Josh Mankiewicz Correspondent • Profile

GREELEY, COLO. - Scenes from a life, from a marriage: Love. Family. Betrayal. Jealousy. Obssession. Death.

A fatal attraction.

Ignacio Garraus met Heather Hodges met in college. It was love at first sight.

Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline NBC: How long before you knew this was the woman?

Ignacio Garraus: Oh, right away.

In 1991, they married. He became a cop in Greeley, Colo. It was hard work, sometimes dangerous, but Ignacio was good it at, eager to help people. At the same time, Heather took on a difficult job of her own: being a cop's wife.

Ignacio Garraus: She worried most about when I was undercover, when I was a narcotics officer. And I'd never tell her when I'd to drug deals and stuff like that. Because it would only freak her out.

Shielding Heather from the ugly side of Ignacio's life: it was a natural reflex for Ig, as it is for a lot of people who carry a badge. But it would turn out to be the beginnings of a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" side to their marriage.

Josh Mankewiecz: They were happy?

Wendy Jones: Yeah they were very happy. They were very happy.

Wendy Jones is Heather Garraus' sister. Jayme Harris is Heather's best friend.

Josh Mankiewicz: Between the two of you, you knew all Heather's secrets?

Jayme Harris: I think we finished each other's sentences on the phone.

On the phone to one another perhaps two times a day, these two know Heather better than anyone, maybe even better than the man she married. And the woman they describe is not unlike a saint.

Jayme Harris: Friendly to everybody, everybody's friend.

Six years after they married, Ig and Heather welcomed a daughter, Victoria. They seemed like a picture-perfect family.

But the problem with marriages made in heaven is that they have to be lived here on earth. In early 2003, Heather's mother died of cancer. Her illness came not long after Heather's father had also passed away from a heart attack, and Heather started to buckle under the combined weight of all that sorrow.

Josh Mankiewicz: Did she seem to sort of change physically and mentally during that time a little bit?

Jayme Harris: We knew she was sad. I don't think everybody knew.

But her husband knew. And although Ignacio tried hard to be understanding, it was hard for him as well.

Ignacio Garraus: Heather kind of started developing pretty hefty anxiety attacks and depression. And they had her on some medications that really put the brakes on her.

It was as if a different person had come to live inside Heather Garraus' body. Heather, normally so concerned with others, suddenly couldn't seem to get out of her own head. And, Ignacio says, thanks to the side-effects of the anti-depressant drugs she'd been prescribed, a seamless marriage started to fray at the edges.

Ignacio Garraus: And she'd come home during that year. And eat. And then go up to the room and we wouldn't see her till the next day. And that went on for a year. And intimacy became absent in our relationship.

Josh Mankiewicz: So you felt what? Estranged? Disaffected? Unloved?

Ignacio Garraus: Unloved. Neglected. And angry.

There's an easy way out of that, of course. It's one you can probably see coming. Your sex life is only a memory? You find someone else. Someone more exciting.

It's one of the times when life and art imitate each other, like when Michael Douglass meets Glenn Close in the movie "Fatal Attraction." Michael Douglas, who's married, has a fling with Glenn Close, who plays the other woman.

In real life, Ignacio and Heather had already discussed the consequences of exactly this scenario.

Josh Mankiewicz: Heather always told you that if you ever cheated on her--

Ignacio Garraus: She'd divorce me.

Josh Mankiewicz: She made that very clear?

Ignacio Garraus: Very clear. She was stone cold clear about that.

Josh Mankiewicz: Is that what kept you on the straight and narrow? Or were you married to the right woman?

Ignacio Garraus: I was married to the right woman.

And as you'll see, he probably was. But the right woman wasn't paying Ignacio Garraus enough attention. Which left an opening for the wrong woman.

Josh Mankiewicz: And then along came Shawna?

Ignacio Garraus: Yes.

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