every night listening to our songs, you know, mourning his loss and he s in the south of france. his credit card tally in the south of france alone added up to more than $50,000. since there s no law against disappearing, michelle couldn t really go to the authorities. it seemed the only people even interested in finding mark weinberger were his creditors. but michelle wouldn t give up. on more than one occasion, michelle flew to europe in hopes of tracking down and confronting her husband. just me and a pair of handcuffs. i brought handcuffs because i figured if he saw me he might, like, be freaked out. i just wanted an explanation. she even came close once, arriving at a paris hotel just a day after weinberger had checked out. but back home she still faced a growing pile of unpaid bills. mark had never allowed her to see the bills before or even have her own checking account.
he is a very evil person. in preparing to bring the phyllis barnes case to court, ken allen was able to question the runaway doctor in jail. i saw a very sinister person, a very sinister person. and a person who is very capable of pretending he has some measure of remorse. but i could see he was not changed or remorseful at all. in march 2011, more than six years after her death, the family of phyllis barnes finally got their chance to present their malpractice case against mark weinberger in a civil trial. weinberger elected not to attend. ken allen s case hinged on convincing the jury weinberger could have caught phyllis cancer had he given her a thorough examination. allen told the jurors that phyllis barnes, a two-pack-a-day smoker had gone to see weinberger complaining of trouble bleeding, coughing and hoarseness.
what on earth caused him to chuck it all without as much as a note of explanation. november 1st was our three-year anniversary and a bit of a turning point for me. but prior to that i still believed wholeheartedly that he was going to send for me. and if he sent for me, i would have went with him. really? i would have, yes. and that day came and went with no phone call, no letter, nothing. and that made me realize that i needed to take care of myself and try to get back on my own two feet. mark was still alive. she knew that because, even though she hadn t heard from him since that brief phone call in greece, credit card statements were still coming in to their home in chicago. he s going to the biggest fashion houses across france and buying clothing and he s at casinos. and you re back and you can t even pay the water bill. right. and i m sitting there crying
home. the stranger might well have lived on indefinitely as courmayeur s very own international man of mystery, had he not walked into that grocery store one night and struck up a conversation with a woman behind the register. that is where our story takes another fateful turn because it was in that moment that the rich american proceeded to make a mistake that has proved the undoing of men ever since adam accepted that apple from eve. the man who called himself mark stern was about to fall in love. for more than two years, mark weinberger walked the streets of europe safe in the anonymity of crowds. according to vanity fair writer buzz bissinger, he cut away people from the past, anyone who knew his name with the cool detachment of a surgeon.
he answered, my name is mark weinberger. and that was that. after five years on the run and four months on the mountain, the search for mark weinberger was over. no confrontation, no dash for freedom. instead, the fugitive doctor posed for pictures. inside the tent, police found euros worth about $3,000, top-notch equipment, a stockpile of food and medicine. cialis, like viagra. and some survival medications. under italian law, weinberger could be held for 24 hours while police verified his identity. so mark weinberger was taken back down the mountain to the police barracks in courmayeur. he was in very good shape, very quiet. i asked him, are you married? i m divorced. what s your job? i m a surgeon. a surgeon.