it was more than two decades ago. it, too, was a violent crime, involved a man who had no apparent motive and who later on had absolutely no recollection of what he had done, just like stephen reitz. this killer s name was kenneth parks, and his story made headlines round the world. it was 1987. parks was 23, married, the father of a baby girl. it happened about 2:00 a.m. parks had fallen asleep in front of the television set. he got up, put on his coat, walked out the front door of his house, climbed into his car, drove 14 miles, a drive on which he encountered several major intersections. parked at his in-law s home, went inside, beat his father-in-law, leaving him barely alive, and then beat and stabbed to death his mother-in-law. then he got back into his car and drove away. and only realized what he had done after the episode and
go to that very same place the following week to reconcile with her husband. i think eva was breaking it off and telling him that this was their last time together. he couldn t handle it. if he couldn t have her, no one could. and that probably started a fight and ended up he ended up killing her. but stephen reitz, who is now facing a first degree murder charge, never once wavered from the story he told that morning in the catalina fire station. he was not conscious. he did not want to kill eva. had no recollection whatsoever of what he did. he was not in control. now, reitz and medical science would be on trial. was his lover eva weinfurtner killed in a tragic, unconscious accident or was it a cold-blooded, calculated murder?
prying open the deepest secrets, especially under the gaze of two experienced detectives. the affair, it soon became apparent, was as tumultuous as it was passionate. my uncle called and said your aunt eva s dead. i said, steve killed her, didn t he? he didn t know at that point really details or anything, but i knew. knowing eva and steve s relationship, knowing the violence, it was obviously shocking but not surprising. violence? what violence? stephen reitz told detectives that he and eva had a very loving relationship. rarely, if ever, did they quarrel or disagree. odd, then, that he never mentioned the incident here in san diego a few months before eva s death.
20 years, i believe. wow. so it was unheard of. i mean, it s a resort area. people go there to get away. beside him in the helicopter was his partner, detective ken gallatin. ahead on the island, perhaps one of the most unusual case of their careers. we just knew we had a dead female and a boyfriend who they felt was responsible for it. they were the crew of catalina s fire station who early that morning had received an unexpected visitor. stephen reitz. he had actually gone down to the fire station and said his girlfriend was hurt up in the apartment and he may have killed her. paramedics rushed to the hotel and tried to revive eva weinfurtner. but it was far too late for that. and then a few hours later, detectives tomlin and gallitin arrived. they both had been here before on vacation but this was awful.
so you see the parallels, the very same behavior, pounding on the door, breaking into the room, wielding a pocketknife and then threatening to gut her. it s the very same thing he did in this case. how do you say that he was sleepwalking when on a prior occasion he had the dress rehearsal? at trial, reitz never denied breaking into eva s apartment with the knife. nor did he deny that he was responsible for her bruises. the ones eva s family noticed. instead, reitz said in their passion, sometimes he grabbed 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 theodore 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 someti