NASA Astronaut Charged With Attempted Murder in Bizarre Love Triangle

Every now and then, there’s a story that gets the world talking, well this is one of those stories. It seems a NASA astronaut by the name of Lisa Nowak, 43, was arrested early Monday in Orlando after allegedly attacking and attempting to kidnap Colleen Shipman, woman who she thought was involved with another fellow astronaut, Navy Cmdr.

Every now and then, there’s a story that gets the world talking, well this is one of those stories. It seems a NASA astronaut by the name of Lisa Nowak, 43, was arrested early Monday in Orlando after allegedly attacking and attempting to kidnap Colleen Shipman, woman who she thought was involved with another fellow astronaut, Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, 41, whom Nowak, who is married, and has three children, loved or should we say was obsessed with. According to police, Nowak’s obsession with Oefelein led her to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando, bringing with her a trenchcoat and wig, armed with a BB gun and pepper spray, and wearing a diaper to avoid bathroom breaks on the arduous drive.

An alleged copy of the Orlando police report leaked over the internet describes in detail what the victim told police, and reports that Nowak told an officer that she dispensed pepper spray into the woman’s car. “That was stupid,” Nowak said to the officer, according to the police report.

Nowak was just in a Florida court for a hearing. A judge ordered her to have no contact with the other parties and released Nowak from jail on $25,500 bail and ordered her to wear a monitoring device.

The details of the relationships of all three were unclear. Nowak and Oefelein, who both live in the Houston area, had trained together as astronauts, but never flew into space together. Shipman, 30, works at Patrick Air Force Base near Kennedy Space Center.

Nowak and her husband separated several weeks ago after 19 years of marriage, according to a statement put out by her family.

A Houston neighbor, Bryan Lam, told The Associated Press that “I’ve seen them arguing before,” he said.

Oefelein is unmarried but has two children. He began his aviation career as a teenager, flying floatplanes in Alaska.