Last January, Jennifer Wright began telling close friends that she was getting letters from an anonymous stalker and threatening phone calls. She said they warned her to stay away from the choir director at her church, a divorced man who made it no secret that he found [#image: /photos/54cc02bdfde9250a6c413393]Jennifer attractive. Jennifer, 32, was married to Master Sergeant William Wright, 36, a career army man for 18 years, assigned to the Special Forces and seemingly away on duty more than he was home. After 12 years of marriage, Jennifer had begged Bill to leave his job or at least find a way to be home more, but he refused, and their relationship had been shaky for some time. In 1991, Jennifer had left Bill for a short period, only to return and ask forgiveness. Two years ago she became attracted to another man and, according to a friend, confessed it to her husband when he returned from Bosnia. She told friends that he had stayed angry with her ever since. In February of this year he left for training in Georgia, and in March he was sent to Afghanistan.

Jennifer, a pretty, slight brunette from Mason, Ohio, was only 20 when she married Bill, in 1990. In August 1998 they moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where Jennifer homeschooled their three sons, now 13, 8, and 5, and appeared to be “a perfect Christian wife and mother,” according to members of Arran Lake Baptist Church, where she directed the children’s choir. During Bill’s deployments the church became the center of her life, and the mysterious calls and letters were originally thought to have come from another church member, who was jealous of Jennifer Wright.

While Bill was in Georgia, Jennifer told friends that she and her husband were getting a divorce, at his instigation. Once the threats and letters had escalated to the point where she reported someone prowling in her backyard and the burglar alarm going off, police went to investigate. Meanwhile, Jennifer told church members that she had to go to the army’s Judge Advocate General to sign divorce papers, because her husband had circumvented North Carolina’s law requiring a one-year pre-divorce separation by going to Florida, where his father lived, to file the paperwork. In early March, Special Forces soldier Stanley Harriman, the husband of Jennifer’s close friend Sheila Harriman, was killed in Afghanistan. Jennifer, with the choir director in tow, showed up to comfort Sheila and tell her the divorce was final. The children had been told, she said.

But then Jennifer attended Harriman’s funeral with Bill, who had returned from Georgia and would leave in a few days for Afghanistan. Once he was gone, “it wasn’t but a sneeze,” says Sheila Harriman, before the choir director asked Jennifer for a date. The church’s pastor gave his permission, as long as they were chaperoned, and for the next two and a half months Jennifer and the choir director appeared together everywhere. Harriman says that Jennifer told her they never went to bed together, although they were making plans to get married. At church, according to congregation members, Jennifer would denigrate Bill and say he was being investigated for a conspiracy case.

In Afghanistan in May, Bill Wright ran into a fellow church member, who informed him that his wife was dating the choir director. Wright, who had no inkling of the romance, immediately called the pastor. “Jennifer is my wife,” he reportedly told him. “I love her.” The pastor contacted Jennifer and took her up on her offer to produce the divorce papers. Instead she presented him with another stalking letter and said the hard drive on her computer had mysteriously crashed. The pastor, according to his wife, told Jennifer she needed help beyond anything he could do for her.