Here are some U.S. Dept. of Justice Statistics.
I’m not trying to minimize the awful crime of a man killing his wife but according to this link it is not as lopsided as I had thought. Go, read, learn. These stats are from 1988, I highly doubt that is relevant.
Cartooniverse
A combination of factors led to this being a big story. Foremost in my opinion is that Lacy was the object of a missing person search, compounded by the fact that she was pregnant and was missing at Christmas. The idea of a pregnant woman being abducted, particularly during the holidays, made for national interest. Then we went through the time where if she was alive, she should have given birth. Then more time passes and suspicion of Scott grew. Lots of guys kill their wives, many kill pregnant wives, fewer do it in the holiday season, and fewer still report them missing and have them be the object of a search.
I am not talking about Scott Pederson being unusual among men as a whole; I’m talking about him being unusual among men who kill their wives or, more broadly and less sexistly, among people who kill their spouses. As I said in the OP, that’s not an uncommon occurrence. I read or hear about such cases every other week or so, and it fills me with contempt and dismay. To me, it’s not right to dismiss Scott Pederson as a psychotic or an aberration in society when there are far too many people doing the same thing.
CJ
But what if he is a true abberation in society? The question is one of motive. In the numbers presented about how the murders of spouses were caught / prosecuted / disposed of (convicted or aquitted), it didn’t really go into how many were pre-planned and how many were crimes of passion (that I could see)
The planned crime to my mind is far more heinous because it was not just a passing urge that got out of control, but a thoughtfully planned action. The reason being, I can understand an impulse crime or a crime of passion, but I really doubt I could seriously entertain thinking of and planning for a murder for days or weeks prior to committing that crime, then further plan and act to cover it up and attempt to ensure I didn’t get caught.
I would argue that Scott planned the murder, due to the evidence presented during the trial of his preparation for disposing of the body. Due to this, I feel he is an exception, rather than the rule, even in the rarefied field of spousal murder. I think most spousal murders by far are the results of crimes of passion.
Of course, I am struggling to find evidence of this, so I guess I am just going to have to go with my gut…
I don’t think the national media is going to waste time going and hanging out in Kansas unless there is some huge huge story to follow with some ongoing drama. There’s a reason most of the big media trials happen in the big Cali cities and New York: it’s low hanging fruit right in the backyard of the major news agencies.
I just wanted to give another example of what I’m talking about. On the front page of this morning’s paper, there was another story about a man who killed his wife. This time, he stabbed his estranged wife 7 times in the chest at her home during an argument on Nov. 20th. He then, presumably, left her dead body lying in her home. On December 3rd, nearly two weeks later, he returned, piled newspapers around her body, covered it with a mattress, and set fire to her body and her house. The reason he went back on December 3rd is he knew friends were going to check up on her that day. Here’s a link to the full story.
This time, she wasn’t pregnant; I will grant you that. On the other hand, I repeat my question. Is this men any more inherently less evil than Scott Pederson? In light of stories I read all too often, is it really all that unusual for a person to kill his or her spouse? I’m still fairly sure this is a commonplace evil which gets overlooked far too often.
CJ
Quantifying evil is a pretty tough thing to do. In the case you cite, there seems to be an impetuous and enraged quality to the crime; in the case of Scott Peterson, the crime seems to have been patiently and calmly executed. There was no sign of massive physical trauma or gross mutilation of Laci’s body, and efforts were taken to make sure that everything besides the absence of Laci herself looked normal in Scott’s life and surroundings. Vicious stabbing, followed by destruction of one’s own home through arson is something quite different in character. These guys are both criminals, but very different beasts indeed.
I agree with Loppydude. Pederson is unusual due to the calmness and coldness of the killing; the example you mention is of someone who just ‘lost it’ and where he is ‘evil’ is in trying to cover up the crime.
So if I was to ‘rate’ evil, it would be something like this (from most evil to least evil)
But it is really hard to ‘rate’ evil, so you can definitely take my ratings or leave them…