Father smothers daughters before committing suicide

[Lace Neil Singer]

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1059230/Mother-girls-murdered-ex-partner-speaks-pain-losing-princesses.html

This is the kind of thing that makes me lose even more faith in humanity. What kind of person would kill his own daughters, his own flesh and blood, out of nothing but pure spite against his ex? Not only that, but this guy also made a call to his ex to tell her that "the girls are sleeping forever". Then he commits suicide out of cowardice so that he doesn't have to face the punishment he deserves for his actions.

[crazylegs]

Abusive spouses are generally cowards and require complete control.

That's my hypothysis anyhow.

[AdminAssistant]

Somebody's been reading Medea....

[AFPheonix]

Huh. This is the second thread where someone is disturbed enough to commit suicide and people call them cowards. This on the same board where people commiserated about their own suicidal thoughts in another thread, and I caught crap for apparently not understanding a family member and his issues, even though his were more complicated by substance abuse problems.

Look, this guy didn't do this out of cowardice or spite towards his ex. He did it because he was MENTALLY ILL. People who are of sound mind do not just kill themselves.

[Lace Neil Singer]

If what you say is true, then why kill the kids and ring his ex to tell her that he'd just done so? I'm sick and tired of people trying to whitewash the actions of evil people by saying that they were mentally ill. Not everyone who commits terrible acts is ill; some are evil.

[AFPheonix]

I can only speculate as to why. Probably a plea for help. Look, according to witnesses in the article, he loved those kids too. It was a tragedy for everyone involved. I'm not saying there's not truly evil people in the world because there are. I am saying, though, that just painting people as evil without looking into the motivations for why they act the way they do, learning more about it and then using that knowledge to catch people in similar straits before they act is not effective. We want this sort of thing to stop? Then we need to stop looking at people as merely 2-dimensional flat characters. We need to have better mental health care the world around.

[crazylegs]

Somebody's been reading Medea....

What's that?

[Sylvia727]

What's that?

Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts? Medea was a sorceress who killed people, including her own brother, for love of Jason. When he dumped her, she killed their children to punish him. Medea got away with it though.

[AdminAssistant]

Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts? Medea was a sorceress who killed people, including her own brother, for love of Jason. When he dumped her, she killed their children to punish him. Medea got away with it though.

Yes. The only way Jason was able to steal the Golden Fleece, and get away with it, was with the help of Medea. She was a princess there, and she gave him medicines that allowed him to steal the Fleece. (Not going into the whole story here). Then she killed her brother, and as they sailed away, she chopped off bits and tossed them in the ocean. The ships pursuing them had to stop to gather up all the bits for burial.

Later on, Jason was offered the chance to marry Glauce, and he did so. Medea, in a rage, sent Glauce a poisoned wedding dress. After Glauce was killed, Medea then killed her own children. In the play by Euripides, she escapes by calling on Helios, the sun-god and one of her ancestors, to send down a chariot pulled by dragons.

[Greenday]

I'm with AFPheonix on this one. I don't see where cowardice is shown here. The guy was obviously depressed as hell. Even when he told people about it, no one even tried to seriously help him. The way I see it, there were three murders here. Father killed his two daughters, then multiple people, to whom he confessed he wanted to kill himself, didn't do shit about what he told them and let him go right ahead with it. Knowing someone is planning suicide then not trying to really help them is almost as good as murder in my book.

[tropicsgoddess]

What the man did was just downright cowardly, spiteful and horrible. However, I will say that if those that knew him felt or knew that something was not right with him, they could've done more to reach out to him since he was depressed.

[Sylvia727]

Knowing someone is planning suicide then not trying to really help them is almost as good as murder in my book.

One is a sin/crime of omission, the other is a sin/crime of comission. Very different situations, even assuming the other person took the would-be suicider seriously. Take his boss. The guy said "I'm thinking about ending it all." Boss: "Don't do that." Guy: "Just kidding." The boss could easily have heard that as the guy just being depressed and trying to be off-hand about it. Sure, in retrospect, the boss knows he wasn't kidding, but at the time? How was he to know the guy was getting that desperate?

[Greenday]

Take his boss. The guy said "I'm thinking about ending it all." Boss: "Don't do that." Guy: "Just kidding." The boss could easily have heard that as the guy just being depressed and trying to be off-hand about it. Sure, in retrospect, the boss knows he wasn't kidding, but at the time? How was he to know the guy was getting that desperate?

I don't know too many people that'd joke around about killing themselves. If he figured the guy was depressed, and he mentioned suicide, that should have at least set off a bell in his head.

[the_std]

That's good for you, Greenday, but in my time I've heard at least ten people mention they want to commit suicide. None of them have ever been serious. I've never known anyone who has committed suicide. I've always taken appropriate courses of action when I've heard these claims and threats (mentioned it to my school counselors, talked to the person claiming, mentioned it to loved ones so that they could be on the look out and help), but I'm starting to feel a little desensitized to it. Not everyone is serious.

[crazylegs]

In my current job we deal with a lot of jobs entitled 'Concern for Welfare', generally where a person has said they will kill themselves and it falls to the police to go to there house, bash their door in (if they won't answer it) to make sure they're not lying in a pool of their own blood.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret here.

I only know of one job in nearly two years where a suicidal person who has threatened it has actually done it.

The huge, vast, massive majority of people who claim they will are yanking our chain, winding us up and desperate for attention and have no intention whatsoever of going through with the act.

So when someone says they are thinking of commiting suicide a pinch (bucket) of salt is taken, it's the people who become withdrawn, tidy the house and settle all the bills you have to watch.

[Sylvia727]

I don't know too many people that'd joke around about killing themselves. If he figured the guy was depressed, and he mentioned suicide, that should have at least set off a bell in his head.

I do. And they're all still alive and doing fine. Someone's having a bad day, and they joke that death is better than this? If someone's depressed, and trying to play it off as if they're fine, their sense of humor might be a bit more morbid than usual.

Even if the boss thought he was serious, which I doubt he did, this comment makes the guy sound like he was in phase one of thinking about it. Phase one - "I'd be better off dead, no one loves me". Phase two - "I'll hang myself in the basement, I'll buy a gun and shoot myself". In other words, it's the difference between wanting it and planning it. So while the boss would have a moral obligation to tell someone, there was no indication that the danger was immediate.

[MadMike]

I'm with AFPheonix on this one. I don't see where cowardice is shown here.

If he had taken his own life, and hadn't taken any innocent people with him, I might agree. But the fact is, he did take the lives of some innocents, and for that, I believe him to be cowardly.

I know what it's like to feel like there is no hope, and just wanting all the pain to go away. And I've had "those" thoughts running thru my head. But I never, ever even contemplated taking any innocent people with me.

[Greenday]

I don't know if that is a cowardly act in the sense being mentioned though. I don't think he was trying to get out of punishment by committing suicide. And I don't know if I'd consider the murders cowardly. I can't really come up with a decent adjective to describe it though.

[AFPheonix]

I would describe it as an act by someone not in his right mind. He may have even had some sociopathy going on, who knows. But this wasn't a person who had the benefit of dealing with a full deck apparently.

[Greenday]

That works. A lot of screws loose.