So, SnoopyFan, would it have been better if she’d stayed behind and been killed along with her parents and step-sister? Given the harshness with which you’ve expressed some of your views, especially those concerning abortion, I sometimes feel you have no problem with women dieing for their sins.
The link Lyllan posted (thanks!) gave some relevant information. For openers, Jones, the killer called Peeler, the mother, and told threatened to “start killing the kids one by one” as he put it after she went to Oregon. I don’t understand people who take up with vicious louts, let alone have sex with them often enough to have kids with them, but the Ms. Peeler may not have thought he’d come after his own kids until this call, so she may have thought she was safe. Since the article also says that the killer “was angry about . . . the possibility that Peeler would get custody of their children” (emphasis mine), I assume she didn’t have custody of them at the time. Granted I would hope that the courts wouldn’t give custody to Jones who’s apparently a pretty worthless type who’s been in and out of jail most of his adult life and who, according to the son-in-law of Peeler’s parents, “a vicious temper and a drug habit.”
Look, I’m not saying this woman’s a saint. She’s done things I would never do, starting with taking up with a guy like Jones and having 3 kids with a guy she’s not married to. I may be sounding a bit harsh myself but, as far as I’m concerned, a guy like Jones should never get laid or know the privilege of human love until he’s decided to act like a human being instead of a vicious, nasty punk. On the other hand, it sounds like Peeler didn’t have a reason to fear for her and his kids until after she went to Oregon and, when she got the threat, called the police. I don’t have or particularly want kids, but I can see how after making the decision to leave this lout and being in fear of her life, she would want to get far, far away, and again, with no threat to their kids, she may well have thought they would be safe with their grandparents.
If anyone should be Pitted here, I’d say it’s Jones. Why not Pit him for being a vicious, evil bastard who would kill his own children? Isn’t that worse than what Peeler did? Why not Pit Peeler for being foolish enough to take up with Jones in the first place?
At least these three little girls still have a mother. I may be overly Pollyanna-ish here, and the article didn’t say anything about what the new boyfriend’s like, but it sounds like, if only by leaving the lout, Peeler’s trying to get her life together and make a fresh start. She’s going to have to live with the guilt of this for the rest of her life, and I feel sorry for her for that. She’s done a particularly good job of messing her life up, but unlike the lout who killed their kids, she’s at least apparently willing to do something to change it. At least her kids will be raised by someone who loves them and the vicious, cruel lout who passed for their father is well out of their life.
CJ