ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997             TAG: 9701300033
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-4  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: MANASSAS
SOURCE: Associated Press

FORMER FBI AGENT'S EX-WIFE CONFIRMS AFFAIR WITH NOVELIST

The ex-wife of a former FBI agent accused in a bizarre plot to try to kill her admitted in court Wednesday that she had a brief affair with crime novelist Patricia Cornwell.

Marguerite Bennett, also a former FBI agent, said she had ``two intimate contacts'' in 1992 while Cornwell was going through FBI in-service training as research for her best-selling series about a sleuthing Virginia medical examiner.

Eugene Bennett claims that his wife's affair with Cornwell led to the breakup of their marriage and drove him temporarily insane. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to attempted murder, abduction and a long list of other charges.

Defense lawyer Reid Weingarten said Bennett, 42, was a desperate, tormented man humiliated by the knowledge that his wife left him for a woman.

Cornwell has said that she and Marguerite Bennett were close friends but has not commented further on their relationship.

A telephone message left with Cornwell's publicist in New York was not immediately returned. Cornwell is not expected to testify.

Bennett's lawyers say he suffers from a split personality and blackouts. Bennett wrestles with a separate criminal personality, named ``Ed,'' and hears inner voices, Weingarten said.

During Weingarten's cross-examination Wednesday, Marguerite Bennett said her dalliance with Cornwell had nothing to do with the divorce, which became final two weeks ago.

``But didn't you admit you had an adulterous, lesbian affair with Patricia Cornwell while you were married to Eugene Bennett and living in his house?'' Weingarten asked.

``I said I had two encounters with Ms. Cornwell,'' she calmly replied.

Police arrested Bennett June 23 after he allegedly took his wife's minister hostage and forced the man to lure her into a darkened church.

Marguerite Bennett testified on the second day of the trial that when she arrived at the church, her husband jumped at her with a gun and she squirted him with pepper spray and hid behind a desk.

``I was shouting out, `You're not going to do this, Gene, you will not do this. You will not kill me.'''

Marguerite Bennett said her husband told her he didn't want to kill her, just talk to her.

She said she didn't believe him. ``I knew if I came out, I was dead. There's no way I was going to live through it.''

She said she could see the minister shackled and blindfolded in the adjoining room and that she shouted to him that they were both going to die.

``I asked him to pray and to pray for me, too, because I was a little busy right then,'' she said.

Bennett fled the Prince of Peace United Methodist Church church after his wife blindly fired a shot from her pistol. No one was injured, and Bennett was arrested hours later at his home after a standoff with police.

He could be sentenced to two life terms in prison if found guilty of all charges.

LENGTH: Medium:   65 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. 1. Former FBI agent Eugene Bennett (right) listens 
          to court testimony with Mark Hulkower, one of his attorneys. Bennett
          is accused of trying to kill his wife, Marguerite. 2. Cornwell.