OFFICER'S PRIVILEGE: THE COL. GEORGE MARECEK STORY

Marking Time

At first, he said, he was not unduly alarmed by his wife's absence. "I showered and washed the towel I used," he wrote. As he stepped out of the shower, he noticed that a brief and violent rainstorm had begun to lash the windows. "I looked at my watch," he wrote. "It was 5:20 p.m." and he claimed he was beginning to get concerned. At first, he wrote, he toyed with the idea of hopping in the car to search for his missing wife, but decided instead to wait. Once the rain had subsided, he wrote, he began to wander the neighborhood looking for his missing wife. By 8:10 he decided to call the police. And while they searched, he claimed, so did he, giving up for the night at about 11:35 p.m.

New Hanover County Sheriff Dept. patch

That has also been an aspect of the case that has troubled the authorities. Perhaps there is no serious significance to it, but according to court papers, James Davis, a deputy with the New Hanover Country Sheriff's department, testified that after taking Marecek's missing persons report, he had "instructed the defendant to leave the lights on and to leave a note on the front door if he left so that Deputy Davis could find him in case he found the defendant's wife. Deputy Davis then conducted a search including the Davis Beach area but found nothing. Deputy Davis passed the defendant's cottage ten or twelve times during the course of the evening and he noticed that the porch light was off and the defendant's vehicle never moved. He checked for a note each time but did not see one."

Perhaps Marecek simply forgot the deputy's instructions, but prosecutors have long suspected that the reason that Marecek, a man who was born and bred to follow orders, ignored the deputy was that he knew that Viparet Marecek would not turn up alive.