KIMBERLY WUNDRUM'S friends passed by the lilacs and lilies and other flowers that she loved, but it was the blue orchids by her open casket, arranged in the shape of a horseshoe, that stopped some cold. Jim Irsay, the 55-year-old owner of the Indianapolis Colts, had sent the flowers, which was typical of the kind of thing he did. The billionaire had a habit of donating generously to local charities and businesses. But he also reached out to individuals, most notably on Twitter, often directly helping those who are struggling.
But this wasn't just a chance for Irsay to extend a thoughtful gesture to a bereaved family -- a family of Colts fans. The blue orchids were his way of saying goodbye to the woman he'd lived with off and on for nearly a decade. Many of the mourners on that chilly March 7 afternoon had been guests of Kim's at Colts games, according to half a dozen people in attendance, some even at Super Bowls, to which they rode party buses with police escorts and then lounged in luxury suites. They had spent time with Jim and Kim in the suburban home they shared, and read the love notes he left for her. They knew that, when Kim didn't have her hands in the dirt of one of her gardens, she wore the diamond ring Jim had placed on her finger. She called it an engagement ring.
Yet Jim's relationship with Kim -- as seen through documents, social media feeds and interviews with more than a dozen friends and family members over the course of three months -- was far from normal. Irsay, whose net worth of $1.7 billion comes in large part from his ownership of the Colts and the publicly financed, $720 million, Lucas Oil Stadium, bought Kim three separate residences over their roughly eight years together, each one a place she could call home. But he kept himself at arm's length. He wouldn't take Kim to a movie unless it was a matinee, or risk a restaurant unless they were out of town, and even then it had to be with a group. Jim would leave her at the luxurious home they shared to go to Colts charity events and pose with his wife, Meg, from whom he was legally separated.
On March 2, Kim was found alone dead of a drug overdose at the age of 42, in the condo Jim had bought for her. It had been a year since their romance had dissolved, since Jim had found another woman and had Kim moved out of the home they shared. At her viewing, Kim's friends sat wondering whether Jim would show up, but the blue orchids were the only sign of him.
Nine days after the funeral, on March 16, a police officer pulled Irsay over near the home he'd bought for his new girlfriend and found a laundry bag full of pills in the front seat of his SUV. After he was arrested and charged with four felony drug counts, a mug shot revealed a gaunt prisoner having trouble keeping his eyes open.
In reporting on his arrest, local media tied Irsay to Wundrum in only the most perfunctory way, noting that she lived in residences he'd bought through a trust but portraying her as little more than a friend. He never challenged that narrative, much less described the effect her death had on him.
Irsay declined... to address his relationship with Wundrum...
But an in-depth look at their life together reveals the story that was completely overshadowed by the mug shot that went viral.
His Warning Signs
Jim Irsay's dealings with the Indianapolis police go back two decades, to an episode in 1995 when a detective named Irene Conder discovered his name in the files of a doctor who was under suspicion of running a pill mill.
Irsay, then the GM of the Colts, had been a...
