[Editor’s Note]  Why Does He Kill?

by Donna Ladd
July 30, 2008

My favorite moment in a night filled with moments at the JFP Chick Ball came when someone grabbed me and said, “This is Doris Shavers’ mother.”

I had been en route from the silent-auction table to talk to someone about the next door prize we needed to give away, and suddenly standing in front of me was the mother of a woman killed last year by her ex-boyfriend, while sitting on her sofa on Ludlow Road braiding her daughter’s hair.

Mrs. Ethel Sanders was holding a large framed photograph of her late daughter; standing around her were other family members—Doris’ brother, her oldest daughter, another sister, all in a group of family members that swelled as the night went on.

I set off to find a place to display Doris’ picture. The best place was next to the photo of another woman killed by a man she had loved: Heather Spencer. Her friends were already there running a photo booth to benefit the Center for Violence Prevention; I asked if we could put Doris next to Heather. They quickly made a space, and bartender Shannon sent bar-back Darryl looking for small candles to light in front of the makeshift shrine.

I paused several times to look into the eyes of two beautiful women killed because they had loved the wrong men—men protected by the system, by police reluctant to do enough in domestic-violence cases, by a society that blames women for staying more than men for abusing, even by their own family members.

We raised about $14,000 at the Chick Ball to help buy a Freedom Van for other families to get away from their abusers. But you know what? Doris and Heather, and way too many other women, like Jackson State University student Latasha Norman are still dead. Our society already failed them.

Yet, what is the first thing many men and women alike say first? Why did she stay?

They forget that these three women didn’t “stay.” Or they tried not to. After George Bell III nearly beat her to death with a hammer, Heather pressed felony charges, but the police reduced them the same week; she later asked to drop the “simple assault” misdemeanor charge that remained. He then re-appeared and beat her to death with a flashlight.

Doris broke up with Henry Phillips, but he didn’t have anywhere to go, and she let him stay in her house. When he allegedly started waving around a gun earlier that night, police didn’t arrest him or even take all his guns. He went back inside and, witnesses say, shot Doris with his handgun, point blank, straight down from the top of her scalp.

Latasha broke up with Stanley Cole, who had already allegedly abused her. Police believe he then found her, took her up to the woods near Tougaloo and strangled her.

These women left. And it may well have gotten them killed. Sadly, that is too often the outcome of leaving an abuser.

Down in Pascagoula, in the spring of 1989, Adrienne Klasky Graham feared for her life and that of her children. Her ex-husband, Michael Graham, was abusing her, and she wanted to get away. She filed a complaint in Chancery Court alleging that he had been threatening and stalking her, and had run her and her family off the road.

Two days later at 10:15 in the morning, he pulled up behind her at a busy downtown intersection; when she slowed down, he fired a 12-gauge shotgun point blank into the driver’s side straight into her left temple. She died instantly, and he drove away calmly.

Graham could not be prosecuted for capital murder because he was not trying to commit another felony when he executed his ex-wife (because domestic crimes like stalking and terrorizing didn’t count as such a thing). But the crime shocked the community, and he was sentenced to life for murder, and under Mississippi law should not be up for parole until he is 65; he has spent only 19 years in prison so far.

But Graham has friends in high places—and, after all, this was just a domestic murder. Because he has behaved well while in prison, he got to work as a trusty in the Governor’s Mansion, quite the punishment for a man accused of such a heinous crime.

Last week, Gov. Haley Barbour quietly issued an order to grant Graham early release for good behavior and because he has been a “diligent workman.”

“The governor is giving him a chance through an indefinite suspension of his sentence to start a new life away from Pascagoula and Jackson County pending his future good behavior,” Barbour spokesman Pete Smith said in a statement about Graham.

Barbour might still pardon Graham, as he did Clarence Jones and Jody Warnock in recent weeks. Jones stabbed his ex-girlfriend 22 times, killing her in 1992. Warnock shot his girlfriend in the back of her head as she lay in their bed in 1989.

The so-called tough-on-crime governor is sending a loud-and-clear message that domestic murders don’t matter as much as other kinds of violence (like the crime Dale Leo Bishop assisted with; the one the state killed him for last week; the one where the killer himself is not on death row). You can kill your ex-wife—the one who tried her damndest to get away from your sorry ass—and if you cozy up to the governor, he’ll let you out early.

Does that mean that George Bell III’s powerful family will get the same favor in a few years if he “behaves”? Keep an eye out.

Asking why some women stay is the wrong question, people. We must ask why some men abuse and why they kill. We must ask why society gives them a pass. We must ask why such a gubernatorial pardon isn’t immediate political suicide. We must ask what a woman is supposed to do when the charge against her abuser is reduced to a misdemeanor, which means he gets a pass and is blinded with fury that she got him in trouble.

We must ask how we can criticize women for staying when leaving is often the very act that gets them stalked and killed.

But there is one thing we don’t have to ask: why Mississippi is one of the most dangerous states for women. When our governor allows domestic murderers to walk on “good behavior,” the message is clear: We do not take violence against women seriously in this state.

Remember: These women tried to escape and survive. Our society wouldn’t let them.

It’s not too late to help buy a Freedom Van. Write checks out to the Center for Violence Prevention and mail to JFP, P.O. Box 5096, Jackson, 39216, Attn. Sage. We’ll send you a 2008 Chick Ball CD for a donation of $15 or more.

COMMENTS

Page 1 of 1 pages

100 recent comments »