Emily,
Please explain the media’s obsession with the sordid tale of the billionaire Rausing couple and their descent into drug addiction and death and how it may or may not relate to the novels of V.C. Andrews.
Dorigen
Dorigen
Thank you for the best question ever, because I am fascinated with this story. I will now relay the events in V.C. Andrews styling, i.e. episodically, with a prequel and an epilogue.
Book 1
Hans Rausing (unemployed and filthy rich) is pulled over by the police for erratic driving; he is clearly drunk. In his car, the cops find drugs and a bag containing unopened letters addressed to his wife, Eva. Who knows what crazed nonsense comes out of his mouth after he explains that his wife is in “California,” because this (all-too-common) drunk driving incident arouses so much suspicion that a warrant is immediately issued to search the house of Hans.
Book 2
With search warrant in hand, the police enter the Rausing mansion with the intent to search for drugs. The drug search does occur and they do find a lot (cocaine, heroin, crack, etc), but that happens after the cops follow the smell of a rotting corpse.
Book 3
In a room filled with flies, Eva’s body is found under a 4 foot pile of clothes and garbage. This is a taped shut room within a room with in a room with in an annex of a mansion filled with such convergences, with all doors barricaded by various pieces of furniture. Of course, these precautions do not barricade the smell. Her body is in advanced stages of decay – initial reports suggesting 4 days, but it turns out to be months.
Book 4
After an autopsy, the cause of Eva’s death is still unknown, presumably because of the massive decay. Hans is arrested, but not questioned until many days later, due to his very real medical need for alcohol detoxification. Hans is later officially charged with “preventing the lawful and decent burial” of his wife. This shy, ne’er-do-well, confused, vacant billionaire is then sentenced to a suspended jail term of 10 months.
Book 5 – Prequel
Hans was not charged with murder, because Eva was on borrowed time. She had a pacemaker, she was once caught with thousands of dollars of crack, and she lost her mind at some regal social event at Buckingham Palace. She knew she was going to die; everyone knew she was going to die. Check out the Eva Rausing “death emails” – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173635/Eva-Rausing-death-Emails-edge-tragedy-struck.html.
Epilogue
I actually think the news media has done a decent job sympathetically reporting on this salacious story. Eva had a drug problem, which led to her death, and Hans has a drug problem, which led to his crazed problem solving skills. I wonder what will be said when this happens to my boy.
Love,
Emily
P.S. Recommended Readings…
DorEm Answers 