“You don’t know about this legal system,” he said during a nine-hour jailhouse interview with the authors of this book. “Anything could happen.”
Ballard is currently incarcerated at State Correctional Institution–Greene, a super-maximum-security prison near Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, one of two state institutions for the state’s death row inmates. The 128-acre institution is home to 1,729 prisoners, including 160 inmates on death row who are segregated from the general prison population.
Ballard lives in an eight-by-ten-foot cell, is allowed only one visit per week, and can never have physical contact with any of his visitors. He may leave the cell for two hours of exercise five days per week, take three showers per week, and spend two hours in the law library if requested.
“I live as a goddamn pet,” he said. “I am taken out for exercise. I am told when to eat. I live in a goddamn cage. I am a pet. This is not a goddamned life.”
Ballard maintains that he feels remorse for the deaths of Steven Zernhelt and Alvin Marsh Jr., but not for Dennis Marsh, and most certainly not for Denise Merhi.
“If I could literally dig her the fuck up and do this to her again, I would,” Ballard said. “That’s the amount of rage I still have toward her.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to extend our thanks to our agent, Jake Elwell; to Charles Spicer and April Osborn at St. Martin’s Paperbacks; to copy-editor Laura Jorstad; and to attorney Michael Cantwell for his legal review. You are all wonderful to work with and we deeply appreciate your wisdom and guidance.
We would also like to extend our gratitude to Rick Olanoff, John Gebhardt and Art McEvoy for reading through the various stages of our manuscripts, just as they did for our first book, Love Me or Else. A special thank you to reporter Sarah Cassi, for her willingness to share her knowledge and observations about the Michael Ballard trial. We’d also like to thank Brad Rinehart, news director for WFMZ, for graciously providing us access to photos from Michael Ballard news reports.
Lastly, we would like to thank everybody who took the time to be interviewed for this book, as well as everyone in our families for all their support and enthusiasm along the way.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
COLIN McEVOY and LYNN OLANOFF are reporters for The Express-Times, a daily newspaper based in Easton, Pennsylvania. They covered the Rhonda Smith murder case extensively and it was during a jailhouse interview with them that Mary Jane Fonder first acknowledged responsibility for her crime. They wrote about the Fonder case in the St. Martin’s True Crime Book, Love Me or Else. Colin and Lynn have been married since 2008. Lynn is a graduate of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, and Colin graduated from East Stroudsburg University in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. They currently reside in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
FATAL JEALOUSY
Copyright © 2014 by Colin McEvoy and Lynn Olanoff.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN: 9781466841840
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / February 2014
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Fatal Jealousy: The True Story of a Doomed Romance, a Singular Obsession, and a Quadruple Murder Page 25
