Deadly Marriage Of Heiress And House Painter

BRONXVILLE, N.Y. - In the elegant surroundings of Pondfield's restaurant, where floral prints dot coral walls, Anne Scripps Douglas was at ease behind a blue-edged dinner plate. Across the table, looking dour, sat her husband, Scott Douglas.

He was a house painter. She was heiress to one of America's great fortunes. He was 34; she was nine years older. She found Pondfield's delightful. Clearly, he did not.

Two couples strolled over to congratulate Anne Douglas. The graceful scion of a newspaper dynasty had weathered a divorce and remarried. Now she was expecting a child.

"Anne was ecstatic," recalled one well-wisher. "Scott didn't talk."

Smiling Anne. Sullen Scott.

People in this discreet village north of New York City - where homes sell for an average of $700,000 - tend to remember them that way.

Their story is as familiar as a soap opera: Rich lady on the rebound falls for young local handyman. A fantasy match made in heaven gives way to the marriage from hell.

But this was no small-screen drama. This was real, and it cost the rich lady her life.

On New Year's morning, they found Anne Douglas in her bedroom with a King Charles spaniel puppy perched on her chest. Her skull was crushed, her bed clothes bloody.

They found Scott Douglas' 1982 gray BMW on a bridge, its motor running. The car was empty, save for a bloody hammer, his jacket and an overnight bag.

Had Scott Douglas leapt into the icy Hudson River below? Or had he faked suicide and escaped? For three months there were strong suspicions and a manhunt, but no one knew for sure.

Until yesterday, when Scott Douglas' body, pulled from the river Wednesday, was identified.

When they met at a raucous, pine-paneled Irish pub on Super Bowl Sunday 1988, Scott appeared to be "sweet, kind, debonair, everything (Anne) was looking for," recalled an acquaintance.

Anne was the great-great-granddaughter of James Edmund Scripps, the Englishman who turned a "two-penny" daily newspaper in Detroit into a chain of newspapers and enormous family wealth. By 1993, the $900 million fortune reportedly paid Anne $10,000 a month.

Scott was the son of Norman Douglas, a painting contractor who raised three children in the middle-class comfort of Rye, N.Y.

She married Anthony Morell, a stockbroker from Bronxville. For a time she dabbled in the working world, selling Irish imports at a Bronxville boutique.

He became a carpenter, painter, electrician and mechanic. He rode motorcycles and wore leather jackets. He based his business in an apartment in Greenwich, Conn.

Meeting at a party

It wasn't long after Anne's 18-year marriage to Morell ended that she met Scott at a party at Kelly's Sea Level, a bar and grill in Rye, N.Y.

To family and friends, the couple's nine-month courtship seemed hasty and juvenile. By the time they announced plans to marry, most of her family opposed the union.

"She was my older sister. I couldn't tell her what to do," said James Scripps IV. "But I said, `Look. You just got divorced. Your father just died. You just met this guy. Give it some time.' "

Anne was undeterred. Faced with a second chance at happiness after a troubled marriage, she was not about to pass it up.

For a time they ignored the stark differences in their social backgrounds. Scott wore painter's pants and drove his panel truck by day, squiring Anne to cocktail parties in her new BMW at night.

The arrival of a daughter - they named her Victoria and called her Tory - in June 1990 seemed to confirm that all was well.

The strain began to show before Tory's first birthday.

On the surface, Scott appeared to move easily through the clubby world of Bronxville. But those who knew him best say he always was ill at ease making social chitchat in a hamlet where the median income is $95,000 a year.

Alexandra and Annie Morell - Anne's daughters by her first marriage - remember Scott as an insecure man prone to ranting over such trivial things as a dinner served cold.

"I'd tell him I thought he was trash," Alexandra Morell has said.

While most of Scott's fights with Anne were verbal, there were physical outbursts, too.

"I've seen him hit her. Push her against walls. Throw things at her. Kick her," Annie, 22, recalled.

It was around this time, Jim Scripps said, that his brother-in-law began to drink heavily.

Paralyzed by fear

Scripps encouraged his sister to get a divorce. But she was paralyzed with fear that Scott would make good on threats to disappear with the baby if things didn't go his way.

In the summer of 1991, she took Tory and Annie and moved in with Alexandra, 24.

When Scott promised to curtail his drinking, Anne agreed to give him another chance. She moved back home. But Scott attended "about two A.A. meetings" and dropped out, said Annie. Soon her mother and stepfather were at war again.

Anne moved out of the master bedroom last fall, leaving Scott to pad about its plush Persian rug and spend hours in front of its wide-screen television.

Anne said she wanted a divorce. Scott said he would stop at nothing to oppose her.

The Bronxville police were called at least three times last year to respond to domestic disturbances at the house. And there were public spats too, including a loud argument at a wedding over Anne's dancing with friends from her first marriage.

In November, Anne hired a new lawyer. Scott hired a lawyer too. They argued viciously over alimony and custody of Tory.

Early in December, Anne obtained a court order barring Scott from taking Tory without her permission. The court ordered him to stop harassing Anne, but allowed him to remain in the house.

The porticoed house on the hill was in an uproar when daughter Annie returned from college for the Christmas holidays.

"Things had gotten worse. He would bother her all night, babbling, hitting and punching her," Annie recalled.

On Dec. 26, Scott had a long conversation with his Greenwich neighbor Eleanore Hannon.

He described his deeply troubled marriage and said he was considering resuming sessions with a psychologist, buying a house in Greenwich, taking off for a month in the Florida Keys or jumping off a bridge.

Come back another day

On Dec. 29, Anne returned to court seeking an order barring Scott from the house.

"They told us to come back the next day (because) the judge was away," recalled Annie Morell, who accompanied her mother. "We went back the next day. They said come back after the new year. The judge was on vacation."

As darkness came on New Year's Eve, another argument left Anne sobbing in the kitchen. At first, she told her daughters that this time the threats had the ring of finality. But later she seemed to mellow, telling them not to worry - Scott was just in one of his "moods."

Alexandra headed to Vermont for the holiday. At her mother's urging, Annie went to a party.

Sometime that night Anne Douglas was bludgeoned to death.

For three months police looked for some hint that Scott was still alive. They wanted to bring him home to face a second-degree murder charge. And nobody wanted him back more than Anne's family, which offered a $100,000 reward for his capture and sent out wanted posters by the score.

"I'm working 18 hours a day," Jim Scripps said the other day, "trying to catch the guy."

At lunch hour Wednesday, a railroad worker noticed that something had washed up on the Hudson River bank. Three months in the water, floating 12 miles from the bridge, had wasted away the body of Scott Douglas. He was identified through dental records.

They found $507 stuffed in the pocket of his blue jeans. He was wearing a solid-gold watch.