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Authors: Jonathan Valin
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missing by
her husband on September 3, when she failed to return home after
missing an appointment with Dr. Sheldon Sacks, a Clifton
psychiatrist. Mrs. Pearson has a long history of emotional problems
and has been recently hospitalized for depression. It is feared that
she may have taken her own life . . .
There was a small photo of the woman with the
article. It was difficult to tell much from the newspaper halftone,
but she looked like a pretty woman with bee-stung lips and a thin,
angular, careworn face. There were several more paragraphs over the
next week, reporting the lack of progress in the Pearson case. And
then the big one—the front-page story—on September 14.
INDIAN HILL WOMAN FOUND DEAD
ESTELLE
PEARSON, APPARENT SUICIDE
The body of Estelle
Pearson, of 3 Woodbine Lane, Indian Hill, was discovered late last
night in the Great Miami River by two fishermen, Claude Carter of
Delhi and Sam Livingston of Terrace Park. Mrs. Pearson, wife of
Indian Hill psychiatrist
Dr. Philip Pearson,
has been missing since September 3.
The
fishermen found Mrs. Pearson's body Boating in an estuary of the
Miami River, east of Miamitown. She had been in the water for at
least ten days, according to Hamilton County Assistant Coroner Dr.
Jeffrey Hillman. Pending an inquest, the Cincinnati Police Department
is reserving comment on the cause of death. Foul play is not
suspected.
Mrs. Pearson was first reported
missing on September 3, after she failed to show up for an
appointment with her psychiatrist, Dr. Sheldon Sacks of Clifton.
There was concern at the time that she might have taken her own life.
Dr. Sacks has indicated that Mrs. Pearson was hospitalized for
depression in June and on several other occasions over the past ten
years. Mrs. Pearson, née Estelle Frieberg, was 34 years old, a
Cincinnati native, and a graduate of Miami University and the
University of Cincinnati Medical School. She is survived by her
husband, Dr. Philip Pearson, a
psychiatrist,
and her two children, Ethan, 10, and Kirsten, 6.
There was a death notice the following day, an obit
with a large picture of Estelle, taken when she was younger and less
troubled. And about a week later one final paragraph detailing the
findings of the coroner's inquest. Not surprisingly the coroner had
ruled Estelle Pearson's death a suicide by drowning. There was no
hint that she might have been murdered.
Ethan's drawing was the last item in the folder.
After I'd read the brief history of his mother's life and death, the
line sketch looked less like an anonymous bogeyman to me and more
like a picture of how the kid himself must have felt following the
suicide-jagged, frightened, full of rage.
Skimming through his chapbooks only confirmed that
feeling. I didn't read all four of them—the poems were mostly of a
piece, anyway. Sentimental elegies for his mother and his lost
childhood. Angry jeremiads about social ills, full of violent
adolescent gripes and not so veiled references to his father and
other father figures—men who said they knew best but constantly let
Ethan down. There was a love poem dedicated to his wife, and one very
odd poem called "The Anniversary?
When we meet again, as we will
We'll
talk about that last fall day
And the smell
of burning leaves
The sunlight on the lawn
The sound of the wind in the trees
Where
I met you.
Seeing is a meeting, after all
Even
from a high window
Myself a child of ten
taking leave
Of her in the smell of burning
leaves
The sunlight on the lawn
The
sound of the wind in the dark trees
Where you
waited
We'll meet again where you waited
In
the trees; in the burning,
in the darkness,
in the sound of the wind
And the child will
be there too
In the darkness where you waited
A knife blade in the darkness where he's waited
To commemorate this anniversary.
I wouldn't have bet money on it, but I had the
feeling that the poem was addressed to Estelle Pearson's murderer.
Even if it wasn't, it had a nightmarish resonance to
her husband on September 3, when she failed to return home after
missing an appointment with Dr. Sheldon Sacks, a Clifton
psychiatrist. Mrs. Pearson has a long history of emotional problems
and has been recently hospitalized for depression. It is feared that
she may have taken her own life . . .
There was a small photo of the woman with the
article. It was difficult to tell much from the newspaper halftone,
but she looked like a pretty woman with bee-stung lips and a thin,
angular, careworn face. There were several more paragraphs over the
next week, reporting the lack of progress in the Pearson case. And
then the big one—the front-page story—on September 14.
INDIAN HILL WOMAN FOUND DEAD
ESTELLE
PEARSON, APPARENT SUICIDE
The body of Estelle
Pearson, of 3 Woodbine Lane, Indian Hill, was discovered late last
night in the Great Miami River by two fishermen, Claude Carter of
Delhi and Sam Livingston of Terrace Park. Mrs. Pearson, wife of
Indian Hill psychiatrist
Dr. Philip Pearson,
has been missing since September 3.
The
fishermen found Mrs. Pearson's body Boating in an estuary of the
Miami River, east of Miamitown. She had been in the water for at
least ten days, according to Hamilton County Assistant Coroner Dr.
Jeffrey Hillman. Pending an inquest, the Cincinnati Police Department
is reserving comment on the cause of death. Foul play is not
suspected.
Mrs. Pearson was first reported
missing on September 3, after she failed to show up for an
appointment with her psychiatrist, Dr. Sheldon Sacks of Clifton.
There was concern at the time that she might have taken her own life.
Dr. Sacks has indicated that Mrs. Pearson was hospitalized for
depression in June and on several other occasions over the past ten
years. Mrs. Pearson, née Estelle Frieberg, was 34 years old, a
Cincinnati native, and a graduate of Miami University and the
University of Cincinnati Medical School. She is survived by her
husband, Dr. Philip Pearson, a
psychiatrist,
and her two children, Ethan, 10, and Kirsten, 6.
There was a death notice the following day, an obit
with a large picture of Estelle, taken when she was younger and less
troubled. And about a week later one final paragraph detailing the
findings of the coroner's inquest. Not surprisingly the coroner had
ruled Estelle Pearson's death a suicide by drowning. There was no
hint that she might have been murdered.
Ethan's drawing was the last item in the folder.
After I'd read the brief history of his mother's life and death, the
line sketch looked less like an anonymous bogeyman to me and more
like a picture of how the kid himself must have felt following the
suicide-jagged, frightened, full of rage.
Skimming through his chapbooks only confirmed that
feeling. I didn't read all four of them—the poems were mostly of a
piece, anyway. Sentimental elegies for his mother and his lost
childhood. Angry jeremiads about social ills, full of violent
adolescent gripes and not so veiled references to his father and
other father figures—men who said they knew best but constantly let
Ethan down. There was a love poem dedicated to his wife, and one very
odd poem called "The Anniversary?
When we meet again, as we will
We'll
talk about that last fall day
And the smell
of burning leaves
The sunlight on the lawn
The sound of the wind in the trees
Where
I met you.
Seeing is a meeting, after all
Even
from a high window
Myself a child of ten
taking leave
Of her in the smell of burning
leaves
The sunlight on the lawn
The
sound of the wind in the dark trees
Where you
waited
We'll meet again where you waited
In
the trees; in the burning,
in the darkness,
in the sound of the wind
And the child will
be there too
In the darkness where you waited
A knife blade in the darkness where he's waited
To commemorate this anniversary.
I wouldn't have bet money on it, but I had the
feeling that the poem was addressed to Estelle Pearson's murderer.
Even if it wasn't, it had a nightmarish resonance to
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