On a windy October night in 1995, a mysterious house fire swept through the

police home of a doctor and his family. Two of the family members made it out

alive. Two of the children did not. In the debris, medical detectives

discovered much more than simply how the fire started.

Michael Ferrar and Deborah Greene first met in medical school in 1977. Both

were gifted students with near genius IQs. There was an instant attraction and

they married less than the year after they met. Over the next 16 years, the

couple raised three children, Jennifer, Timothy and Kelly, in an affluent

suburb of Kansas City, Kansas. To outsiders, their lives seemed perfect, but the

marriage was showing signs of stress. At the North Kansas City Hospital, Dr.

Michael Ferrar was a successful heart specialist who worked very long hours,

often at the expense of time with his children. Deborah quit her own medical

practice when the children were born. She battled depression, weight gain, and was

rumored to have a drinking problem. You got the impression that Deborah wasn't the

easiest person in the world to live with. She was, I don't want to say, well,

let's just leave it at that. In an effort to rekindle their marriage, the couple

decided to go on a school trip to Peru with their son Tim. While sightseeing

along the Amazon River and among the Incon remains an attractive blonde nurse

caught Michael's attention. She was the mother of one of the other students. When

they returned to Kansas City, Michael continued to see his new friend, which soon

blossomed into a sexual affair. It didn't take Deborah long to find out about her

husband's affair. She moved into a separate bedroom and her drinking increased.

...