Kriti Mehrotra
If there’s one thing absolutely nobody can deny, it’s that the worst sort of betrayal comes from those we care about the most, and they are unfortunately, more often than not, our chosen life partners. This much has actually even been evidenced in Investigation Discovery’s ‘Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?,’ especially in the episode titled ‘The Hangman,’ which delves into the tale of Tracy Chanowitz.
Who is Tracy Chanowitz?
It was reportedly around the early 1980s when New York native and devout Catholic Tracy first came across Christopher “Chris” Chanowitz by pure chance, just for them to soon fall head over heels. They thus even tied the knot in a traditional yet cozy ceremony surrounded by their loved ones a short while later before ultimately settling down as active community members in the Wallkill hamlet. Though little did anyone know this patriarch had an extremely dark side to him, only for it to come out following 14 years of marriage, a loving daughter, plus a 4-year dry spell later in the fall of 1998.
According to Tracy, alongside being a devoted mother to their little girl, she also tried her best to be a model wife for Chris by keeping up to society’s standards in every way, shape, and form. She had a proper diet, regularly exercised, and constantly refrained from nagging him about his whereabouts despite frequent long days, but there was still zero intimacy between them since 1984. This special education educator thus thought her husband might be gay, which is precisely what she began preparing herself to hear once he claimed to have a surprise for her in August 1998.
However, on September 13, when Chris lured a blindfolded Tracy to the basement of their Sycamore Road home, it was because he wanted to make it clear their long marriage was over for good. He’d reportedly spent the past few days in there orchestrating how to kill her — he’d rigged eye bolts, a chain, a pulley, as well as a rope with a noose at one end to surprisingly lower it to her neck. Thankfully, she quickly managed to knock away both the noose and the blindfold, which is when her beau admitted he had a second daughter with another woman with whom he wanted to live.
Tracy then somehow managed to escape and call the police, resulting in Chris’ immediate arrest for attempted second-degree murder, misdemeanor menacing, plus unlawful weapon possession. He subsequently stood trial for the same in early 2000, where his ex testified against him; she told the court she’d asked, “what’s going on?,” when he brought her to the basement, just for him to reply, “he was trying to take me out because he had bad things to tell me. I asked him if he was gay and told me he was not… [Instead, he said he had a second family and] had been living a double life for six years.”
Tracy Chanowitz is Moving Ahead With a New Identity
It was only when Chris was finally found guilty of second-degree attempted murder, second-degree menacing, and fourth-degree possession of a weapon on March 14, 2000, that Tracy was able to breathe a sigh of relief. She later conceded she’d already explained what’d transpired to their then-9-year-old daughter without any of the explicit details to ensure they could remain an unharmed family for as long as possible. So now, from what we can tell, it appears as if this survivor continues to reside in Wallkill, New York, where she’s surrounded by her loved ones at every step of the way. Moreover, and more importantly, it’s imperative to note the 63-year-old has since changed her last name yet continues to serve as a Special Education Teacher at the New York State Education Department.
