Mark Gerardot was married when he met Meredith Chapman and began a relationship. When police responded to a call of shots fired at a home in the wealthy, quiet suburbs of Philadelphia known as the Main Line, one of the first people they came upon was Mark Gerardot.
His wife and the woman he had been having an affair with were both found dead, their bodies lying on the kitchen floor. What the police would soon realize was that Gerardot, who was initially their main suspect, had discovered the two women after they were both dead. It was in fact his wife Jennair Gerardot who had shot his girlfriend Meredith Chapman before killing herself.
They were both teenagers at the time and she worked at a Taco Bell. Gerardot said he was immediately smitten. I was kind of tongue-tied; I couldn't even speak. Their romance wouldn't begin until four years later after Gerardot ran into Cox again and found out that she was by then working at a nearby mall. He began visiting her regularly, and one day, he said she pressed him to make a move. It was this directness that drew Gerardot to Cox. She was confident and unafraid to speak her mind, Gerardot said, adding that her demeanor was "the exact opposite of me.
She would do anything for Mark. The two married a few years later on Oct. He was 25 and she was 23, and together the two would cement a bond that began in adolescence and carried them into adulthood. But just as with any relationship, Mark and Jennair Gerardot had to deal with low points in their marriage. He said his arguments with his wife could be "epic" and that she would win because "she was always going to have the last word.
Money had frequently been a concern and a source of stress for the couple, but when the financial crisis struck, it "changed everything for us," Mark Gerardot said.
