'Secret Life' Doc Guilty Of Murder

A doctor accused of killing his wife to keep his secret sex life hidden was convicted of first-degree murder Friday by a jury that rejected his claim that a stranger beat and slashed her to death.

Dr. Dirk Greineder, 60, could face life in prison without parole for the Oct. 31, 1999, slaying of his wife, Mabel. She was murdered in a park near the couple's home in the wealthy Boston suburb of Wellesley.

Sentencing was scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Citing DNA and fiber evidence, prosecutors said Greineder murdered his 58-year-old wife because he was afraid she would expose his secret life and ruin his career and his relationship with their children.

He bowed his head and grimaced slightly as the verdict was read, then was escorted out of the courtroom. His three children — Kirsten, 30, Britt, 28, and Colin, 26 — who had supported him throughout the trial, held hands as the jury foreman spoke.

When the verdict was announced, Ilsa Stark, Mabel Greineder's sister, who had testified against Greineder, hugged her daughter.

One woman on the jury cried, while others sat impassively.

The prosecutor walked over and hugged state police Sgt. Martin Foley, the lead investigator, who was seated in the front row.

Greineder testified that his wife of 31 years was killed by an unknown attacker after the couple separated for 10 minutes during their walk. During three days of testimony, Greineder sobbed as he described finding his wife lying just off a path in the woods, with a 5-and-a-half-inch gaping wound in her neck.

In closing arguments Tuesday, defense lawyer Martin Murphy called the investigation "guesswork" and "conjecture" and attacked police for failing to consider other suspects, even though there were similar unsolved homicides in the area.

He told the jury to consider whether the state proved Greineder deserved "as horrible a label that one can possible have — a murderer of one's own wife, a murderer of the mother of his children."

But prosecutor Richard Grundy pointed out inconsistencies in Greineder's testimony and recounted a trail of evidence — including gloves and a jacket covered with his wife's blood — linking Greineder to the crime.

"The defendant's greatest defense here is that you don't want to believe that an upstanding physician in an upstanding profession, loved by his children, could commit such a crime," Grundy said.

Greineder's extramarital sex life was described in detail during the monthlong trial. There were champagne trysts with prostitutes, visits to pornographic Internet chat rooms and a nude photograph of himself he sent over the Internet looking for group sex.

One former prostitute testified that he tried unsuccessfully to reach her the day before and the day after his wife's killing.

On the witness stand, Greineder tearfully declared his love for his wife and insisted that he did not kill her. He acknowledged hiring prostitutes, saying his wife had lost intrest in sex, but said they were still a family-centered couple.

"I love her more than anything," he said. "I just can't imagine living without her — to this day."

But prosecutors said the doctor's DNA was found on the knife and gloves used in the killing, which were discarded along with the hammer in nearby storm drains. All of the items had Mrs. Greineder's blood on them.

The prosecution also focused on why Greineder had no blood on his hands if, as he testified, he tried to pick up his wife's battered body and to find a pulse in her neck.

Greineder, a specialist in childhood asthma, was director of clinical allergy at Brigham & Women's Hospital, one of the country's top research facilities.

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