Praver children, chastising them for not accepting her in their lives. “It’s like you’re all stuck at three 74 / Kathryn Casey
years old,” she wrote. “Someone takes your toy away and you either hit the kid back or just withdraw from the big mean thing that took your toy away.” She never acknowl-edged that what they had lost wasn’t a mere toy, but their mother. She closed by writing: “At least have the guts to tell me to my face you think I’m a blond bimbette after your dad’s $.”
The lawsuits were dropped after Rick, too, committed suicide.
Howard Praver married Tina Rountree Gano in August 1990. Friends say that he called her “Sunshine” and had their towels embroidered with yellow suns. Yet the marriage ended after five years. Their parting was bitter. She claimed in court papers that he’d been physically and psychologically abusive. “Never happened,” he’d say years later. Again playing psychiatrist, she wrote to the court, “I was concerned for his mental condition.”
Three years after the marriage to Praver ended in divorce, Tina Rountree Gano Praver was dating Grant Heatzig, a geologist who ran a small oil-related company. A tall, good-looking English transplant, Heatzig had been diagnosed with leukemia years earlier but appeared to be in remission.
He and Tina dated for months and then broke up. Friends say that when he suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with a brain tumor, she came back into his life.
In October 1999, eight days after brain surgery, Heatzig would later contend, Tina invited him to Las Vegas. When they arrived, he learned that she’d asked her family and friends to meet them there, to witness their wedding at the posh Bellagio Hotel and Casino. He’d claim he knew nothing of the plan, but that he cared about Tina and decided to go through with the ceremony. Terry Wichelhaus had only two hours notice to get on the airplane for Las Vegas to be at the wedding. “Grant was brilliant, a supreme human being, but he was so ill,” she remembers. “We all knew he was dy-DIE, MY LOVE / 75
ing. We thought maybe the marriage would be good for him.
Tina was a nurse and she could take care of him.”
It didn’t turn out that way. Tina hired caregivers to watch over her husband, day and often into the night. He grew lonely and angry, and six months after they married, in March 2000, filed for an annulment. Tina countered and filed for a divorce. In his annulment application Heatzig wrote: “It is my opinion that Tina induced me into the civil marriage ceremony in Las Vegas solely for the purpose of attaining financial gain for herself without any real intent of acting as my wife.”
If Tina had hoped to cash in on Heatzig’s wealth, in excess of a million dollars, that didn’t happen. In the end she received little, just $50,000 and his membership at the Houstonian, the stylish hotel and athletic club in Houston’s posh Galleria shopping district, whose members are success-driven young professionals and Houston’s movers and shak-ers. It was a Houstonian hotel room that the fi rst President George Bush listed as his official Texas address during his years in the White House.
The way the marriage ended, Terry and others sided with Heatzig, and their view of Tina changed. Instead of a caring woman, they thought they saw another side of her, that of a calculating woman willing to take advantage of a dying man.
“Grant was bitter about Tina,” says Wichelhaus. “It was so cold, making his last year so troubled.”
Six months after the marriage officially ended, in December 2000, Heatzig died. That same month, Piper arrived on Tina’s doorstep. “I wasn’t just her sister, I was Piper’s best friend,” says Tina flatly. “Of course, I took her in.”
Perhaps it was as much for the children as her sister. “Tina didn’t have any girls, so Callie and Jocelyn were extra special to her,” says Glenda King, a close friend. “Tina thought of herself as more
years old,” she wrote. “Someone takes your toy away and you either hit the kid back or just withdraw from the big mean thing that took your toy away.” She never acknowl-edged that what they had lost wasn’t a mere toy, but their mother. She closed by writing: “At least have the guts to tell me to my face you think I’m a blond bimbette after your dad’s $.”
The lawsuits were dropped after Rick, too, committed suicide.
Howard Praver married Tina Rountree Gano in August 1990. Friends say that he called her “Sunshine” and had their towels embroidered with yellow suns. Yet the marriage ended after five years. Their parting was bitter. She claimed in court papers that he’d been physically and psychologically abusive. “Never happened,” he’d say years later. Again playing psychiatrist, she wrote to the court, “I was concerned for his mental condition.”
Three years after the marriage to Praver ended in divorce, Tina Rountree Gano Praver was dating Grant Heatzig, a geologist who ran a small oil-related company. A tall, good-looking English transplant, Heatzig had been diagnosed with leukemia years earlier but appeared to be in remission.
He and Tina dated for months and then broke up. Friends say that when he suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with a brain tumor, she came back into his life.
In October 1999, eight days after brain surgery, Heatzig would later contend, Tina invited him to Las Vegas. When they arrived, he learned that she’d asked her family and friends to meet them there, to witness their wedding at the posh Bellagio Hotel and Casino. He’d claim he knew nothing of the plan, but that he cared about Tina and decided to go through with the ceremony. Terry Wichelhaus had only two hours notice to get on the airplane for Las Vegas to be at the wedding. “Grant was brilliant, a supreme human being, but he was so ill,” she remembers. “We all knew he was dy-DIE, MY LOVE / 75
ing. We thought maybe the marriage would be good for him.
Tina was a nurse and she could take care of him.”
It didn’t turn out that way. Tina hired caregivers to watch over her husband, day and often into the night. He grew lonely and angry, and six months after they married, in March 2000, filed for an annulment. Tina countered and filed for a divorce. In his annulment application Heatzig wrote: “It is my opinion that Tina induced me into the civil marriage ceremony in Las Vegas solely for the purpose of attaining financial gain for herself without any real intent of acting as my wife.”
If Tina had hoped to cash in on Heatzig’s wealth, in excess of a million dollars, that didn’t happen. In the end she received little, just $50,000 and his membership at the Houstonian, the stylish hotel and athletic club in Houston’s posh Galleria shopping district, whose members are success-driven young professionals and Houston’s movers and shak-ers. It was a Houstonian hotel room that the fi rst President George Bush listed as his official Texas address during his years in the White House.
The way the marriage ended, Terry and others sided with Heatzig, and their view of Tina changed. Instead of a caring woman, they thought they saw another side of her, that of a calculating woman willing to take advantage of a dying man.
“Grant was bitter about Tina,” says Wichelhaus. “It was so cold, making his last year so troubled.”
Six months after the marriage officially ended, in December 2000, Heatzig died. That same month, Piper arrived on Tina’s doorstep. “I wasn’t just her sister, I was Piper’s best friend,” says Tina flatly. “Of course, I took her in.”
Perhaps it was as much for the children as her sister. “Tina didn’t have any girls, so Callie and Jocelyn were extra special to her,” says Glenda King, a close friend. “Tina thought of herself as more
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