Afterdiscovering the bodies of his mistress and estranged wife, both shot dead in a murder-suicide,Mark Gerardotlearned that he was a potential target, too.
“I was going to be the backup plan, to take me out,” Mark said Thursday on a broadcast episode ofThe Dr. Oz Show.
Meredith, a Villanova University assistant vice president, and Jennair died on April 23, 2018, inside Meredith’s upscale residence on Philadelphia’s affluent Main Line, where Jannair broke in and lay in wait after canceling a dinner plan with Mark.
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Mark then drove to Meredith’s house fearing there would be a confrontation between the two women — and encountered both of their bodies.
“There was a letter that she wrote,” Mark told Dr. Oz. “And she described in great detail what she was going to do. She was afraid of me walking in first. She says, ‘If he does, I’m going to have to do a Brynn Phil Hartman.’ Phil Hartman was a famous actor onSaturday Night Liveand he and his wife took it,” with Brynnshooting her husband before she took her own life. “She used their names as verbs, as to what she was going to do. I was going to be the backup plan, to take me out.”
Meredith Chapman.
The affair between Mark and Meredith had started with shared emotional intimacies over drinks in late 2017, soon after Meredith hired Mark for a job in the marketing department at the University of Delaware, where Meredith then worked.
Accepting the job required Mark to briefly leave Jennair behind in South Carolina, where they were living at the time. But already the couple’s marriage was struggling, he told20/20. Meredith, too, confessed to him that she was also in an unhappy marriage, and before Jennair moved north, Mark and Meredith had expressed their love for one another, he says.
Jennair sensed the change in her husband. “She finally asked me, ‘What is up with you? You’re acting different,’” says Mark. “She said specifically, ‘It’s Meredith, isn’t it?'”
Mark announced his intent to leave Jennair but still entered counseling with her. He also continued to see Meredith, who switched jobs from the University of Delaware to Villanova and moved to the Philadelphia area while separating from her own husband of nine years.
Mark Gerardot, at left, and Dr. Mehmet Oz.Sony Pictures Television
One of those recordings captured Jennair’s rising insecurities.
source: people.com
