Murder in Massachusetts

Running Around Naked

After talking about her life in Bennington and how she met Neil, Patricia described to police the entire day, Sunday, January 9. The detail she recalled was remarkable—as if she had written it all down and studied it. She said she "spent most of the day lying on the couch. I didn't feel well." After Neil ate French toast, he kept himself busy sheet-rocking one of the bathrooms. Then one of her employees from the restaurant brought up Neil's breakfast, after stopping at the local Getty gas station, under orders from Patricia, to pick her up a pack of cigarettes and the National Enquirer magazine.

Neil was a big fan of Spike Television programming. He loved the shows about cars and trucks. A real man's man. Spike was running a marathon of those shows that day. By 10:30 a.m., Neil had taken a break from sheet-rocking and settled down in the living room next to Patricia to watch a few of "his car shows."

At some point, Neil's parents, Ruth and Harold Olsen, stopped by. Patricia said she had cleaned the house before they showed up and ended up greeting them outside.

"Ruthy," Patricia recalled, "went to hug me but I told her not to because I hadn't been feeling well."

"Where's Neil?" Ruth wondered.

By then, Neil had gone upstairs to play video games, which was another energy burner for him. He enjoyed the thrill of competition immensely and had even purchased a big screen television for the bedroom.

"I love his parents," Patricia recalled, "they have been good parents to me, but they never call before they come over. Neil and I get pissed off sometimes because we wanted our privacy."

Why, then, would Patricia say she had cleaned the house if she hadn't known Ruth and Harold Olsen were stopping by? Both Christopher and Amanda later told police their mother had gotten extremely lazy the past few years and rarely cleaned anything. The house was filthy all the time. Rabbit and dog excrement was everywhere, Amanda said. And Patricia just left it there. She allowed many of the pets to roam around the house freely and even sleep in her room on her bed. Cleaning was something Patricia had given up long ago.

Part of that privacy she and Neil enjoyed so much, Patricia explained to police, included sex. Lots of it. Since Amanda had moved out, Patricia and Neil had the house all to themselves. "[We] had a lot of sex at different times of the day. When [Amanda] moved out last year, Neil said it was great because we could run around the house naked."

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