CANAAN (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- A double life, allegations of sexual misconduct against a patient and a double suicide attempt in which only one person dies.
Sounds like the makings of a Hollywood crime thriller. It’s actually a real-life story that a woman from Maine bore witness to. The man at the center of it all was her husband. Now Deb Jones is writing a book about it.
Jones is getting ready for a trip to Florida next week that will close the chapter on the worst time of her life. She’s also hoping it will provide the final chapter to her book.
“It’s finally going to be the end of what I call a 7-year saga”, she said from her home in Canaan.
Jones' former husband, Gerard Pepin, is expected to enter a guilty plea and be sentenced for sexual misconduct against one of his patients while working in Daytona as a psychotherapist with the Salvation Army. Jones and Pepin met while he was working as a counselor in Bangor. They moved to Florida and were married. But the marriage began to unravel when Pepin was accused of sexual misconduct.
“His face is white and sweaty as if he heard terrible news”, she read from her book notes on her computer.
Jones and Pepin would separate, but for the next few years, she would pretend that nothing was wrong, as she worked with police to try to get Pepin to incriminate himself by taping their conversations. After trying several times, she contacted the lead detective.
“I got him to say this, this and this. He writes back and says if everything you say is on the tape, is on it, then this is gold”, she said.
Jones was feeling an end to her ordeal was near, then the story took a bizarre twist. Her former husband was involved in a double suicide attempt. His new wife died when he ran their car off the road on purpose. He survived and would plead guilty to vehicular homicide and assisting a suicide.
“My first thought was horror. To think that I loved a man, lay in the bed next to a man, who is actually someone who would kill someone”, she said.
Jones memoirs of the past several years are now the subject a book she is writing called “Caught in the middle: a wife turns informant.”
Jones says writing the book has been therapeutic, helping her to heal. She’s also hoping it will empower others.
“If I can be holding my book and then empowering other people to get out of whatever situation they're in and know that it’s okay and they're not alone, then my book will have served a purpose,” she said.
Jones expects the book to be completed within the next couple of months. She’s now trying to secure a publisher. You can check out some of the book on Jones website.