Nancy Richards-Akers

Nancy Linda Richards was born in 16 January 1954, the oldest of three children of a New England physician and his wife. She grew up in suburban Scarsdale, New York. In 1971, she graduated at Mount Vernon College. In her early career, she wrote speeches for a North Carolina congressman, and later worked at a firm that produced political ads.

In 1976, Nancy met Jeremy Ray Akers, while both were staffers on Capitol Hill. He was a Vietnam War hero, awarded two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star for valor, who had gone on to graduate from the University of Virginia law school. After being pregnant, Nancy married Jeremy on 11 Agust 1977, in a small ceremony at Georgetown's Christ Church. But not long time later, he began to abuse her. In 1979, the family moved to Miami, where he worked as an assistant state attorney under Janet Reno. In 1983, they returned to to Washington, where he took a job with the Justice Department handling environmental cases, and she went to work for a time as a receptionist at a political consulting firm. But he did not like that she works outside, she cast about for something she could do at home, and came up with writing romances.

Nancy became a member of the Washington chapter of the Romance Writers of America, and she collaborated researching on early novels with Mary Kilchenstein (Mary Kirk), under the pseudonym Mary Alice Kirk. In 1987, she published her first single-handed book, "The Mayfair Season", and began a solid career as romance novelist. In 1997 her last book "Wild Irish Skies" was named one of the top 10 romance novels of that year by The Washington Post.

Her husband's own environmental consulting firm, started in 1990, began to falter, and his bills and financial mismanagement, were eaten up all her income. The strain on their relationship intensified, and finally, she decided escape. She moved to live with a friend, Jim Lemke, a 26 truck driver and aspiring poet, who later became her boyfriend.

One year later, the Saturday 5 June 1999, although the legal fight for custody of their children was about to begin, her husband, who had lately appeared more reasonable, agreed to let her take Zeb, 11, and Isabelle, 9, to McDonald's. When she brought the children back to their father around 10 p.m., he headed over to the red Jeep Wrangler where she sat parked. As the kids drifted toward the porch, he offered to take his wife back one last time. When she said no, he pulled out a .22-cal. handgun and shot her twice in the back of the head. He fled in his SUV as Isabelle cried, "Daddy, we love you, don't leave!", while Zeb called 911. A little more than two hours later, U.S. Park Police officer Vincent Guadioso spotted Jeremy near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the muzzle of a shotgun pointing toward his mouth. No sooner had the officer hustled three tourists to safety than Jeremy pulled the trigger.

On the morning after their parents' memorial service, Zeb and Isabelle bundled into a car with their father's younger brother Tom and his wife Carolyn, for the drive to Alabama, where they will begin their new lives.