at first, but after a few more encounters she began to warm to him. They had hung out together on several occasions before Denise finally revealed the truth about Ballard’s past: He had recently finished serving time in prison for murder.

  Denise had met Ballard just the previous March, when he was being released on parole after nearly fifteen years in prison. When he was released he had $177 to his name and no possessions but the clothes on his body. He immediately started looking for work and attempted to join an operating engineers’ union.

  After a few months of temping and other low-paying work, Ballard was offered a job in February at the Monarch Precast concrete plant in Allentown. It was through that job that he met Denise, who was working as a medical assistant at the doctor’s office where Ballard went for a physical exam.

  Since the doctor performing the exam was a woman, Denise had to be present for the entire physical, and the two kept sneaking glances at each other throughout the appointment. Eventually the doctor left the room for a moment and the two were alone together.

  “And your name is?” Ballard asked.

  By the time Ballard left that office, he had told Denise practically everything about his life and his past, including the murder he had gone to prison for. Denise was immediately attracted to him; he projected a “bad boy” image—a sense of living on the edge—that she had always been drawn to, Marilyn explained.

  Ballard gave Denise his number, and by the time he got back to the halfway house where he was staying, she had already called him. From that day on, they secretly saw each other every day. At the time, Denise was engaged to Brian Miller, a thirty-seven-year-old information technology technician she had met through the dating website Match.com. They had dated exclusively for almost two years before Miller proposed to her on New Year’s Eve in 2006. They seemed happy together, and the couple even built an addition onto Denise’s home so that Brian and his two boys could stay there more comfortably on the weekends.

  Brian, unlike some of Denise’s past boyfriends, seemed like a good man; but Marilyn also felt he wasn’t the right type for her. Their relationship began to fall apart one spring day when Denise, Brian, his two children, and two people Denise claimed were co-workers got together for dinner at a Red Robin restaurant. One of those co-workers was actually Michael Ballard, and once everybody took their seats around the table, Brian couldn’t help noticing that Denise sat next to Ballard, on the complete opposite end of the table from him.

  Brian grew more and more suspicious of Denise and Ballard and, according to later court testimony, eventually confronted her about him. At first, she maintained that she didn’t know what she wanted, but by April 2007 Brian was moving out of the house and their engagement was finished. She had chosen Michael Ballard.

  Marilyn claimed that Denise “sugarcoated” Ballard’s crimes. That, or Ballard sugarcoated them himself when he described them to Denise, Marilyn couldn’t be sure which. First, Denise claimed that Ballard had killed someone else in self-defense. Later, she admitted, it wasn’t in self-defense at all and that he had killed a gay man after he made an advance. Ballard was from the South, Denise had explained. They weren’t used to homosexuals and he just didn’t know how to respond, so he went a little crazy.

  “When she told me what he did, I was like, ‘You’re going out with him?!’” Marilyn said.

  Nevertheless, Marilyn grew to like Ballard. He had a steady job and a truck and, most important, he treated Denise like a queen.

  For Ballard, Denise marked the first real, meaningful relationship in his life, and he loved the idea of having a “doting girlfriend.” After fifteen years in prison, Ballard came to love having the constant attention of a woman. It was like a drug to him. A drug he was quickly growing addicted to.

  Denise would speak about not only their strong emotional connection, but their physical one as well, according to Marilyn. Whenever Ballard called Denise’s cell phone, the ring tone that played was the Kings of Leon rock song “Sex on Fire.” Denise even gave Ballard a nickname because of his sexual prowess: Superman.

  That small detail made Judge immediately recall the Superman T-shirt that had been recovered at the murder scene, folded neatly on an armchair next to Dennis Marsh’s body in the basement.

  Marilyn explained that once Ballard was released from the halfway house, he started ren
ting an Allentown house on Hall Street, but he spent almost all of his time and kept most of his things at Denise’s house in Northampton. Ballard, Denise, and Marilyn would often have dinner together, play cards, or just hang out at one another’s homes. Even Marilyn’s husband, who was no fan of Denise, started to become friends with Ballard.

  For Marilyn, Ballard’s criminal past was always in the back of her mind, but she felt comfortable enough to hug or kiss him as a greeting. Once, Marilyn even felt comfortable enough to let him pick up her kids from a dance class. Ballard seemed to truly love Denise’s children. He spoiled them with gifts, helped them with their homework, tucked them into bed at night, and played the dad role at their birthday parties.

  “I liked Michael, I’m not going to lie,” Marilyn said.

  Under the terms of his parole, Ballard had to take regular anger management courses from an organization called Forensic Treatment Services. Ballard hated the FTS counselors and clashed with them from the very beginning. He felt they were out to get him and just looking for an excuse to throw him back in prison.

  The counselors, for their part, believed Ballard was anti-social, did not value other people’s feelings, and had entitlement issues and no boundaries whatsoever. They particularly disapproved of Ballard’s relationship with Denise, especially because she was engaged to another man when they first started seeing each other.

  At one point, the FTS staff asked to speak with Denise about Ballard, and she later told him that they had said horrible things about him and tried to turn her away from him. After that, the two started keeping their relationship a secret from FTS. When Ballard eventually moved in with Denise, he kept renting the Hall Street house to serve as his official parole address.

  Marilyn insisted she never saw Ballard act violently or aggressively toward Denise, even as their relationship started deteriorating and they began fighting more often. Ballard was already growing used to Denise’s mood swings from her bipolar disorder, and in fact he came to actually enjoy them. It was part of Denise’s spontaneity that he found so attractive.