Jean Harris reminds me of my late grandma: well-spoken, classy, a loose cannon. Takes shit from no man & will murk you if you cross her. She even passed in the same year (a day before) my beloved gran. So I guess, like many other people including the great Barbara Walters, I have a soft spot for her.
Not that what she did is okay by any means: murder is never acceptable unless your life is in immediate danger (and then it's not murder but self-defense). That wasn't the case here--she was in some kind of deranged mental state, allegedly attempting suicide due to a mixture of drug-induced depression, rage & despondency. But she did her time for it. An old lady killed an old man under special circumstances & got what I think is a fair punishment, others may disagree. That's fine. She used her time in prison to reflect, help others & write 3 best-selling books which is admirable. Here's her story.
Dr. Feelgood Meets Mrs. Wrong
Jean Struven Harris was born in the Midwest in 1923 & graduated magna cum laude, after which she married right out of college and had 2 sons. She worked at the prestigious Madeira School for Girls as Headmistress. Jean only came around to finding her true romantic & sexual freedom later in life in the 1960s when she met Dr. Herman Tarnower, a wealthy Jewish author & cardiologist. He's best known for his weight loss book "The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet" which sold 3 million copies.
Harris & Tarnower kept their love affair going for the next 14 years, which were a whirlwind of travel, fancy events, gifts, lying & cheating on the doctor's part. They mutually agreed not to get married & to keep it casual though Jean ended up developing deeper feelings for Dr. Tarnower. He dated around while she remained faithful to him. One of the women in particular got under Jean's skin--a divorcee named Lynne Tryforos, Tarnower's secretary. She was over 30 years his junior.
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| Dr. Herman Tarnower |
Sometime during their relationship Jean complained of fatigue and difficulty keeping up with the demands of her job--symptoms neither of them realized were signs of clinical depression. So the good doctor prescribed her Desoxyn, a powerful stimulant better known by its chemical name methamphetamine hydrochloride. Desoxyn is so addictive it's only available in doses of 5 mg and is formally approved only for two conditions: ADHD and obesity, though doctors can prescribe it off-label for other uses. This is what Tarnower was doing when he prescribed it to Jean for fatigue.
Jean Harris was staunchly anti-drug and had no idea the pills were psychoactive, let alone addictive. She'd even kicked 4 students out of the dorms for smoking weed which made her very unpopular on the campus where she worked. I'm talking REALLY unpopular. There were protests attempting to get her fired. She was kept on by only one vote. She took the Desoxyn for 9 years in ever-increasing doses, unaware of its neurotoxic effects as her love life and mental state spun out of control.
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| Retro Desoxyn ad |
And then she ran out of her medication & was unable to get more from another doctor which is when things got dark.
After helping Tarnower write his bestselling book, she was paid only $2,000 which she felt slighted by. Adding salt to the wound, he took Lynne to a fancy dinner instead of Jean which pushed her over the edge. Things continued in this direction, prompting her to scrawl a long angry letter before making the five-hour, 264-mile drive to his house in the middle of the night with a loaded .32 caliber revolver. She shot the 69-year-old doctor 4 times, killing him in his bedroom before calling the cops from his home. The details beyond that are not known, although she told police she'd intended to commit suicide in front of him & accidentally shot him when he tried to wrestle the gun out of her hands.
The trial was a sideshow. Unbeknownst to Jean, her defense had kept her on the Desoxyn purely to prevent her from killing herself due to the withdrawal. They still hadn't told her about the drug's powerful psychoactive effects, nor did they use it as part of her defense. She behaved aggressively in court, taking the stand in her own defense against her attorney's advice. To make matters worse she wouldn't allow psychiatric testimony to explain her behavior which further damaged her case. When all was said and done, Jean had committed the biggest unwritten rule of the courtroom: coming across as unlikable to the jury. Had she followed her lawyer's advice she likely could've escaped any time in prison.
When the verdict was handed down she was found guilty of 2nd degree murder & given the minimum sentence: 15 years to life in Bedford Hills maximum security prison. This was nothing to sneeze at considering her age. Her unapologetic statement to the court was "I am not guilty" and "Nobody feels his loss more than I do". Yikes.
Fallout & Redemption
Barbara Walters' interviews with Jean in prison in 1982 and '84 show how long it took her to recover from the meth abuse & to realize she'd even been taking a highly potent, addictive drug all that time. In her '82 interview she donned sunglasses, cried at the drop of a hat and couldn't sit still in her seat. This was remedied by '84. Once she realized that she'd been taking speed all those years, she appealed her case & began doing positive things with her time including working in the prison nursery teaching parenting classes. She wrote three books, all of them bestsellers including one about her relationship with Dr. Tarnower. She also had 2 heart attacks behind bars which could've been caused in part by her years of Desoxyn abuse. Her family appealed multiple times to have her released; all of them were rejected.
Eventually Governor Cuomo granted her clemency before a vital heart operation. She continued lecturing about women inmates and their children after her release & finally accepted responsibility for Herman Tarnower's death, stating that while she didn't plan to kill him when she went to his house, she never should've gone into his bedroom with a loaded gun in the first place. (Duh).
Barbara Walters was reprimanded for "getting too close" and losing her objectivity with Jean Harris, which I believe is the only time that's happened in her long and storied career. Indeed, there was something endearing about this upper class lady who had gone through the oldest story in the book and committed a hideous crime of passion during her darkest hour. Some feminists took up her cause & rallied for her release which she took issue with. The media dubbed her "The Headmistress Murderer" & followed her case with great fanfare. A made-for-TV movie was even made about the case.
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| The People vs. Jean Harris movie |
Obviously she got special attention due to her wealth & race--no poor minority woman would ever stir up such sympathy for murdering a man. Yet she was respected in prison by most of her fellow inmates of all races & backgrounds which says a lot about her character. (Lord knows not all old rich white women would be able to hack it behind bars). The fact that she continued her advocacy work after prison shows that she was sincere & not just doing it to pass the time or gain sympathy for release.
As for what role the Desoxyn played, I have no doubt that it fueled her spiral into madness to a great degree & definitely made her less likable in court. It's one thing to knowingly take a mind-altering drug, but when you have no clue about things like side effects and withdrawal that's when things can get dangerous. Dr. Tarnower's reckless prescribing of methamphetamine hurt them both, though it arguably hurt him more. Despite any role the drug might've played, Jean Harris was still ultimately responsible for her decision that night.
Jean claimed the media got the motive wrong, that she wasn't a "woman scorned" but a woman on the brink of a nervous breakdown due to nearly losing her job, but I can't help thinking her stormy relationship with Tarnower played at least as big a role, as did the Desoxyn. It was the perfect storm and a good lesson for anyone reading this: don't let a temporary feeling--however strong--drive you to do something permanent & irreversible. Also: know your body, know the risks of the drugs you're taking & never stop taking them abruptly without a doctor's supervision. If that doctor happens to be in a romantic relationship with you or has other conflicting interests, get a second opinion.
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