Orlando, Fla. – A love note e-mailed to an orbiting space shuttle was one of the ways NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak learned she had a rival for astronaut Bill Oefelein’s affections.
Considered unemotional and shy, Nowak collected that e-mail and a dozen others showing her boyfriend had a new lover before she went on a bizarre, 969-mile odyssey last month to confront the woman in a parking lot at Orlando International Airport, according to documents released Monday.
“First urge will be to rip your clothes off,” reads a note from Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman to Oefelein while he was aboard Discovery in December. “But honestly, love, I want you to totally and thoroughly enjoy your hero’s homecoming.”
The messages and other documents were released late Monday by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office, which on Friday charged Nowak with attempted kidnapping and burglary with assault, which could put her in prison for life.
The nature of Nowak’s relationship with Oefelein had been uncertain since her arrest. She told detectives it was “more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship.” But Oefelein told investigators they had been romantically involved since 2004, a year before he divorced and while Nowak was having marital problems.
Shipman, 30, told police that Nowak, 43, followed her to an airport parking lot where she attacked her with pepper spray. A wig, a trench coat, a knife, a BB pistol and a steel mallet were seized from Nowak.
The inch-thick pack of records released late Monday contain transcribed interviews with Orlando police that describe how Nowak’s life began to fall apart when she was jilted shortly after New Year’s Day.
“I would (have) never predicted this,” Oefelein told a detective about his breakup with Nowak, a mother of three. “She had actually wished me a nice weekend, knowing Colleen was gonna spend it with me.”
The e-mails, which Nowak apparently downloaded from Oefelein’s home computer, were seized after her arrest Feb. 5.
Nowak remains free on bail pending trial. NASA placed her on 30-day leave, but that expires Thursday. NASA has remained tight-lipped about the case, calling it a matter for the courts.
Nowak, Oefelein and Shipman have declined interviews.
According to his sworn interview, Oefelein and Nowak met in 1996 and became friends a couple of years later, after they joined NASA. He said their friendship grew during several years of training together.
Oefelein met Shipman last November during a training exercise, and they began dating shortly afterward, police said.
Oefelein previously had given Nowak a key to his Houston apartment and his password for his home computer, he said.
Shipman told police she noticed some information about Nowak saved on his computer. He said Nowak sometimes used his computer, Shipman said. “I told him that it made me very uncomfortable and it made me want to pull away from this relationship cause it made me think that he didn’t quite cut ties maybe,” Shipman said in her statement.
