Tragic Murder in Alaska

Katybug

Katybug

Senior Member
Location
Charlotte, NC
I'm sure you've read about the beautiful mom and successful realtor on an Alaskan anniversary cruise with her husband, 3 daughters, and other family members. Should have been a dream vacation, but apparently she laughed at her husband and angered him. He killed her in their cabin, with all the family nearby. And now the daughters will be without a mother or dad.

What causes so many of these spouses to go nuts? They don't realize a murder means their life is pretty much over as well?? In fact, he was quoted as saying exactly that. Seems spousal murder happens way too often, but it could be I'm watching too many Dateline programs. Tragic situation...
 

My wife was very close friends with the wife of a local banker in a town where we lived some years ago. Well respected family. Banker husband was active in the local Chamber of Commerce, Lion's Club, etc. His wife did substitute teaching and was active in their church. The husband got angry at the wife one evening. Went to the garage and picked up a piece of firewood. Beat the wife to death in front of the two kids. He is serving a life sentence.

The kids... that also is a life sentence for them. To live for the rest of their lives with the nightmares of seeing their father beating their mother to death. To have lost their mother... and for all purposes their father... in a moment of anger.

These situations always initiate the discussion of "Why?". Were there earlier temper issue? Did something medically "go wrong" that caused it? Why?
 
Katybug said:
I'm sure you've read about the beautiful mom and successful realtor on an Alaskan anniversary cruise with her husband, 3 daughters, and other family members. Should have been a dream vacation, but apparently she laughed at her husband and angered him. He killed her in their cabin, with all the family nearby. And now the daughters will be without a mother or dad.

What causes so many of these spouses to go nuts? They don't realize a murder means their life is pretty much over as well?? In fact, he was quoted as saying exactly that. Seems spousal murder happens way too often, but it could be I'm watching too many Dateline programs. Tragic situation...
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From my experiences both by being involved directly and indirectly with murder cases that has one spouse killing their other spouse, it is fairly uncommon that the one spouse just up and kills the other spouse. From everything that I know about this type of criminal act is that one of the two spouses has either been planning or thinking about doing the deed for some time.

The last case of this type that I was directly involved in was a fairly young couple, both being around 30 y/o and having one child. The wife was having an affair with a co-worker and she wanted out of the marriage, but was afraid of losing custody of her daughter and also I would be amiss if I did not mention that the man was carrying a $350.000.00 life insurance policy with double indemnity, in case of an accident, which murder is considered an accident, so the policy would have paid out $700,000.00.

She planned it to look like an accident, which is tried all too often. Police can quickly smell a rat just by looking over the crime scene. Her other mistakes included asking a fellow that she works with, if he knew of someone that would take care of her problem and also she told a women, who was supposed to be her best friend that she wanted to see old George (fictitious name) dead. It took the investigators about 3 weeks to put it altogether before she was arrested.

After trying to convince the investigators that she was a battered woman to no avail, she finally copped a plea deal with the D.A. of second degree criminal homicide, which in this state carries a mandatory 25-life. She will be lucky if she gets out of prison before she dies.

It has always amazed me that spouses will sometimes kill their spouse, instead of getting a divorce. Mostly, it has to do with money and/or custody. No one wants to split up their pensions, 401(k) or other assets. In the case mentioned above, it sounds to me like the man may have just went bonkers, or that he was belittled by his wife several times previously and just snapped.
 

911 said:
From my experiences both by being involved directly and indirectly with murder cases that has one spouse killing their other spouse, it is fairly uncommon that the one spouse just up and kills the other spouse. From everything that I know about this type of criminal act is that one of the two spouses has either been planning or thinking about doing the deed for some time.

...
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Another tragic story, and sounds like half of the Dateline plots I watch. The double indemnity was extremely brazen. From what I've watched, it's very hard to pull off.
 
Many years ago, a man I worked with, very well respected and liked senior attorney and ex-judge (ex judge by his own choice, BTW; he wanted to be back in practice because he missed it), and one of the kindest and considerate men I've ever known, went home from work one Friday, called his son to come over and take his dogs (for the weekend, ostensibly, so he and his wife could go away for the weekend), then shot his wife in the head, sat down in his favorite chair with a glass of scotch and blew his own brains out.

There was absolutely no warning to either his work family, his son, or his extended family. No trouble between him and his wife that was known of, no work troubles, no financial difficulties, no health problems for either of them -- no reason was ever found or even seriously speculated upon; the police and coroner said it was definitely a murder/suicide. Because he was a prominent citizen, the powers that be dug around and dug around for anything, but found nothing that explained what had happened. There was no note, no sign of struggle, fight, disagreement or anything -- his wife was sitting peacefully in her chair in the living room, as was he -- and because he had had his son come get his beloved dogs, the police figured he had planned it.

To this day, it shocks me deeply. I was very fond of that man, enjoyed working with and for him for several years, and never saw any sign of anything amiss.
 
It always seems a bit more shocking when affluent people are involved. They seem to be as capable of losing it as the rest of us. I wonder if the ex-judge had gotten a terminal diagnosis, and didn't want to leave her alone. But there is nothing to condone killing in front of children and I shudder to think how that affected their lives growing up.
 
There has to be some unpleasant history there. Cannot be a one-off. Why wasn't just walking away an option?

Another situation I cannot understand is the 'if I can't have her, nobody can' theory. Why would anyone want to be with someone who does not want to be with them? This seems to be more of a male problem so can a male here explain it to me?
 
helenbacque said:
There has to be some unpleasant history there. Cannot be a one-off. Why wasn't just walking away an option?

Another situation I cannot understand is the 'if I can't have her, nobody can' theory. Why would anyone want to be with someone who does not want to be with them? This seems to be more of a male problem so can a male here explain it to me?
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Yeh things don't escalate from a verbal argument to the physical act of murder that easy. Especially in a public setting even though a cabin. Most would be pretty restrained in public on a ship.

There are always earlier signs for radical behavior. Sometimes it takes the perfect storm or combination of events and personality but there were signs if one thinks about it but they might only help establish when it all started.
 

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