The Heart and Stroke Foundation issued a statement of “complete support” for its associate executive director, describing Harriman as “a kind and compassionate individual” and a “long-serving, greatly admired and universally liked member of our team.” At the headquarters building of CFB Trenton, many of Williams’s stunned subordinates immediately thought of Mary-Liz. “I feel absolutely horrible for his wife,” said Lt.-Col. David Alexander, who worked down the hall from Williams. “She is not as much of a victim as Marie-France Comeau or Jessica Lloyd or the women attacked in the Tweed area, but her life has been changed and altered through no fault of her own.”
But now, a judge is being asked to decide whether Harriman did do something wrong. On March 22, six weeks after her world was shattered, she made a deal with her incarcerated husband. He took the notorious Tweed cottage; she took the Ottawa townhouse, paying him $62,000 in cash and assuming the remainder of the mortgage. Williams’s first alleged assault victim—a 21-year-old woman who was blindfolded, stripped naked, and photographed while her baby daughter slept in another room—now claims in a lawsuit that the “suspicious” real estate deal was a “fraudulent conveyance” aimed at thwarting her pursuit of damages. The victim’s lawyer, Michael Pretsell, declined to comment.
In defence documents, Harriman says “her reputation in the community is exemplary” and “at no time was there any intention whatsoever to fraudulently defeat” the victim’s claim. “The revelation of the criminal charges against the defendant Williams and the defendant Harriman’s identity as his wife has been devastating to her,” her lawyer wrote. “In addition to the obvious emotional devastation to her, the defendant Harriman’s previously anticipated future and financial security had become jeopardized.”
Harriman and her lawyer did not respond to repeated emails and phone calls seeking comment. Maclean’s also contacted dozens of Harriman’s friends, relatives, colleagues and associates, but very few agreed to be interviewed. They respect her so much, and feel such sympathy for what she has endured, that they figure it’s best to keep quiet. A spokeswoman for the Heart and Stroke Foundation also declined to speak, answering every question with a “no comment.”
Is Harriman still visiting her husband in prison? Does Williams phone the house? Does a part of her still cling to the hope that he might actually be innocent, and that the police have made a terrible mistake? Has he apologized to her?
For now—and perhaps forever—Harriman is not saying.
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What is obvious, though, is that she is determined to regain some semblance of a normal life. She has moved back into the Westboro townhouse that was once surrounded by yellow police tape and television news trucks. She has returned to her office in downtown Ottawa, where colleagues have been nothing but supportive (and where she was served with the lawsuit). And in June, after her 19th wedding anniversary passed with her husband in prison, Harriman helped usher in the first-ever Canadian Stroke Congress, a major conference of the leading experts in stroke prevention, treatment and recovery. Not surprisingly, her photo did not appear in the program alongside other members of the organizing committee.
Michael Gennis, who lives in the townhouse next to hers, spoke to Harriman when she returned home, long after all the camera crews left. “I said to her: ‘I’m sorry for what you’re going through,’ ” he recalls. Harriman’s response, however unnecessary, is yet another testament to her character. “She just apologized for having put the neighbourhood through all the scrutiny.
