Both Gans and Assistant District Attorney James Willett aid that Bennett underwent 'some kind of breakdown' after he discovered his wife's affair with Patricia Cornwell. Mrs Bennett has said only that 'time will put everything in perspective' and there has been no comment from Cornwell's agent or offices. The lesbian love triangle and all that has developed from it has cast an ugly cloud over Cornwell's achievements. She appeared to be so in control of her life after difficult beginnings. She was born in Miami to attorney Sam and secretary Marilyn 'Pat' Daniels. Her parents divorced when she was seven and she and her two brothers moved with her mother to Montreat , North Carolina . They lived two miles from Billy and Ruth Graham. Her mother suffered from clinical depression and the children were sent off to a family of missionaries just returned from the Congo . 'She was spunky,' recalled Ruth Graham adding:' She'd go and play ball with the boys at the park and then on her way home she'd stop to see my mother who was an invalid.' At college in Tennessee she suffered from anorexia nervosa and was eventually sent to a hospital in Asheville , North Carolina , where her mother had been treated. She was lonely and confused when she was released from the hospital. She sought solace with Ruth Graham who encouraged her to write and gave her a leather journal -- she still carries a similar one everywhere. At Davidson College in North Carolina she pursued her writing - and her English professor Charles Cornwell who was 17 years older. A few days after graduation she visited his house with a present ( a leather-bound journal) and they went to dinner. They married four months later. It was a difficult marriage. Patricia Cornwell kept writing which included a biography of Ruth Graham, 'A Time for Remembering', but her first three attempts at a novel were rejected. As her marriage failed her career flourished when she made Kay Scarpetta -- with hindsight not the most hetrosexual of heroines -- the central character in her dramas. The critics praised the detail, expertise and accuracy of her work -- material she gathered with the help of Marguerite Bennett. Now, all involved are awaiting a court hearing to deal with the custody of the Bennett children. Lawyers for their father will argue that Marguerite Bennett is an unfit guardian because of her lesbian relationship with the world famous author. Mrs Bennett's will obviously counter with her husband's violent behaviour. Eugene Bennett has been undergoing psychiatric examinations since the shooting incident with his wife. Dates of court proceedings will depend on those reports which, given the American way of Psychiatry, could take months. Patricia Daniels Cornwell will then have to take the stand and talk about things she has only written about before.
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