He was charming and handsome...a real lady-killer

From the first page, Dying to Get Married by Ellen Harris (364.1523 HAR) reveals the disturbing scene at a murder crime scene. The reader is right there with the police, witnessing what they saw. Police were called to the home of Dennis and Julie Bulloch in St. Louis, Missouri. Julie had died in a fire that destroyed their garage. But, this was completely different from most burn victims.

This was the first time in U.S. history that a woman's burned body was found with over seventy feet of tape securing her to a rocking chair in, what appears to be, some sort of sexual bondage ritual. Because the death was so gruesome, the author included only one photo of the victim - showing her wrist bound to the chair.

The coroner declared that Julie died from suffocation. Two pieces of cloth were crammed so far in her mouth that they blocked her windpipe.

Because Dennis, the husband, was gone, they asked the housekeeper to look over the house for missing items, to see if this was also a robbery. According to her, nothing seemed to be missing. Surprisingly, she found additional items that she had never seen before - sexual manuals.

As the investigation continued, strange facts about the marriage between Julie and Dennis were revealed. After a whirlwind romance, Dennis and Julie got married. They secretly wed - Julie never met any of the groom's relatives. Only Julie's picture was in the wedding photos. Dennis conveniently forgot to tell his boss that he was married. When Dennis would be on many of his company trips, he would buy gifts for his girlfriends - nothing for his wife.

Dennis was one of those controlling guys who believed that all of the marital problems were Julie's fault.

Dennis eventually went to trial for the murder of her husband. Because of one elderly juror who felt that Dennis had suffered enough, the jury's decision was only involuntary manslaughter.

Dying to Get Married, a nonfiction book, reads more like fiction - maybe something that Don Harstad would write.

c Waterloo Public Library 2007