OFFICER'S PRIVILEGE: THE COL. GEORGE MARECEK STORY

Anniversary

Fort Fisher, near the pier

According to court documents, the couple arrived at the Fort Fisher area around dinnertime on Friday, May 31, and hunted around for a secluded fishing spot. Over the next couple of days, they made small talk, and made small impressions on people whom they came across. One witness, herself a Thai woman, remembers being approached by the couple as she stood fishing on a pier near the end of Davis Road. She remembered being struck by the fact that the man she would later know as Col. Marecek referred to his now 42-year-old wife as "my little girl." She also took note of the fact, according to court papers, that as they chatted, "Viparet stood silently with her head down."

Though the couple was on vacation - a weeklong getaway they had planned since February, according to Marecek - the Colonel, ever the military man, maintained his rigid daily schedule. In a four-page written statement he later provided to detectives, Marecek put it this way: "(O) ur daily schedule generally followed this routine: 6:00 four-mile morning run, light breakfast 8:30 hours a.m. (sic). (B)each until 1430 p.m. (S) howers, washing of beach towels and other items. (P) reparing evening meal. (A) short walk after dinner, one hour. (W)atch evening news, local and international. (S) elect a short program of mutual interest and then retire for the night."

Missing from the Colonel's log was anything that hinted at any kind of frivolity or even intimacy with his wife, a woman, who according to one witness, had complained that whatever spark there had been between them, had vanished and that the Colonel, who earlier in their marriage wanted to "make whoopee" whenever he drank, now didn't touch her at all.

Passion may be absent in the Colonel's accounting of his time. Minutia is not.

That is abundantly apparent in his account of the events on the day of her death.

"On June 3, the day started just like all others with the following difference," he wrote. "Viparet and I returned from the beach at 12:35 p.m. Viparet prepared a fresh salad and small portion of low-fat cottage cheese and we watched the noon news and a soap opera..."All My Children."

According to Marecek's written account, "I suggested to Viparet that we return to the beach for a couple, three hours, but she told me to go by myself, that she has had plenty of sun for now and will wash all the towels and other items."

"We exchanged greetings," Marecek wrote, "and I left for the beach approximately 2:30 p.m. and returned back at 4:55 p.m."

That detail would later prove troubling to investigators. Though Marecek had emphatically stated that he had gone to the beach and returned alone that afternoon, there were witnesses who took issue with that.

A pair of off duty police officers, identified in court papers as Tom and Beth Deleuw, would later tell the court that they remember driving east in Fort Fisher Boulevard about 4 p.m. on Monday, June 3, and taking note of the ram rod straight military man and his diminutive wife as they walked west, away from the beach, carrying beach items. According to court papers, Deleuw remembered commenting on the couple to his wife. "Look, there's a retired Air Force Colonel and his pie-faced wife," Deleuw recalled saying.

Another witness, a local handyman, also maintained that he had seen the couple walking toward the river around 4:15 pm, hours after Marecek claimed he has "exchanged greetings" with his wife and left her on her own.

According to Marecek's account, when he returned home, Viparet was not there.