Mothers Murdering Fathers
Fraud in Australia’s plan to reduce violence against women
The 2009 Australian project a ‘Time for Action: The National Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2009-2021′, was approved for implementation by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). The Plan, which is split into several parts, puts forth recommendations for new legislation, changes to judicial processes, requests for funding and ideas for domestic programs targeted at reducing domestic and sexual violence against women. The advisory council has some powers to implement programs through the Office of Women among other agencies, but much of what the government funded program calls for requires approval by Parliament.
The entire premise of the National Plan was underpinned by the belief in this statement:“While a small proportion of men are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, the majority of people who experience this kind of violence are women in a home, at the hands of men they know.â€[27-pg1] But a quick examination of the statistics and data shows a much different picture to the rather sweeping indictment of Australian men the National Council paints.
Another woman walks free after killing her husband
AN Adelaide woman who snapped and killed her cheating husband by setting him on fire has walked from court with only a suspended sentence.
Rajini Narayan, 46, was found guilty of the manslaughter of 47-year-old Satish Narayan after being tried for his murder.
In the Supreme Court of South Australia today, Justice John Sulan sentenced her to six years in jail with a non-parole period of four years for the death of her husband in December 2008.
He suspended her sentence saying there was good reason to do so and that her husband’s conduct was a mitigating factor.
Mrs Narayan had told her trial she snapped, threw petrol and a lit candle onto her husband’s back after learning via his emails that he was having an affair.
She had intended just to burn the tip of his penis with a candle and a beaker of petrol to save their marriage.
But she snapped and threw the beaker and candle on him after he turned his back on her.
Fathers rights groups have condemned this judgment as yet another example of the double-standards in our laws, where women serve little if any jail time despite murdering their husbands or children in the most gruesome of circumstances.
Ash Patil, President of Fathers4Equality, says that women always tend to rely on stereotypes to get away with murder. “They always pull out the..he abused me argument, or I was depressed argument.”
Patil notes that these arguments are never accepted for men in this country, and they should never be accepted as defence for murder, regardless of whether the murderer is male or female.”
Patil slams this murder as a revenge murder, from a jealous wife who sought to hurt the man that was leaving her.
“We recently saw a man, Arthur Freeman, be put to jail effectively for life for murdering his daughter, Darcy Freeman, exacting revenge on his estranged wife. The question is however, why was this woman not treated the same?”
American Woman found guilty of HK ‘Milkshake Murder’ of Husband
A Hong Kong jury on Friday unanimously found an American woman guilty of murdering her Merrill Lynch banker husband in 2003, ending the lengthy retrial of a case that riveted the territory with tales of rough sex, marital violence and adultery.
Nancy Kissel, who has appeared in a wheelchair during nearly 10 weeks of proceedings at Hong Kong’s High Court, had already been sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for murdering senior Merrill Lynch investment banker Robert Kissel  by giving him a milkshake spiked with sedatives and then clubbing him to death with a metal statuette.
Kissel, in her mid-40s, had been convicted of murder. But in the retrial, she had pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, with the defence arguing that she suffers from depression and had been provoked into the crime after years of sexual and physical abuse by her husband.
After the verdict from the jury of seven women and two men was read out, Kissel, looking pale and thin, rocked backwards and forwards slowly as members of her family broke down in tears and held one another.
Justice Andrew Macrae described the retrial as a “difficult and very serious one” while saying that his “hands were tied” in upholding Kissel’s life sentence in accordance with Hong Kong punishment for murder, despite mitigating arguments put forward by Kissel’s lawyers.
“I don’t wish to say anything to add to your anguish,” Macrae said simply to Kissel, who struggled to stay on her feet as prison wardens led her from the courtroom.
Speaking outside the court building to reporters, Kissel’s elderly mother, Jean McGlothlin, said with tears in her eyes that she was “shocked by the outcome,” while expressing concern for the frail physical condition of her daughter.
Kissel’s step-father, Michael McGlothlin, said he thought the unanimity of the decision by the jurors was bewildering. “Certainly there are grounds for appeal,” he said.
The so-called “milkshake murder” case engrossed Hong Kong with its tales of domestic violence, rough sex and adultery that fractured the high-flying expatriate lifestyle that many financial professionals in the former British colony enjoy.
Prosecutors said Kissel gave Robert a milkshake laced with a “cocktail of drugs” before cracking his skull several times with a statuette. They said Robert had planned to divorce Nancy and wanted custody of their children after discovering she had an affair with a TV repairman in the United States.
After the killing, she left the corpse in the master bedroom for several days before rolling it up in the living room carpet and having it carried into a storeroom at the couple’s luxury apartment complex perched in the lush hills of Hong Kong island.
The defence had sought to argue that Kissel was suffering significant emotional problems and psychological distress from years of bullying by her husband that led to the killing in an “abnormality of violence.”
Last February, following an appeal to Hong Kong’s highest court, Kissel won a stunning reprieve when the panel of judges quashed Kissel’s conviction and ordered a retrial, saying the case had been flawed and riven with conflicting evidence.
The retrial which began in January and lasted 10 weeks clearly took an emotional toll on Kissel, who often appeared listless and pale in court, at times breaking down and even once screaming that she could see her dead husband in the courtroom.
Many Kissel supporters were bitterly disappointed, including her father Ira Keeshin who hobbled away with a walking stick and refused comment. But many echoed the view of her lawyer Colin Cohen who said: “We regret the verdict … but in my view, we have had a very fair trial.”
(Reporting by James Pomfret, editing by Miral Fahmy and Sugita Katyal)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/9078019/american-woman-found-guilty-in-hk-milkshake-murder/
Women Killers of NSW: On Facebook
WITH their distant looks and sinister appearance, these women all share the same brand of notoriety.
Each spent time in a NSW jail charged with murder.
Their stories are even more haunting than the images.
They include details of the first woman to be hanged in Sydney’s Darlinghurst jail (she was also the last woman to be hanged in NSW).
Another, at the age of 22, shot the man who employed her because she was carrying his twins and refused to marry her.
Her great-granddaughter is living in Camden and told The Sun-Herald she also has twins (see story on opposite page).
Now the rogues gallery of some 34,000 women and men prisoners is to be made available for the first time from tomorrow through the Ancestry website.
“The records in this collection contain a unique insight into the who’s who of NSW prisons in the late 19th century and early 20th century,” said Brad Argent of Ancestry.
Mr Argent said: ”The wonderful resources at Trove (trove.nla.gov.au) enabled me to access historic editions of The Sydney Morning Herald with the background information
I needed to pull together these fascinating stories.”
Emily May Macdonald is a haunting beauty. In January 1901, she was charged with the wilful murder of her 18-month-old daughter Thelma. Macdonald had poisoned herself and Thelma with phosphorous from match heads, the toddler dying from the effects.
She spent a short time in Darlinghurst jail but was released into the care of an asylum later that year.
Louisa Collins was the first woman to be hanged at Darlinghurst jail and also the last woman to be hanged in NSW. Her crime was to poison not one but two husbands, using an arsenic-based product known as ”Rough on Rats”.
She apparently killed the first, Charles Andrews, to marry the second, Michael Peter Collins. Then, perhaps not happy with her choice, she decided to murder Collins as well.
Much was made of the case at the time. It was referred to in the press as “The Botany Mystery”.
Louisa was convicted of murder by poisoning and hanged at 9am on January 8, 1889, despite much protest (no woman had been hanged in NSW for more than 20 years).
Her execution caused an outcry, partly because Collins was a mother – she was farewelled by three of her children – and partly because there was a view at the time that women, barred from voting and sitting on juries, should not be held accountable to the same laws as men.
The report of the hanging in The Sydney Morning Herald the next day said that Collins, dressed in a ”common brown wincey prison dress”, walked slowly and firmly towards the door which led to the scaffold.
A chaplain said that in her last days she had shown great courage which did not desert her in her final hour.
Mother and daughter Mary Ann Burton and Sarah Louise Keep were both convicted of murdering Keep’s husband William Henry Keep in the “Maitland Poisoning Case” of 1884-85.
Such was the ill will locally that the trial was moved to Sydney to ensure justice prevailed. Keep died in Darlinghurst jail in September 1885 of natural causes. Shortly after, Burton confessed to poisoning William and exonerated her daughter. Burton herself died seven months later (in April 1886) also in Darlinghurst jail.
A PREGNANT Ethel Herringe shot her employer, Maurice John Lee, on November 19, 1902. Herringe, aged 22, was charged with murder after Lee died six days later.
Lee, the licensee of Cowra’s Clubhouse Hotel, had apparently promised to marry Herringe, who was carrying his twins.
She arranged for a clergyman and witness to be present one night after closing then attempted to ambush Lee into marriage.
Lee reneged and Herringe unloaded.
In hospital, he made something of a death-bed confession, suggesting he had got what he deserved. There was much community support for Herringe and a petition for leniency attracted 5000 signatures.
Community sentiment prevailed and her charge was reduced to manslaughter. She was released from prison in 1904, thanks largely to the work of prominent feminist Rose Scott.
Great-granddaughter Julie Sligar said last week her father had memories of Herringe, who was allowed to keep the infants in jail – something of a first at the time. She later married Bill Laws and had three more children (the youngest, Therese, was Ms Sligar’s grandmother). Herringe died in 1958, aged 78.
Ms Sligar, 38, speaking from her home in Camden, said: ”I feel proud of her; she stood up for herself and she certainly never intended for him to die – she wanted to marry him, for goodness sake. I have twins too, Natalie and Amy, aged 8. I joke with my husband Damian to watch what he does or he’ll cop the same fate.”
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/haunting-facebook-of-nsw-women-killers-comes-to-life-20101211-18th0.html
Custody dispute behind woman’s alleged plot-to-kill ex-husband
A bitter custody battle in Oneida County Family Court may have been the motivating factor behind a Sherrill woman’s alleged attempt to have her ex-husband killed by co-workers, one of the attorneys involved in the case said Tuesday.
Kristine Eastman, 33, a nurse at the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy, was arrested and charged with felony second-degree criminal solicitation last week after she allegedly asked co-workers if they would be willing to kill her ex-husband, state police said.
The arrest came as Eastman and her ex-husband, Damion Marino, of Durhamville, were involved in court proceedings for custody of their 5-year-old daughter, said attorney Mark Wolber, who is Marino’s attorney.
“He’s pretty shaken up about the whole thing,†Wolber said of Marino. “I mean, I know that custody cases get heated and there’s a lot of emotion involved with these, but this is really beyond anything that you can really expect.â€Â
Family Court Judge Joan Shkane granted temporary full custody to Marino at a hearing Tuesday, and adjourned further proceedings pending the outcome of Eastman’s criminal charges, Wolber said.
Eastman is expected to appear in Floyd Town Court at 1 p.m. today for a felony hearing.
Attorney Peter Hedglon, who represented Eastman in the custody proceedings, said he could not comment on the case without consulting with his client. He did not know who was representing Eastman in the criminal matter.
Wolber said Eastman and Marino divorced in 2008 and initially agreed to share custody 50-50. But Marino chose to petition for full custody of his daughter after the Oneida County Department of Social Services filed a petition in June accusing Eastman and her current husband of child neglect.
Hearings regarding the county’s allegation – which also involved two children from Eastman’s current marriage – and Marino’s petition still were ongoing last week at the time Eastman was arrested, Wolber said.
Wolber said Marino had second-hand knowledge of threats by his ex-wife prior to her arrest, but that neither he nor his client had taken them seriously.
“People in these custody cases sometimes get angry and say things, but I never honestly expected that anything would come of it,†Wolber said.
Marino also successfully defended himself against prosecution in September after Eastman filed harassment charges against him, Wolber said, adding his client was found not guilty after a nonjury trial in Sherrill City Court.
Wolber said everyone involved with the custody case was “shocked†by the allegations against Eastman, and that if the reports are true, she clearly wasn’t acting in the best interest of her child.
“What this really would mean, if you think about it, is she was trying to deprive this child of having a relationship with her natural father,†he said. “If she had been successful, it certainly wouldn’t be beneficial to a child to know that their father was murdered, whether (Eastman) was discovered or not.â€Â
