Better to be a murderer than a victim?

The BBQ Pit
1

My mom calls me today, and I commented to her that I had been calling her home earlier and couldn’t get hold of her.

“I was at Mary’s” she said.
“Oh, how is Mary doing?”
“Not very well, you can just imagine”

Mary is my mom’s best friend, a retired colleague and was our neighbor for a good 15 years, while I was growing up. She is fairly healthy, so I don’t know what mom is talking about.

“Did something happen to Mary?”
“Oh, you didn’t hear? Malene was murdered?”

Malene is Mary’s youngest child, exactly my age. I was astounded. Murdered? My parents still live in our one-horse town. Murder is not something they hear very often. Much less of somebody living an honest life.

“Who killed Malene, mom?”
“Her ex-husband”

Oh sweet Og! The story that followed was a surprise to me, absolutely depressing:

Her ex-husband was abusing her for years; she finally left him, and filed for divorce, which sent him on an even worse spiral of violence. For months after the divorce he had been threatening her, telling her that he’d kill her and there was nothing she could do about it. At some point he even tried to do that, but his gun failed. She then realized that she couldn’t hide it anymore and went to the police. They took his gun away and after a subsequent trial and a prison sentence he was even more incensed.

Yesterday Malene left her job to go to the bank. She never returned home, never picked up the kids at school. This morning she was found dead in a road motel. He beat her to death. She was been so badly beaten that the D.A (here they have to be present at a crime scene), who was related to her, didn’t recognize her. They wouldn’t have identified her for a while if it hadn’t been for her I.D.s. The SOB turned up dead somewhere else. He had slashed his wrists.

My mom is very sad about this. So am I. It is one thing to see it happen in movies, to see it in the newspaper, but to hear it happen to people you knew and grew up with is even more disconcerting. I am mad, but I would also like to know why. Why? What moves somebody to do something like this? What can a person do when a spouse has decided to kill you? Leave him? It did her no good? Go to the police? They can’t hold him forever? Kill him? Maybe she should have done just that. :confused:

2

I’m very sorry for your loss… but if you’ll allow me to address one of the points you raised; I don’ think that protecting one’s self would be murder. If she had a permit for concealed carry, or a black belt in Aikido, or what have you, it would’ve been perfectly reasonable for her to take that monster apart piece by fucking piece.

I hope everybody involved finds solace and healing.

3

So sorry to hear that. One of my former boyfriends lost his sister in similar circumstances, except they could never prove it had been the ex.

I agree violence in self defense is defensable. And having the skills/equipment to defend yourself justifiable. However, its no guarentee you will have the opportunity to use the skills.

4

I am against “preemptive killing” as a matter of principle, but you know what? if I were a judge (no juries here) I would be loath of convincting someone for preemptively killing a spouse with a consistent, long term track of violence and threats of death. Sometimes even running away isn’t a guarantee.*

*There was a famous case here of a rich guy who was killed by somebody in his family, it hasn’t been quite determined yet who did it. The wife had ran away several times from him, even left the country and he always had her track down and make her come back with the threat that he would kill the children if she didn’t. He abused everybody in the family and they finally had it and shot him. None of them have spent two full months in jail.

5

I also know someone whose mom died in a similar fashion, though the man they suspect of doing the deed(ex-husband), is still on the loose for lack of evidence.

Had she done the smart thing and learned to protect herself, no it would not be illegal or immoral to have defended herself against this monster.

Sorry to hear about the happenings.

Sam

6

These stories always piss me off more when the murderer offs themself afterwards. Why couldn’t they have just done that first?

7

I was torn between considering a small blessing or being pissed at him for taking the easy road out. The bastard will never have to explain to his kids why mom is dead.
My question was, and maybe this is for GD, would she have been justified in killing him even when he was not a *present *danger? Meaning he wasn’t trying to kill her at the moment. When somebody is beating the living shit out of you it is a no-brainer, nobody would convict a woman who turn up in court with no teeth, courtesy of a dead spouse (which she killed while he was removing her teeth). But by the time you have no teeth and a few broken bones from an attempted murder it might be too late to do him off.

It’s just a question… I haven’t made my mind yet.

8

No she would not have been in the right to have offed him without a clear and present danger to her or her children. With a good lawyer, she may have gotten off and not served her rightful sentence, but that wouldn’t necessarily make it “right”. Remember, offing someone without justification smacks of premeditation. You have to have a plan to kill someone with no reason unless you have become momentarily “insane”-which a good defense lawyer would play up;“her constant torment and abusive by Mr. X drove her to do unspeakable acts to protect her and her children’s lives. Her abuse led her to believe that he was a threat no matter what, even if he intended no further harm to her.”

Just be happy this asshole didn’t do the children, too. Many psycho nutbags like him decide that the kids need to be dead as well.

Sam