Anne Douglas

Anne Douglas

Anne Scripps Douglas (November 18, 1946 —January 6, 1994) was a publishing heiress to the Scripps newspaper publishing; she was the great-great granddaughter of James E. Scripps, founder of The Detroit News. She was bludgeoned by her second husband, Scott Douglas, as she slept in their Westchester County home.

Anne Douglas (née Scripps; formerly Morrell) was born on November 18, 1946 to Captain James E. Scripps III., a former merchant mariner, and Anne Scripps (née Gibbs) She has a brother James IV and a sister Mary who still live in Albany, New York. In 1969, when Scripps was 23 years of age, she married Anthony Morrell, a Rye stockbroker. The wedding was held in the St. Regis Hotel. The marriage resulted in two daughters, Alexandra and Annie. Her marriage to Anthony Morrell ended in divorce, but she loved and doted on her daughters greatly. In 1988, Scripps met Scott Douglas, an out-of-work and self-employed house painter, at a party. She hired him to paint her house and they married that October. They had a daughter Victoria, nicknamed Tori. Douglas did not get along with Scripps' oldest daughter Alexandra, who thought of him as not bright or articulate enough for her mother, and she quickly moved out of the house.

Scripps's daughters noticed that Douglas started drinking more heavily and became erratically violent towards their mother, openly hitting her in public on at least one occasion. Both Alex and Annie advised their mother to file for divorce and get an order of eviction to have him removed from their home. In 1991, Scripps took Tori and moved in with Alex. She had changed her will and moved back in for fear that Douglas would take Tori and flee. During the holidays, Scripps discovered Douglas had removed files such as Tori's birth certificate and other records from the house. Scripps and her two eldest daughters began documenting and keeping records of the assaults, and went on December 6, 1993, to obtain an eviction notice; however, the judge refused to order his eviction. Scripps told a friend that she began sleeping with a hammer under her bed because Douglas' new method of abuse was to wake her up in the middle of the night to scare and berate her. On December 31, 1993, while Scripps slept, she was bludgeoned with a hammer by Douglas. Scripps's daughter Anne had called the police on January 1, 1994, at 3:30 a.m., because she was unable to get into contact with her mother or Douglas. The police arrived and knocked down the locked door, and found Scripps unconscious in bed, her sheets soaked in blood, her terrier puppy next to her trying to comfort her. Across the hall Tori, then 3 years old, had witnessed the crime that left her mother's skull irreparably broken. Tori Douglas was reported as saying, "Daddy gave Mommy boo-boos. Daddy gave Mommy many boo-boos. Why is Mommy wearing warpaint?" Immediately the police began searching for Scott Douglas. In a matter of hours, Douglas' 1982 BMW was found on the Tappan Zee Bridge with the bloody hammer inside. The authorities dragged the Hudson River for him, but still operated under the assumption he was still alive. As Scripps lay in the hospital, her first husband, Anthony Morrell, who was in the terminal stages of cirrhosis of the liver and had been hospitalized near Philadelphia, left his hospital bed to be at her side. A week after the attack —two days after the authorities stopped dragging the Hudson for Douglas's body—on January 6, 1994 Scripps was taken off life support and died without regaining consciousness. She was 47 years old. After her death, she was able to give her liver, which was transplanted into her ex-husband, Anthony Morrell, saving his life. "Her daughters acted on what they knew would be their mother's wishes," said family attorney, "Anne left this world the way she lived in it-- loving and giving."