posted
If you haven't already, you can expect to soon. It really annoys me when I see the cop dramas using real news stories, like the astronaut kidnapping. Terribly irreverent.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
My father refused treatment for leukemia and took aspirin in an effort to hasten the stroke that he hoped would end his life. It did.
My great aunt asked her husband for assistance to swallow enough pills to be able to die (she couldn't swallow unless someone held up her head for her). He did.
My wife's grandmother mistook my umbrella for a rifle, and asked me to shoot her. Later she took to swearing at her daughter (my mother-in-law) when she told her she didn't want her to die, and screamed for St. Peter to take her.
The "sanctity of life" is what you make it. Disease and old age can be painful enough to cause people to beg for someone to end their life.
This woman was down to 75 lbs and unable to walk. And by the way, most railings on balconies are way higher than "hip-height" even on me, and I'm 6' tall. I doubt this woman could have climbed over the rail given these circumstances.
If it was her idea to have her husband throw her off the balcony, I have no problem with this at all, although I feel sorry for both of them.
If it was his idea and he didn't have her consent, then yeah, he's a murderer.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I didn't see this article until today -- and so I didn't realize the title of this thread was *literal* and not something else. I should have known better.
For all of those who don't want to be quick to judge, I'd ask if you hold yourselve back in other cases in which husbands murder their wives. Or do you just do so in those cases in which the wife is ill or disabled?
I suspect people would *like* to think that somehow most husbands who kill ill or disabled wives are different than the bigger pool of those who commit domestic violence, but there isn't much to support that comfortable belief.
Julie Malphurs and Donna Cohen are two researchers that have studied these situations pretty extensively. The following abstract is pretty typical of their findings overall (note - in most alleged "mercy killings" in couples, it's the male who is the perpetrator).
quote:Objective: Homicide–suicides are rare relative to suicides and homicides, but these lethal events are an emerging public health concern. They have a mortality count similar to meningitis, pulmonary tuberculosis, influenza, and viral hepatitis, and the rate may be increasing in the United States, especially among older persons. The goal of this case–control study was to identify factors that differentiate older married men who commit homicide–suicide from those who commit suicide only.
Methods: A total of 20 spousal homicide–suicides involving persons age 55 years and older were ascertained in Florida between January 1, 1998 and December 31, 1999 from medical examiner records. Two suicide controls were matched to each homicide–suicide perpetrator by age, race, marital status, method of death, and medical examiner district. Perpetrator groups were compared on sociodemographic characteristics, medical variables, and autopsy findings.
Results: Homicide–suicide perpetrators displayed significantly more domestic violence or were caregivers for their wives, in contrast to suicide perpetrators, who had health problems and were receiving care from their spouses. Both groups of perpetrators had reported depressed mood, and there were no differences in sociodemographic factors.
Conclusions: Depression plays a significant role in both homicide–suicide and suicide, but the associated factors are different: we see caregiving strain in perpetrators of homicide–suicide, and living with physical health disorders as a care-recipient in men who commit suicide. Marital conflict is a significant factor in some spousal homicide–suicides.
In other studies, they've noted that many women whose deaths were labeled as "mercy killings" were found to have defensive wounds on autopsy. And caregiving stress is a factor - but the real kicker is that stress combined with a history of domestic violence.
This research isn't well-known. Probably because it messes up what reporters and the public think are perfectly good stories.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Here's another link I found that is apparently an archived news story from a New Zealand newspaper with quotes from Donna Cohen, one of the researchers I referred to:
quote: In many countries, including New Zealand, violent deaths of disabled and sick family members have typically been labeled euthanasia or mercy killings. Professor Cohen, who is based in Florida and has led many of the world’s homicide-suicide studies, says the geriatric Romeo and Juliet scenario is the most poignant and palatable explanation for grieving survivors, and for a society that routinely devalues disabled people and the elderly – except that it’s hardly ever true.
“These are not acts of love. They are not compassionate homicides. They are acts of desperation and depression, other forms of psychopathology, or domestic violence.”
Dr Cohen’s research indicates that older men – who almost always initiate the acts – routinely proceed without their wife’s knowledge or consent. She says true pacts occur in perhaps one half of 1 per cent of elder homicide-suicides.
Of the hundreds of homicide-suicide deaths in the US each year, the rate amongst over 55s is twice that of under 55s. Homicide-suicides now account for about three per cent of all suicides, and about 12 per cent of homicides in the older population.
“One of our most distressing findings is evidence that older women who are killed are not knowing or willing participants,” says Dr Cohen. “Often they are killed in their sleep or shot in the back of the head or chest.”
Her research indicates that about a third of elder homicide-suicides occur in a context of domestic violence, an ugly contrast to the Norman Rockwell image of loving clan matriarch and patriarch.
Most elder homicide-suicides, however, have more to do with poor health. Often one or both partners are in failing health, and typically the husband is supporting a spouse who is chronically ill.
“You’ve got men in long-lived marriages who have typically exercised a certain amount of control and they’re having to care for their wives,” says Dr Cohen. “They’re very task oriented, and this inability to help the wife becomes an interpretation of failure.”
quote: A man accused of throwing his ailing wife four stories to her death took her away from her mother's home last month and never brought her back, two of the woman's sisters said. ...
Criste Reimer had been living with her mother for several months and was doing well, said her sisters, Vicki Jones and Terri Metrano.
But in mid-July, they told The Kansas City Star on Thursday, her husband visited the mother's home near Kansas City and said he was taking Criste Reimer to dinner.
posted
I wonder what his motives where -- if he wanted rid of her, why not let her stay with her mother?
Posts: 5700 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Man. This story was gross enough framed as a mercy killing. I don't understand how anyone can have sympathy for the guy after this new evidence. When you deliberately seek someone out to kill them, that's hard to explain away.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Wow. Being on Social Security she should have had some sort of health coverage. If he couldn't handle it he should have sent her back to her mother's and divorced her not thrown her to her death. I just can not wrap my mind around choosing murder over sending her back and divorce. How disturbing.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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You know, I don't think I'm AS shocked at what he did (people murder their spouses all the time, it seems). What I'm primarily shocked at is other people's responses to it.
I mean, (I don't know if it is still there, but it was originally) at the Kansas City Star newspaper link to the story, and also the Wichita one, people could post comments on the article. Many people said things like "well, he did what he had to do". etc. etc.
That type of reasoning just is beyond my comprehension.
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I think at least part of the answer - in this instance - is that the public's imagination was helped along by sloppy reporting. Notice the image portrayed in the original story, which as has been noted, was an AP story that went just about everywhere:
quote: According to court documents filed Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, Stanley Reimer walked his wife to the balcony of their apartment and kissed her before throwing her over.
This presents both his throwing her and his kissing her as *facts*, rather than statements that Reimer himself made.
Shouldn't that read "Stanley Reimer *says* he walked his wife to the balcony of their apartment and kissed her before throwing her over."???
I have trouble understanding how other people's imaginations work. No matter how many times I picture it, I *cannot* for the life of me picture someone throwing someone over a balcony with a loving and compassionate look on their face - what I see is anger and rage.
Had this woman been healthy and younger, I believe that is what everyone else would see in their heads, too.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Just as I was not willing to take what the husband said at face value, I am also unwilling to subscribe wholesale to what the family of the deceased are saying.
Hopefully forensic evidence combined with the testimonies of all involved will paint a picture that is beyond dispute.
posted
This all got unexpectedly personal. Some of Criste Reimer's messages to online groups have been posted elsewhere, all from 1998.
One of the things I knew about Reimer from the news articles is that she had hydrocephalus. Until a few years ago, I had a website on hydrocephalus and got quite a bit of mail through it. (Her parents had rejected doctors' advice to take her out of school due to the severe cognitive disabilities they believed she would have due to her hydrocephalus and neurofibromatosis.)
I checked my email archives using just the first part of the posted email address, since many people keep a favorite screen name even when they switch email services. Sure enough, there was a message from 2002 from a woman signing herself as Criste Reimer.
The content of it suggests we had contact in the past, but it could have been through an email group she asked about how to reconnect with. She was also asking some advice about professionals who were familiar with hydrocephalus.
I am positive I would have responded to her with the contact info for the email group in question and also suggested contacting the Hydrocephalus Association for suggestions in regard to local professionals who could do a good work-up on her.
I won't post the email - here or anywhere. It would feel like invading her privacy. The summary I've posted here is, I think, sufficiently general enough to be noninvasive of her privacy.
Nothing alarming about her health status, her husband or home life. Nothing about her husband at all, really.
Crap - I wish I had a better memory.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Hopefully forensic evidence combined with the testimonies of all involved will paint a picture that is beyond dispute.
I doubt it. There were only two people there, and only one is around to tell his version of the story.
This is one reason why I support legalizing assisted suicide. It would require legal documentation of the deceased's intentions and state of mind. That would effectively prevent using "it was a mercy killing" as a defense in the event of a murder as described above.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Hopefully forensic evidence combined with the testimonies of all involved will paint a picture that is beyond dispute.
I doubt it. There were only two people there, and only one is around to tell his version of the story.
This is one reason why I support legalizing assisted suicide. It would require legal documentation of the deceased's intentions and state of mind. That would effectively prevent using "it was a mercy killing" as a defense in the event of a murder as described above.
You really ought to have more faith in forensic science. It currently is capable of feats that are nothing short of fantastic. Not only that, forensic science is constantly getting better and better. Sure it isn't perfect, but I would not be surprised if say the prosecution, manages to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the husband did in fact push his wife over the balcony, even if we ignore his admission to so doing.
Rivka: I stopped breast feeding earlier than any of my other siblings Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: You really ought to have more faith in forensic science. It currently is capable of feats that are nothing short of fantastic.
You have been watching way too much CSI.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I stopped breast feeding earlier than any of my other siblings
Mkay. What's that got to do with anything?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:This is one reason why I support legalizing assisted suicide. It would require legal documentation of the deceased's intentions and state of mind.
Not really, unless they go through a legal process where they have to deal with an adversarial attorney and psychiatrist, independent of involvement with relatives. Anyway. I just generally don't think it's the government's business to kill people (I don't support the death penalty either.)
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I think the breastfeeding comment was in response to Freudian slip remark. I refuse to watch CSI because it is just so inaccurate it drives me crazy. I think the question of how shows like CSI effect potential jurors is interesting.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by scholar: I think the breastfeeding comment was in response to Freudian slip remark.
Yeah, I figured. It still doesn't make much sense, unless one conflates all of Freud's theories into a single UberTheory. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Jurors in Butler County, Ohio, are forbidden from watching CSI (and some other shows) so that they don't develop unrealistic expectations of what forensic science is capable of.
quote:Originally posted by scholar: I think the breastfeeding comment was in response to Freudian slip remark.
Yeah, I figured. It still doesn't make much sense, unless one conflates all of Freud's theories into a single UberTheory.
Now you're getting it!
quote:You have been watching way too much CSI.
I've never watched a single episode. I do however watch Forensic Files on Court TV quite frequently.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Not really, unless they go through a legal process where they have to deal with an adversarial attorney and psychiatrist, independent of involvement with relatives. Anyway. I just generally don't think it's the government's business to kill people (I don't support the death penalty either.)
I don't think an adversarial position is necessary, although it should be independant of relatives. But this isn't about government being in the business of killing people. It's merely about government allowing people to decide for themselves when they want to end their own lives.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Unless, of course, they've lost the ability to voice their own opinions or think like an adult. In which case we'd let someone else who probably isn't unbiased do it. I'm gonna take a pass on that one. It's the paranoid in me.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I have so many problems with this occurrence I hardly know where to begin.
1. I want the book thrown at this guy because I think that the lives of the sick and helpless are just as important as anyone else's. If it had been a child, would he still have been charged with 2nd degree?
2. Yes, our health care system needs to be far, far better. People should not be driven to financial desperation by medical disaster.
3. He threw her over the balcony??? If it had been a mercy killing, aren't there much more merciful ways to go? Such as, maybe, an overdose of the many many prescription painkillers I'm sure she had?
Posts: 23 | Registered: Jul 2001
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