Dying to Get Married: The Courtship and Murder of Julia Miller Bulloch - Hardcover

Edge-of-your-seat account of the ten-week marriage and bizarre death of a young St. Louis executive, whose charred remains were discovered bound with adhesive tape in a burning garage in May 1986. Before her marriage, Julia Miller had suffered a series of mental breakdowns and was desperately lonely. She placed a personal ad in a local newspaper and was thrilled when one Dennis Neal Bulloch responded. Bulloch was apparently an ideal marriage prospect, a handsome, rising young executive with all the proper business and social connections. Julia was swept off her feet, and the couple soon married. Unfortunately, Bulloch's yuppie facade concealed several highly sinister quirks: He was a womanizer and a financial manipulator, and was into sexual bondage. Julia was soon disillusioned and may have been contemplating divorce when her naked body, strapped into a rocking chair with 76 feet of tape, was found in the burning garage. Her husband, immediately suspected of the crime, was apprehended in California and returned to St. Louis for trial. There, he claimed that Julia's death was the result of a sex ritual, initiated by Julia, that had gone out of control: Discovering her dead, he had panicked and set fire to the garage. Incredibly, the jury accepted this tale, and Bulloch was convicted merely of involuntary manslaughter. He was later convicted of arson and of destroying evidence; at present, he is out on appeal. Harris, a former reporter for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, keeps the narrative moving briskly and is especially effective in delineating the manners and morals of various strata of St. Louis society. On a deeper level, she investigates the implications of Bulloch's ``she-made-me-do-it'' defense for the prosecution of sex crimes. A bang-up job--suspenseful and harrowing. (Eight pages of b&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Julie Miller was the daughter of a relatively old, remote father and an extremely overprotective mother; her parents died within four years of each other and she took on the job of seeing them through their lengthy final illnesses. Socially stunted and exceedingly passive (enough to be hospitalized for psychiatric ills), she retained adolescent dreams of a white knight who would carry her off. Dennis Bullock, a handsome, once-divorced and manipulative young man, a business consultant, married her for her money and her passivity; he was a devotee of sadomasochistic sex, especially bondage, which gave him total control. St. Louis, Mo., television reporter Harris, who covered the case, argues that Dennis killed his wife in 1986 and tried to burn her body. He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and, after two trials for arson and tampering with evidence, was found guilty of both those charges as well. His sentences amounted to 19 years but he has been released on bond pending appeal for a new trial. In this fine true-crime tale, Harris points up the tragedy of Julie's life and makes telling comments about the defects of the jury system. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.