Wife killer begs 'let me go'

EXCLUSIVE

By Dan Cohen Online_Reporting_Svcs

WELLESLEY, MA - In what may be his last grab for freedom, convicted wife murderer and former renowned allergist Dirk Greineder is trying to squeeze out of prison after being behind bars for two decades.

And a guy the killer ran into in the park after the ex-doc's wife was bludgeoned to death is showing no mercy for the killer.

"Someone guilty of such a crime should do a lot of time," Richard Magnan says of the man convicted of murdering his wife, Mabel Greineder.

Greineder is appealing in Suffolk County Superior Court a denial by the Department of Corrections to parole him for alleged medical problems.

Greineder refuses to publicly discuss his reasons for seeking a medical release.

Neither will prison officials or court officials, who say that all details are under an impoundment order.

David Traub, press officer for the Norfolk district attorney, said that Greineder reached a dead-end on other alternatives to get out of prison.

"Mr. Greineder has exhausted his direct appeals at the state level and also exhausted his federal habeas," Traub said.

Traub said that Greineder was turned-down by the Department of Corrections in a bid for freedom, and hence appealed to the Suffolk court.

Greineder's appeal of the denial to spring him loose on medical grounds, a civil proceeding in Suffolk court, is under Impoundment.

"Some of the pleadings are impounded and some of the others are provisionally impounded," Margaret M. Buckley, assistant clerk at the Suffolk County Superior Court, Civil Division, said.

"At this time there is no public access to this file without a court order."

The Department of Corrections denied a public-records request to furnish any information relating to Greineder's desire to get sprung from MCI Norfolk Prison.

"Please be advised that the information that you seek constitutes criminal-offender-record information, which is not public record information," Kate Silvia, director of communications for the Department of Corrections, said.

Citing the law, Silvia said that criminal-offender information is exempt from public disclosure. She also said that Greineder's medical records are exempt from disclosure under a similar law.

For over 20 years, since Halloween Day in 1999 when police say the now 80-year-old Greineder bludgeoned his wife Mabel during a stroll around Morses Pond in Wellesley, the former Brigham and Women's Hospital physician has consistently and steadfastly denied any involvement in the killing.

Despite an avalanche of evidence linking him to the stabbing and evisceration of his wife - fearing that she and the public would discover his since-admitted association with escorts and prostitutes - Greineder has claimed that police unfairly targeted him and pegged him with the murder.

He has said he will never admit guilt and that he can't express remorse for something he didn't do.

At the time of the Halloween murder, the Greineders lived in Wellesley, just North of Rte. 9, at 56 Cleveland Road, which has since been demolished and re-built. Morses Pond is just south of Route 9, less than a mile from where the Greineders lived.

Greineder maintains that a stranger, for some unknown reason, chose to kill his wife. He likened it to a thrill killing with no motive.

Back when his wife was bludgeoned to death, though, police ultimately decided that he was, indeed, the killer.

Cops said he tossed a hammer, knife and bloody rubber gloves into storm drains near the pond.
They arrested and charged him with the murder in February 2000.

Evidence showed that some of the equipment police say Greineder used to kill his wife, including the hammer, was purchased at the local Diehl's Hardware about six weeks before the killing.

At the scene of the murder, police - responding to a later 911 call from Greineder - said that Greineder asked whether they were going to arrest him.

Magnan of Wellesley, was jogging in the park near Morses Pond when he ran into a guy - Greineder - at the murder scene.

Greineder asked Magnan to call police for him. But Magnan didn't have a phone on him."He's always denied (the murder) from day one," Mangan says now. "I do think that someone who is guilty of such a crime should do a lot of time."

Magnan adds: "the evidence seems to point toward Greineder's guilt."