Stomach-churning details indeed, especially to William and Jewel Phelps, a factory worker and his wife in Jetersville, Va., whose 18-year-old daughter Annamaria was found dead in 1989 (along with Daniel Lauer, 21, her fiancé's brother) in circumstances nearly identical to Cornwell's account—right down to specific wounds suffered and clothing worn. In a breach of privacy lawsuit filed against the author and the Macmillan Publishing Co. on July 31, the Phelpses claim that Cornwell—who worked in the state medical examiner's office at the time of the still unsolved murder—illegally based part of her narrative on their daughter's confidential autopsy. "I just think the woman is sick if she feels as if she has to make a living off of someone else's tragedy," says Jewel Phelps, 51.
Is the author guilty of civil wrongdoing—or just bad taste? Cornwell, 40, of Richmond, Va., is not commenting, but her former colleague, chief Virginia medical examiner Marcella Fierro—said to be the model for Cornwell's scalpel-sharp heroine Kay Scarpetta—says the writer culled the details from newspapers, not autopsies. And Corn-well's lawyer, Michael Rudell, says the suit "will be shown not to have any merit." But the Phelpses' attorney, Scott Crowley, who is seeking unspecified damages, insists the book made the family "relive the anguish" of their daughter's death.
John Harrison, associate law professor at the University of Virginia, says it's all "quite tricky since no one has been falsely defamed" and only one thing seems certain: "This is clearly not an easy case." Even for Scarpetta.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
