Showers' teacher liked the story she wrote last year. "Ah yes, the O. Henry ending," he penned on the last page. "Vengeance of the oppressed housewife. I like the context. Would have liked to have seen it developed more."
Six months later, authorities say, it was.
In a real-life version of the Marion-Melvin drama, Judy Showers, 47, was arrested last month, charged with the murder of her husband, Delbert, 51, in a case that police say includes a phony suicide letter, an extramarital affair, a lethal dose of purloined morphine, and an exhumation of the victim's body.
Her arrest ended an eight-month investigation that began about 5:30 p.m. last Sept. 2, when Judy says she found Delbert dead, clad in a pair of torn underwear on a couch in the family room of the couple's split-level suburban home a few miles east of here.
Beneath his body was a handwritten suicide note, signed "Del." The writer apologized for the hurt caused Judy and the couple's two daughters, acknowledged having an affair, and asked that no autopsy be performed. Nearby was a smoke-colored juice glass later found to contain the residue of a sedative.
Months later, after handwriting experts concluded that the note had not been written by Delbert, and when other elements of the suicide failed to add up, Judy admitted, state police said, that she had written the note. She said nothing further, and pleaded not guilty to first- and third-degree murder charges at a preliminary hearing three weeks ago.
Judy, a licensed practical nurse, is being held in the women's section of the Northumberland County jail in Sunbury. Her attorney said last week that she maintains emphatically that she did not kill her husband.
The case shocked people in this rural area along the east bank of the Susquehanna River; especially along the country road where the Showers home sits atop a hill overlooking a valley and the Muncy Hills in the distance.
