FILE - In this Feb. 9, 1981 file photo, Jean Harris, left, arrives at court in White Plains, New York Monday, Feb. 9, 1981. Harris, the patrician girls' school headmistress who spent 12 years in prison for the 1980 killing of her longtime lover, "Scarsdale Diet" doctor Herman Tarnower, in a case that rallied feminists and inspired television movies, died Sunday, Dec. 23, 2012, in New Haven, Conn. She was 89. (AP Photo/David Handschuh, File)
Jean Harris, 'Scarsdale Diet' doctor killer, dies
FILE - In this Feb. 9, 1981 file photo, Jean Harris, left, arrives at court in White Plains, New York Monday, Feb. 9, 1981. Harris, the patrician girls' school headmistress who spent 12 years in prison for the 1980 killing of her longtime lover, "Scarsdale Diet" doctor Herman Tarnower, in a case that rallied feminists and inspired television movies, died Sunday, Dec. 23, 2012, in New Haven, Conn. She was 89. (AP Photo/David Handschuh, File)
By MICHAEL MELIA
Associated Press /
December 28, 2012
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She testified at her trial: ‘‘In Westchester, I always felt I was a woman in a pretty dress that went to dinner parties with Dr. Tarnower. In Washington, I was a woman in a pretty dress and a headmistress. I wasn’t sure who I was, and it didn’t seem to matter.’’
The expensively dressed Harris came across as snobbish, arrogant and jealous of the younger woman who had replaced her as the principal object of Tarnower’s attention.
During the trial, it was assumed that Harris insisted on testifying about the fateful last meeting in Tarnower’s bedroom. She later said she would not have taken the stand had her lawyer told her to ‘‘keep quiet.’’
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