This is part 2 of my previous post about my former roommate photographer John Tessier, aka Jack McCullough, who’s been convicted for the murder of Maria Ridulph.

Ana, the model above, was John’s Muse. She was a ballerina with a remarkably thin strong body. She was a tad short for the modeling world at 5’6″, but pursued it along with her acting career. Her dance background gave her an elegance and poise that made her remarkable in front of the camera. She knew where her body was, and how to give John the curves and movement he needed to create  his compositions. The three of us created images off and on for nearly a decade. Images that I’ve always been very proud of… until now. Now I see things with a different perspective, a perspective that clearly disturbs me.

When I first met Ana, her hair color was light brown with golden highlights.  However, John felt she would look better with darker hair, and to this day, that’s how she wears it. When I’d found the images online of John’s victim, Maria Ridulph, I gasped. Even at age 7 she bore a striking resemblance to Ana, with her porcelain skin and dark eyes and hair. I now see Ana as the grown up version of Maria.

Is this why John was obsessed with photographing Ana over and over again through out the years? Was it truly art we were making, or was it something much deeper and darker. Once I became aware of Maria’s story, and that John had been convicted for her murder, I contacted Ana via facebook and brought it to her attention. Unfortunately, we’ve never actually talked about it, and it makes me wonder if there was a dark side to their relationship that I know nothing about. For Ana’s sake, I hope not. It’s hard to know where I stand in the bigger narrative of John’s life. Did I unknowingly participate in his obsession?

As artistic director of Lewis Fox Salon, I brought many teenage girls from the salon to his studio to be photographed. The models were never left alone with John as a matter of professionalism. Everything was on the up and up, at least on my end.  I don’t ever recall any type of inappropriate behavior, but now I’m questioning everything. Even the first image above, with Ana’s hands framing her neck, takes on a whole new meaning. That was the image that John chose from the proof sheet at the very top, not me, not Ana, but John.  There were plenty of great images to print… were we unknowingly seeing into the psyche of a killer? I also recall John talking about how much he loved the saturated black against the bright white in his black and white photos. He wasn’t much good with color, but truly excelled in this medium. Maybe the starkness of black and white was how he saw the world, a world with no room for the nuances of grey.

After reading the articles online about his conviction, I contacted the detectives who were responsible for prosecuting John Tessier, aka John McCullough, and gave them my contact information. Reports indicate that they’re still looking at cases of missing women from the areas that John lived in, with hopes of tying him to their disappearances. To answer my own question in the previous post, can monsters also be artists, I simply have to remind myself of Adolf Hitler. It’s so tragic to discover that someone I held in such high esteem, could turn out to be such a flawed and horrible human being.

July 6, 2016…

I just learned that Jack McCullough, aka John Tessier, has been exonerated of all charges in the murder of Maria Ridulph in April of this year.