Dr. Moore was a caring woman who saw nothing but tragedy in the Mary Kay Letourneau case. She felt that Mary Kay's situation was a problem that had progressed needlessly from a privately treatable problem to an all-encompassing media feeding frenzy.
“I think this should have been nipped in the bud when she was found in the car with apparently no clothes on. But I wish that instead of calling official attention to it, that could've been dealt with very privately with Mary or with her husband, or with her family. I know this is wishful thinking, because this isn't the way law enforcement works. Law enforcement is not oriented to the cause of the crime. Just the crime.”
It was Dr. Moore's conclusion that Mary Kay needed medical help for her bipolar disorder. David Gehrke told the psychiatrist efforts to get her on medication while in jail had thus far proved unsuccessful. A call placed by the doctor to the jail medical staff indicated they didn't buy into the bipolar diagnosis. One doctor said he thought she was merely depressed because she'd been sent to jail. Who wouldn't be depressed?
But after determined prodding by Dr. Moore, the jail doctor agreed to give Mary Kay a dosage of Depakote, an antidepressant. Dr. Moore was pleased; though the drug wasn't a first choice for bipolar disorder, it was an effective antidepressant. Lithium was generally considered a better and faster-working medication, but it took a lot of fine-tuning of the dosage to ensure effective therapeutic levels.
When Dr. Moore saw Mary Kay ten days after she started Depakote, she saw a different Mary. She had been sleeping better and her mental focus had improved. She didn't require the scraps of paper to keep track of what she was saying.
“Her attorney said she could get done in ten minutes what took four hours before. Her moods were more even. She was more realistic about sentencing.”
Not everyone liked the idea of Mary Kay on Depakote. Tony Hollick considered it another major injustice. He was convinced that the antidepressant would take the very things from her that made her such a free spirit and wonderful and gifted dreamer. He saw her forced medication as an attack on her human rights and worthy of international focus. Ironically, the smitten Englishman was on Lithium himself.
And he e-mailed everyone from Hillary Clinton to Amnesty International and the FBI. In fact, he made calls to the Seattle field office of the FBI on several occasions to alert them of a conspiracy involving Mary Letourneau.
“This case could prove to be one of the greatest political scandals in American history. I fully expect numerous leading Republicans in Washington State to be sent to prison… ”
Chapter 63
A SECRET MEETING. It was Mary Letourneau's suggestion and psychiatrist Julia Moore agreed it was a good idea. Dr. Moore wanted an opportunity for Mary's friends to hear her side, some explanation about what had happened to her and how bipolar disorder had contributed to her problems. Invitations were mailed to neighbors, friends, and even a few teachers with the admonition to keep the get-together confidential so that no media would show up with notepads and cameras pointed.
The hush-hush meeting in a home of a PTA president near Shorewood Elementary lasted two and a half hours.
The friends in attendance had known for a long time that the Letourneau marriage had been in trouble and, for the most part, they blamed Steve. They characterized Mary Kay's husband as “irritable,” “very demanding,” and “unappreciative of Mary.”
“Some had worried about Mary from time to time,” Dr. Moore said later of the group that gathered that November evening. “They loved Mary. They knew something [had] happened to her, some major psychiatric event. They were hurt and angry that she had done this. But they didn't think she was bad.”
Dr. Moore carefully sketched out the series of events, the chain reaction that had led to Mary Letourneau's criminal charges. She said that Mary Kay had probably experienced hypomania since mid-adolescence. She defined that as being marked by rapid thinking, grandiosity, and elation. Hypomania, she explained, in and of itself is a problem, though many people who suffer from it go un-diagnosed. In fact, people who exhibit this characteristic are often quite successful, charming, and energetic.
That was Mary Kay Letourneau.
As the psychiatrist explained it to the group, if there was a “safe way to have hypomania, we'd all want it.” But it was a roll of the dice, and it frequently led to trouble—sometimes serious trouble.
Although some of Mary Kay's behavior might have suggested a “hypersexual” component—an uncontrollable desire and interest in sex—the psychiatrist was uncertain if that was truly part of her background and her bipolar disorder or not. The hypersexual role was inconclusive based on what she had gathered.