Whipped Cream Difficulties

Jean S. Harris, former headmistress of the Madeira School.

Of course, those of you who were alive and aware of your surroundings in the early 1980s know that’s not why I bring up the late Ms. Harris. For those of you who don’t recall, she became notorious after shooting her lover, Dr. Herman Tarnower (a cardiologist who’d become very rich after publishing The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet).

Ms. Harris and Dr. Tarnower had been long-time lovers, but Dr. Tarnower started dating his younger assistant. Eventually, Ms. Harris snapped; she claimed she drove to Dr. Tarnower’s to kill herself, Dr. Tarnower tried to get the gun away from her, and she accidentally shot him twice in the struggle.

Unfortunately, Dr. Tarnower had four bullet wounds, not two. Ms. Harris was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 15 to life. She did 12 years before Governor Mario Cuomo granted her clemency.

While she was in prison, she became known as something of an activist for better treatment of women prisoners:

She counseled fellow female prisoners on how to take care of their children, and she set up a center where infants born to inmates can spend a year near their mothers. Then, after her release in 1993 following a grant of clemency by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, she set up a foundation that raised millions of dollars for scholarships for children of women in prison in New York State.

She also tutored her fellow prisoners and worked in the prison library.

Edited to add 12/30: Longer and more detailed obit from the LAT.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2012 at 7:28 am and is filed under Clippings, Law, Obits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.