Mortal Danger

in divorce; he could not face another parting.
    But was that an adequate defense for murder?
    Prosecutors Whalley and George did not dispute that Heinz Jager was mentally ill; what they did dispute was that he was insane to the degree that he was not responsible for his actions when Amy was killed. Under the M’Naughton Rule, the accused must know the difference between right and wrong at the time of his crime. But it’s almost impossible to determine what state of mind someone was in at a particular time. Jager had clearly placed the knife in his bag where he could grab it. He had wrestled that bag out of Amy’s brother’s hand and carried it back to the open rear window.
    The prosecutors called Jager’s California friend as a witness. He testified that the defendant had seemed sane and rational during his visit just prior to the killing. The State called psychiatrists, who pointed out that Jager had not only prepared for the killing by placing the Buck knife where he had easy access to it but also had acted with complete rationality after the killing, mostly complaining about his own pain and the way he was being treated.
    Prosecutor Janet George was particularly adept at questioning the psychiatric experts. In addition to her law degree, she had a master’s degree in public health and once taught psychiatric nursing at the University of Washington. Intrigued by the interaction between the law and mental health, she left nursing to study law. She was no neophyte as she led the professional witnesses through the finer points of madness.
    Insanity is a handy plea for a murder defendant because the mass of humanity does not think something as violent as killing another person is the act of a sane person. Even so, the insanity defense rarely convinces a jury.
    To kill what one cannot have, just to prevent the victim from ever having another relationship, is an act of consummate selfishness and of inexplicable brutality.
    The photographs of the mortally wounded Amy Jager sickened the jury.
    The fact that Amy had truly loved Heinz Jager with single-minded devotion disturbed them.
    They understood that Amy had done everything in her power to hold the fledgling marriage together. Her loyalty to the defendant permeated the case. The man at the defense table had had the whole world in his grasp, and he had destroyed it with his green-eyed ravings. When he lost it, he hadn’t rested until he destroyed Amy, too.
    On November 4, the jury began its deliberations. Although the defense held that Heinz Jager was insane, the jurors kept returning to one point: The knife was there. It wasn’t buried deep in his luggage. The knife was ready. Jager had held it out as his last method of keeping Amy with him. And he had used it cruelly—again, again, and again.
    At 11:30 p.m. on that very first night of deliberation, thejury signaled that it was ready with a verdict. They found Heinz Jager guilty as charged.
    A sad Christmas passed. On January 10, 1977, King County Superior Court Judge Earl Horswill sentenced Heinz Jager to a term of up to life in prison. Under Washington statute at the time, he had to serve a minimum sentence of thirteen years, four months— plus five more years for the use of a deadly weapon in committing his crime—before he became eligible for parole.
    He could have been released from prison in about 1996, but my research has failed to find him. He may have returned to Switzerland, either by choice or by deportation. Now Heinz Jager would be close to seventy—if he is alive—no longer the silver-tongued and attractive Swiss who could lure and then terrorize hapless women who had the great misfortune to fall in love with him.
     
    There is one piece of the puzzle still unexplained. Perhaps it is a warning that Amy Jager failed to heed, a warning that this man she was about to marry was not all he seemed to be. Perhaps it was only a lovers’ pledge that they would live and die together. It is a short note, found among Jager’s possessions, dated August 5, 1975, and signed by Amy. Amy cannot say what she meant and Heinz would not discuss it.
    Two months after she wrote it, Amy married Heinz, so she probably was more in love than she was afraid.
    Or was she living in terror even then? I will always wonder if Heinz forced her to write it and also forced her to marry him.
    In effect, Amy had written her own epitaph:
    I will rest in Switzerland the rest of my life, underground, if I don’t write this letter,