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resident of the United States if Amy married him. She was not asked in court whether the question of money came up. The prosecutor simply asked her, “Did you come to a decision?”
    â€œYes,” she said, “that I would in fact marry him.”
    The prosecutor didn’t probe any further, and Amy certainly didn’t volunteer anything further about her motivation for agreeing. “It was easy,” she explained—all she had to do was learn how to pronounce and write her future husband’s name. “I just know we made an arrangement for him to pick me up to go to Dane County in Madison, which is in Wisconsin, to get married.”
    Shortly after Amy said yes, Gerhart asked Todd Lassa to be his best man. The two students had spent a semester studying the great examples of film noir, which usually features conniving people doing dastardly things to one another in a very black-and-white world. Gerhart’s request—to have a near stranger as his best man at a wedding that had come out of nowhere—perhaps seemed almost normal compared with what they had been watching in class on film. Lassa readily agreed.
    â€œIt was a Saturday afternoon,” Lassa told me. “He picked me up, and we drove into an older neighborhood of Milwaukee.” They were in Chris’s 1980 Plymouth Arrow, and Chris and Todd were both wearing suits. The Jersild sisters were waiting for them at the door. Strangely, though, the sister Todd thought Chris was dating—the younger one—was not the sister he was marrying.
    â€œThey seemed in on the joke,” said Lassa, “as did Chris. He gave me a crazy explanation that he was marrying his girlfriend’s sister for tax purposes, that he had a book he was publishing. And secondly, he didn’t want to make a big commitment to his girlfriend. It was obvious that he was bullshitting, that he was out to get a green card.”
    It was also obvious to Todd back then that Chris was accustomed to getting what he wanted. And why not? He was young, smart, handsome, and on his way. On February 20, 1981, one day before he turned twenty, Chris Gerhart stood solemnly beside Amy Jersild in the Dane County Courthouse as circuit judge Richard W. Bardwell read the simple, straightforward questions and waited for their responses.
    â€œDo you, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, take Amy Janine Jersild to be your lawful wedded wife . . .”
    Â 
    Within minutes the modest ceremony was over, and there was no reception. Immediately after saying “I do,” the newlyweds went their separate ways. Chris and Todd dropped the Jersild sisters off back home and returned to college. A few weeks later, Chris picked up Amy again and drove her to the federal courthouse in Milwaukee, drilling her on the spelling and pronunciation of his real, full name—Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter.
    On April 7, the marriage would be consummated, not in bed but on paper. “He gave me a sheet of paper with his name on it so I could memorize it, because there are quite a few letters in his name,” Amy told the prosecutor. “And I had to look at it so I would be able to write it down on the document that I was going to be signing.”
    â€œAnd what would those documents accomplish?” she was asked.
    â€œGetting his legal status to stay in the United States of America.”
    â€œDid you have any intention to be together as husband and wife?”
    â€œNone whatsoever,” she answered defiantly, with the first hint of emotion in her tone.
    When the documents were presented for her to sign, she had no trouble and aroused no suspicion that this was anything less than a marriage forged in love. I found the marriage certificate and related papers in my dossier of documents and could see where Amy had flawlessly filled out the affidavit of support, stating that she was “willing and able to receive, maintain, and support” her husband. She