The Last Two Feet are the Hardest

Tales from the Front:

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A doctor involved in an "on-again, off-again" relationship apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend's home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday. Her decomposing body was found there three days later.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

While she was trying to break in, the man she was pursuing escaped unnoticed from another exit "to avoid a confrontation," authorities said.

DeGeare said the two were in an "on-again, off-again" relationship.

The man's identity was not revealed by police, but the man who resides in the home is William Moodie, 58.

Moodie, who runs an engineering consulting firm, said Kotarac was a superb internist who often provided service and medication free of charge to her patients.

Kotarac apparently died in the chimney, but her body was not discovered until a house-sitter noticed a stench and fluids coming from the fireplace Saturday, according to a police statement. The house-sitter and her son investigated with a flashlight and found Kotarac dead, wedged about two feet above the top of the interior fireplace opening.

Firefighters spent five hours late Saturday dismantling the chimney and flue from outside the home to extract Kotarac's body, DeGeare said.

Officials said Kotarac's office staff reported her missing two days prior when she failed to show for work. Her car and belongings remained near the man's house.

A cause of death has not been determined, and an autopsy was scheduled or Tuesday. Foul play is not suspected, though investigators have been looking into the incident as suspicious.

(courtesy Huffington Post) 

Let me get this straight--a man hears his girlfriend trying to get into his house by crawling down the chimney, leaves for three days--in order "to avoid a confrontation," and hires a housesitter (over the phone?) who eventually smells something funny / sees stuff dripping into the fireplace?

What sort of person's first two choices for forced entry into a residence are a shovel and the chimney? Was this Moody guy holed up in some kind of impenetrable fortress? Were there not windows that could have been broken? I mean, the houses in Bakersfield were not exactly built to last...

And where did this guy go all of a sudden, anyway? Was he across town, in bed with some other broad, making this poor sap the laughing-stock of the community, as she breathes her last breath in his chimney--no doubt immediately post-vow to haunt him for eternity?

Probably.

Also, why does it matter that the woman was a doctor? If she were a garbagewoman [Do those even exist? Why are women not forced to represent 50% of the garbage collectors? -Ed], would this article have read "Garbagewoman Dies in Chimney Trying to Break into Boyfriend's Home?"

I think not. You see, we expect that kind of behavior from garbagewomen--when doctors do it, it's newsworthy. It sells papers.

"A doctor did it? Hmmm...well, there must be some kind of juicy story behind this...doctors are usually so put-together and never have to worry about money...oh, look, it says here she was a 'superb internist'..."

-Woman reading aloud to her cat while eating her third bowl of Kix

Meanwhile, the carcasses of her last twelve cats decompose in the nearby chimney, totally unnoticed by the world until Hoarders comes through and turns that ole garbagewoman's life right-side-up in thirty minutes of too-hot-for-TV, soul-crushing depression and feigned re-birth.

Don't miss it!

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