she was restless. so when she left the flying life, settling down was not easy. i think she was looking for the excitement in other ways. it was almost like let me stir the pot a little bit. along comes this young guy. sure. exciting. april was eva s bridesmaid, hoped eva would reconcile with her pilot husband and when the stephen thing began, she heard all about it. he s a good-looking guy, fun to be around. he was available to do pretty much anything she wanted to do, because i don t really think he had a job. and i think they d go on these little trips to different places. i think that he was kind of a trophy to her. being so much younger, you know, here she is in her early 40s. oh, wow, look, i m with somebody that s in their 20s. i just said, proceed with caution, you know. stephen knew she was married, of course, knew the marriage was on again, off again.
happened here in catalina? detectives kept digging and from eva s friends and family, they heard allegations about a dark side of stephen s personality. he had a temper. talking to family members of eva, friends of his, he had a temper. he had a history of being violent with her. she d come home with her sister and her mother, they d see bruises all over her body. they knew that stephen was being he was very violent at times. they were obviously bite marks on her legs or whatever. i would ask her, what is that? oh, it s from stephen. you know, we were playing rough or, you know, wrestling around, some type of sexual thing. eva, conflicted, perhaps confused, ignored the advice of her friends and even as the story goes, a mystical warning. she had gone to a psychic. she didn t tell the woman anything about her life and she said, you re in a relationship with a younger man. that s not your husband. eva was like, yeah, that s
her too firmly. she even went to a doctor, said reitz, to ask why she bruised so easily. as for the night she was killed, reitz s attorney ted veganes said stephen couldn t have known what he was doing, couldn t have been that angry. there is nothing that occurred that makes sense. the act itself is bizarre. the act itself is an act of somebody losing it. and then the heart of the defense. the medical expert from stanford university explained how people can and sometimes do, violent things unconsciously while asleep. he detailed the battery of tests reitz had been given, which showed his propensity to sleepwalking. is it a fake? no, no, no. when you re in that rem sleep, there s no way you can fake it. the trial lasted three weeks. and now the jury would have to decide if it was conscious rage or unconscious tragedy. guilty or not?
she s the person you call. and no matter what, you always feel better for what she had to say. she told her niece, lannelle piro, about the young man. stephen was just 25, not that it mattered. i he is he had come over to the house one day. came to hang out with eva s son who made the introduction. i remember she called me and told me she met this really nice guy. he s really good looking, you know. it was instant chemistry. he was obviously attracted to her. who wouldn t be? she s drop-dead gorgeous. she had an enormous capacity to love people, and people were drawn to her. there was a 17-year age difference, so she was the ultimate cougar. stephen worked sporadically at a variety of odd jobs, sometimes even at sea as commercial fisherman. eva was a thrice married and separated, former flight attendant. why do i keep thinking of the cindy lauper song girls just wanna have fun ?