Practice to Deceive by Ann Rule Page A

“spoiled brat,” although his very behavior at times showed that he was.
    Fran Lester said she had last heard from Russ on Christmas Eve. He was trying to decide if he should spend Christmas with his wife and children. She told him he had to make up his own mind about that. The Friday after Christmas, she opened a last email from him that he had sent on Christmas Eve.
    “I sent him an answer,” she said. “It’s probably in his computer, but I don’t think he ever got it.”
    The two women with whom Russel Douglas had been involved had given such different opinions. Fran Lester had pooh-poohed the idea that he was ever drawn into swinging with strangers, assuring both detectives he was much too shy and anxious to do that.
    And yet his wife described him as almost maniacally involved in aberrant sex.
    Was it possible he was both personalities? He seemed to be bipolar, but it was doubtful that he was a true Jekyll and Hyde combination.
    Surprisingly, Russ’s mother, Gail, and his sister, Holly, felt no ill will toward Fran Lester. While Russ could be annoying and immature, Brenna was the one who had always seemed to be manipulating in the background.
    Brenna would agree to attend holiday celebrations or family reunions, and invariably back out at the last minute. When she and Russ did attend such functions, Brenna made a point of sitting far apart from the rest of the family.
    “We felt that Brenna was controlling Russ,” Gail said. “He wasn’t the one that was deliberately avoiding us.”
    One Thanksgiving, the family all went to Kalispell, Montana, to Gail’s sister’s home. The next day, Brenna and Russ went shopping and left baby Jack with Gail.
    They were gone long enough for Jack to start getting hungry. Gail warmed a jar of baby food and was feeding it to him when Brenna walked in the door.
    “What are you doing ?” Brenna shrieked.
    “He was so hungry—” Gail began.
    Brenna grabbed the baby food jar out of Gail’s hand and threw it into the sink.
    “We never warm his food,” she screamed. “He eats cold food!”
    Baffled, Gail stared at her daughter-in-law. She didn’t know of anyone who didn’t warm their small babies’ food.
    Clearly, Brenna was trying to control Russ and his family. She and his sister, Holly, had been close, but she drew away from Holly after Russ’s murder, and she refused to even discuss the details of the insurance policies he had.
    She derided Russ and his family for thinking education was important. Brenna was by no means dumb, but she hated schools and colleges.
    At another Montana family reunion, Brenna insisted that she and her family wouldn’t stay in the homes relatives had prepared for sleepovers. Instead, she insisted on staying in the RV she and Russ owned, and then she made him park far away from the group.
    That was not a good trip. They were all going to meet at a campground, and someone inadvertently gave Russ the wrong directions. When Gail discovered that, she tried to get in touch with them, but their cell phone was turned off. By retracing the turns along the way, the Douglases finally arrived—but they were forty-five minutes late.
    Brenna was furious. She screamed at Gail.
    “How dare you give me the wrong directions! I know you did it on purpose!”
    Brenna’s diabetic mother had surgery—a gastric by-pass—but complications set in, and she died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism and heart failure.
    “Russ took some of his 401(k) money to pay for his mother-in-law’s funeral,” Gail O’Neal said. “That was why he agreed to buy the second insurance policy on his own life. He told Brenna, ‘I don’t want that to happen to you. I want you taken care of.’ ”
    Brenna’s chaotic emotions and bad business sense weren’t positive influences in Russ’s life, but he was apparently doing his best at the time he was murdered. And his mother thanked his mistress for that.
    “Fran was key to helping my son grow up,” Gail said. “He did