There aren’t a whole lot of couples of this demographic left in Irvine - the Easters are more of a Newport type. Entering Irvine is kind of like visiting Asia without the passport or long-haul flight. Also lots of immigrants from the middle east. There is some crazy story like this coming out of Irvine every year or 2 - example a Saudi princess keeping slaves in her apartment complex a couple of years ago.
Another particularly bizarre one: huge cache of military explosives and weapons found buried in canisters in a backyard, whole tract of master-planned homes evacuated. Homeowner had attempted to murder his business partner.
@MomofJandL :
Not at all, I didn’t say I believed that about elite college graduates or anyone from any school, but all I’ll point out is all the invective in politics about “elites” and such, and more than a bit of that is levelled at people who went to elite schools, people complaining that Supreme Court judges all seem to come from a few law schools, etc, there is a lot of that out there. One of the common stereotypes is that Elite college graduates must be a bunch of jerks who think graduating from there allows them to look down on others (and people on here have refuted that time and again, and I would be the last person to say it is reality either, I didn’t go to party schools and I work with people who went to some of the most elite schools in this country, and all of them look at their education for what it was, a good education). I often think that the people who hold that impression feel like if they had gone to one of the ‘great schools’ that is how they themselves would feel…
@pizzagirl:
The couple were jerks? A jerk couple is someone who deliberately parks in your parking space, or who plays loud music to annoy you, or spreads gossip about you, I don’t think framing someone for a drug offense because they decided she must have called their precious little genius “mentally slow”, where the person could have ended up in jail for 10 years if that had been the wrong police force and/or da’s office who were smart enough to see through it, that is not normal jerkery, that is people with serious, serious issues, their snobbery was the least of their flaws.
Musicprnt - I do agree with you that they were sociopaths and should have the book thrown at them. I don’t want to spoil too much more for those who haven’t read ahead. I just honestly didn’t note or care all that much where they went to school and that’s not why I posted the story. It would be a compelling story (about how rotten humans are) IMHO no matter where they went.
Even UC Irvine has more than its fair share of crazy scandals. There was the fertility clinic embryo mix ups in the early 90’s in which people were giving birth to stranger’s babies; selling cadaver body parts for profit scandal in 1999, and the Erwin Chemerinsky scandal, in which his appointment as law school Dean was rescinded in response to political pressure and then reinstated. I can’t imagine what that campus has cost the UC system in legal fees and settlements.
Irvine is probably too ‘master planned’ for its own good. The whole city feels like Disneyland and people start to think the real world shouldn’t intrude upon them.
I’m reading it. Much more fascinating than most LA Times investigational pieces.
Irvine = Lexus
Newport Beach = Ferrari
That TV series “The OC” was set in Newport Beach.
And my elder daughter was born in Newport as well, not because we had anything to do with that crowd. We lived a good 30 miles away. But for the rest of her life my daughter will fill in “Newport Beach” on all forms that ask for birthplace simply because that’s where the hospital was located where our obstetrician had staff privileges.
Thanks for posting this @Pizzagirl . Really well written and I’m looking forward to reading the last installment today. I appreciate the explanations of the areas from posters that know them but I admit that when someone says Beverly Hills I think of a really rich snobby place but that’s about it. @twoinanddone - thanks for your description. That was better than comparing it to another unknown California town.
I’ve been following this story as well - fascinating! This is the first I’d heard of it & we are just one county over in SoCal. If you go to YouTube, you can see some clips of both women from appearances on Dr. Phil. Jill Easter is NUTS - perkily denying things that were witnessed by dozens of people. For me, the fascination comes from the degree of her disorder & the way her husband became enmeshed in it - almost like Stockholm syndrome.
What a wacky woman! Why did the prosecutor accept Jill Easter’s plea? The story doesn’t explain that, but she definitely seems to have been the ring-leader of this crazy duo.
@pizzagirl:
The only reason I commented on where they went to school was that in the article, they said that the couple in question had inflated egos about where they went to school and people in the story commenting about them made it clear the couple looked down on other people who weren’t “of their station”, that’s all, it was the snootiness they had that fed into the stereotypes I was talking about (of the elite school graduates who wore that as a badge of being superior, etc)…
While there is a civil judgement against them, I also think they got off very, very lightly for what they did, I understand the prosecutors hands were tied if I read the article correctly (and I can’t fault the cops and the DA, they did a great job IMO trying to get around a defense team that used every loophole and trick it could to subvert justice).
Wow. Julia Roberts puts the movie in the major motion picture category. Reading the story I was expecting a Life Time movie. It’s an interesting story but it’s almost unbelievable. May Kelli Peters prosper. She’s been through a lot.