Poison Pen

In 1991, when they moved to Fishing Creek Farm, a tony neighborhood outside Annapolis, Md., Julie and Keith Conrad thought they'd found heaven.

"I mean, you couldn't pick a greater spot. Nature all around and the water," says Julie.

"Everything was sort of this community spirit," says Keith. "Julie was involved, and I was involved. And it was a very, very warm place to live."

They were very happy, Julie says. But those days are over, ended by a bizarre 4 ½-year neighborhood feud that has made the Conrads outcasts.

Julie says that many of her neighbors literally turn their backs on her when they see her. "There is a clique in this community. And it happened to be the majority of the people went against us. And they are the popular crowd. I mean, this is high school. This is what happened here. We got carved out," Julie says.

The fight started because of an anonymous letter. Julie says she only sensed something was amiss when friends seemed to be snubbing her.

One of the women was Lori Gough, a Realtor who lives several streets away with her banker husband Tim and their three kids. Julie called her, asking what was wrong.

"She said, 'A couple of months ago, Tim and I got the most horrible, the meanest anonymous hate letter. And I know you wrote it.'" Julie remembers.

Julie was shocked. "I did not write this letter," she says.

Most upsetting, says Julie, was that Lori had shown the letter to neighbors, who apparently believed she could have written it. But Lori would not show the letter to her.

Julie was devastated. The Conrads say they couldn't get on with their lives. The rumors persisted, and they still hadn't seen the letter.

They hired a lawyer, who sued to get the letter. The Conrads spent $85,000 in legal fees. More than 16 months after Julie learned of its existence, she finally saw the famous letter.

The letter attacks the Goughs for allowing pictures of their son, who has Down's Syndrome, to appear in public service ads in People magazine. It also accuses them of using him to get attention, of being bad parents and social climbers.

The Conrads filed a $2 million defamation suit against the Goughs. The Conrads say they would have dropped their suit - gladly - if their neighbors had only admitted there was no proof they wrote the letter. But they didn't get an apology.

The Goughs, as well as 22 neighbors, refused to comment for this story.

The Conrads lost their suit. The jury ruled that they had not been defamed. But they did find a measure of revenge, in cyberspace. They put up a Web site about the feud. Since they put the site up, they have gotten 2.2 million hits.

The failed lawsuit produced stacks of documents - depositions exposing not just the facts, but sordid neighborhood gossip: rumors of drug use, an affair, financial problems, and the kind of nasty catty remarks people make when they think no one else ever will know.

"If you're taking gossip and you're willing to turn it into sworn testimony, you're fair game," says Keith. "They took their gossip and they swore to it. And they're embarrassed – they oughta be."

The Goughs, joined by the homeowner's association sued to shut site down, and seal the records. The neighbors eventually dropped their effort to shut down the site. But the animosity continued.

"That hurt us tremendously that this whole community would come out against us on this issue," says Julie.

The Conrads say even their children haven't been spared: Neighbors refuse to let them into their homes, or allow them to play with their children.

Why don't the Conrads move? "We're content to live here. I mean, we have no reason to run. We didn't write the letter," says Keith.

So they stay shunned and angry, and still wondering: Who wrote the letter?

If you'd like to check out the Fishing Creek Farm Web site for yourself, the URL is: http://www.simglobal.com/index.htm