OFFICER'S PRIVILEGE: THE COL. GEORGE MARECEK STORY

Calling in the Reserves

It was while he was assigned to Thailand in 1975 that Marecek met Viparet. The details of their early encounters are unclear. But what is clear is that by 1979, the young Thai woman was a key player in Marecek's life. When he returned to the United States, he brought her, and in 1982, when Marecek's divorce from his first wife was finalized, the couple wed.

By all appearances, according to court papers and published reports, Viparet Marecek and her husband were content, at least in the early days of their marriage. With no family in the United States other than her husband's, Viparet Marecek seems to have developed a close bond with her grown stepchildren, especially the Colonel's daughter, Susan Kirk. The two, who were reasonably close in age, would often talk. As Kirk would later tell the Fayetteville Observer, "Viparet was part of my family, she was my friend."

It's impossible to know, of course, what really goes on behind the scenes in any marriage, but in court papers, Marecek would later array a cadre of people who claimed that they had caught glimpses of the couple over the course of their nine year marriage, and found nothing lacking.

As one witness, Joseph Lupiak, a former soldier who had served with Maracek testified, he had often gotten together at social events with the Colonel and his wife, and as late as 1991, the year Viparet was murdered, it appeared that theirs was "a very amicable relationship. I seen no hostilities, no problems, they seemed to get along fine."

Even in the months leading up to her slaying, witnesses said the woman seemed to be happy in her marriage. One acquaintance, identified in court papers as Christopher Cinkoske, later told the court that he had chatted with Viparet at a party on Memorial Day weekend 1991, less than a week before her body was discovered. And during that conversation, Viparet mentioned that she and the Colonel were planning a trip to Eastern Europe, and planned, "to bring back 'a distant female relative." She even playfully offered to fix Cinkoske - who was single at the time - with the woman.