# Father, angry at ex-wife, kills children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 17, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147 "2003-09-17T15:39:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/1 "2003-09-17T15:39:04Z")
[http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-asecrandall17x091703sep17,0,7021661.story?coll=orl-home-headlines](http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-asecrandall17x091703sep17,0,7021661.story?coll=orl-home-headlines) It started last weekend with two toddlers found floating in an area lake. Then, later in the week, the father deliberately steered his car into the path of an auto transport. He died, and of the two children in the car, the older one died. One of the children found floating in the lake died, the other is still in a coma. The father is dead, so he escapes justice. Stunned and flabbergasted does not begin to cover it. How strong must your hatred be for your ex-wife to overcome your love for your children? ---
**Author:** ![SkyBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@SkyBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkyBum)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/2 "2003-09-17T15:44:23Z")
I simply cannot imagine how this can happen…and how frequently it happens. It shakes my faith in the human species to it’s very core. ---
**Author:** ![Isabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5a626/32.png) [@Isabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isabelle)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/3 "2003-09-17T15:48:50Z")
What is even more disturbing is that the wife had an enjunction against him. He was to stay XX feet away from her. Not contact her in any form. She then filed for a protection enjunction for her children after she received a note from him that said she should die and he was going to kill himself. The State Attorney’s office dragged their feet and didn’t take the case serious enough. (The State Attorney claims there was paperwork missing from her original file) So what happens? He kills the children and himself. The State Attorney’s office should have filed the warrant for his arrest for sending her the explosive letter. He violated the order. IMHO the State Attorney’s office is in large at fault. …in reality if she had gotten the enjunction forbidding him any visitation, what might he have done? If he was hell bent on killing himself and the children a piece of paper wasn’t going to stop him. he claims his depression stemmed from losing a potential job recently and finding out that his ex wife was having a relationship with a co worker. Like this is a reason to kill your children? He wrote in the letter that he could not allow his children to be raised by her. sick sick sick I’m praying for the surviving children. I pray that they not only recover, but that they don’t remember. ---
**Author:** ![Geobabe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/geobabe/32/3908_2.png) [@Geobabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geobabe)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/4 "2003-09-17T15:52:24Z")
What a fucking asshole! > [@](#): > > …Lisa Randall had admitted that she had had an extramarital affair. … > > They decided to divorce but without hiring lawyers. As they worked on divorce terms, Lisa Randall caught her husband creating a newsletter on their home computer. It was filled with intimate details about her sex life. > > Bryan threatened to send the newsletter to all her friends and family. During the hearing, Lisa said she had asked him what she could do to prevent that, and they negotiated a deal involving specific sex acts she would agree to perform. > > Lisa Randall then signed a contract sealing the deal, the couple testified. When Bryan Randall later threatened to tell the wife of the man with whom she was having an affair, Lisa Randall agreed to more duties, such as detailing the car, cleaning the house and preparing meals. > > Bryan Randall also taped a demeaning make-believe radio show and made her answer questions, she testified. And then to kill the kids to get back at her. There just are no words. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/5 "2003-09-17T15:52:51Z")
My God. How tragic. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/6 "2003-09-17T16:06:12Z")
Yikes. What a horrible tragedy. Just a thought. . . Because bluenoses like Lieberman and Dole like to blame horrific incidents like this on the media, I wonder if they’ll start a grassroots boycott of Euripides. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/7 "2003-09-17T16:10:24Z")
Shades of Medea. So scary. ---
**Author:** ![Sassafras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@Sassafras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sassafras)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/8 "2003-09-17T16:11:26Z")
When they found the two children in the lake, we were talking about the chances that some crazy parent did it. How horrible that that was indeed the truth. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/9 "2003-09-17T16:48:44Z")
When I first heard about the two children, I thought it was two babies that had wandered away from home. Then when it came out that the father had deliberately crashed his SUV… How exactly does one carry one’s children down to a lake and throw them in and walk away? Dammit…I wish he’d survived the crash. His death was too easy. ---
**Author:** ![Isabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5a626/32.png) [@Isabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isabelle)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/10 "2003-09-17T17:04:28Z")
**ivyglass** just ask Susan Smith. How did she drown her children and walk away? She claimed she was going to take her own life but chickened out. Yeah right. She survived and was put in jail. (Where she had sex with guards and ended up pregnant again) She will get out of jail in 4 years or so and be put on probation. Big (&$\_@ deal. Is that justice? Having this father survive the car wreck (IMHO) would not satisfy my need for justice to be brought forth. Can a father get much haussen by proxy? In any event I pray that the children did not suffer. I pray that they went quickly. Why is it that the children are always the ones to suffer? ---
**Author:** ![belladonna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9fc29f/32.png) [@belladonna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/belladonna)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/11 "2003-09-17T18:33:51Z")
Unfortunately, this isn’t the only story like this in the news at the moment. [In this one](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/3114266.stm), the father actually called the children’s mother and made her listen to her four son’s final moments. Sadly, he also killed himself like a coward, but cases like this make me really really hope that hell exists, and that these men are currently burning there. I feel so horribly for the mothers in these situations. To lose a child is bad enough, but to lose one–or more–because of the kind of man you chose to be their father? I would never get over that kind of guilt. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/12 "2003-09-17T18:34:28Z")
This happened in my family - to my brother’s sister-in-law (his wife’s twin sister). My brother’s wife is from South Africa. Her sister had gone through a pretty acrimonious divorce. She had custody of the three children, though they would spend an occasional weekend with their father. One weekend he offered to take the kids fishing. The oldest girl declined, but his ex-wife dropped off the two younger kids the night before so they could get an early start in the morning. He apparently put the kids to bed, then turned on the gas in the kitchen. He committed suicide, and took the kids with him, to spite his ex-wife. And to make an already unspeakably evil act even worse, he arranged things so that his ex-wife would be the one to to find them all. He had told her he would leave a check for some money he owed her on the kitchen table the next morning, and she should come by and pick it up. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her when she opened that door. Nobody in that family of course will ever be the same. It’s things like this that make me wish I believed in Hell. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/13 "2003-09-17T18:44:15Z")
What about this? > [@](#): > > Randall’s father, pastor at St. Simon’s Baptist Church in Orange Park, said his son was wrong for harming the children and taking his own life. > > “I don’t condone what he did. I’m a man of God,” the elder Randall said. > > “I know he will burn in Hell as a sinner for what he did. But I pray Lisa will respect his death wish and allow them to be buried together. It’s a death wish, and you don’t mess with a death wish.” > > In his suicide note, Bryan Randall asked to be cremated with the remains of his children. Fuck his death wish. I can’t imagine that the woman wants his body or ashes anywhere near those of the children. ---
**Author:** ![Isabelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5a626/32.png) [@Isabelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isabelle)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/14 "2003-09-17T19:09:09Z")
I think Randall’s father was wrong for making this statement. When we die and are buried we are to “rest in peace” Would she have “peace” knowing that the man who killed her children are in the same place? Each time she visits the grave should she be reminded of the hell these children suffered? Who cares what this deranged man wanted. He obviously was not in his right mind! Does this mean she should carry out the last wishes of a sick man because his father says you don’t mess with death wishes? I think they should flush his ashes down the toilet! He doesn’t deserve a great final resting place under a shady tree in the peaceful cemetary. (This isn’t very Christian-like but I can’t help it) Should he “guilt” her into burying them together just because the father is going to burn in hell? This is very selfish on his part and not good manners for a pastor. I think it was noble of the mother to donate the organs of the 8 year old. If I were her I would have done the same thing. This way another child has a chance to live and in some way her child will live on. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/15 "2003-09-17T19:21:25Z")
Last month, a similar story here in Detroit. A guy called his estranged wife and said “Watch the news.” Then went and shot their three kids. One of the children was still alive when found. I haven’t heard updates on her condition. It’s a very strange and incomprehensible thing. ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2003, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/16 "2003-09-17T23:07:10Z")
It happens a lot, but it’s funny how it’s the women who get demonized. There were three guys, at about the time of the Andrea Yates case, who amongst them killed something like sixteen of their own children and at least one estranged wife. We had a guy up here who killed his wife and six kids. And then “Man shoots wife, then self” headlines get buried in the back pages of newspapers. If a guy’s willing to kill his ex wife because she’s _his_ possession, how big of a step is it to kill the kids? Susan Smith is the mythical bad mom. Where’s the bad dad whose name is known instantly? ---
**Author:** ![Thylacine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thylacine/32/1143_2.png) [@Thylacine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thylacine)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/17 "2003-09-18T00:02:13Z")
[We have been having cases too](http://www.thewest.com.au/20030916/news/latest/tw-news-latest-home-sto112759.html) > [@](#): > > POLICE shot a man yesterday in a vain attempt to stop him stabbing one of his children outside a house in outer Sydney. > > But they found he had already inflicted mortal wounds on children aged four and 20 months and on their grandfather, 72. > > The man, aged 30, died later at Windsor Hospital from self-inflicted stab wounds to the chest. This was the day after he tied up and raped his wife. It is just unfathomable ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/18 "2003-09-18T00:58:07Z")
Amazing how common this type of violence is. Earlier this month, a man in San Diego [shot and killed his son as he jogged with his cross-country team](http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20030905-1230-ca-sonambushed.html), then casually drove home and barricaded himself, where he was killed in a police standoff hours later. As for motive: > [@](#): > > Hoffine was in a bitter custody battle with Evan’s mother, who had obtained a court order to keep him away from the boy, Hurley said. He also was deep in debt, the detective added. Yeesh. And I thought _my_ parents had a rough divorce… ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/19 "2003-09-18T01:06:08Z")
The phrase “control freak” springs to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147/20 "2003-09-18T02:24:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*just ask Susan Smith. How did she drown her children and walk away? She claimed she was going to take her own life but chickened out. Yeah right. She survived and was put in jail. > > … > > She will get out of jail in 4 years or so and be put on probation. Big (&$\_@ deal. Is that justice?\*\* FALSE. > [@](#): > > At 4:45 p.m., Judge Howard sentenced Susan Smith to thirty years to life in prison. Susan will be eligible for parole in 2025, after she has served 30 years in prison. At that time, Susan will be 53 years old. [http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious\_murders/famous/smith/phase\_10.html?sect=7](http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/smith/phase_10.html?sect=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/father-angry-at-ex-wife-kills-children/202147.md?page=2)