A Rage To Kill And Other True Cases

driver’s hand, heard him shout obscenities at her as he continued to fire even after she had fallen. And sadly, they had seen the small girl witness the whole thing, heard her screaming for the shooter to stop.
    Rolf Grunden processed the white Ford, and found a nearly-full box of .38 special ammunition in the front seat. Des Moines detectives searched Amy’s apartment and found the chilling photographs that had once been cheerful family scenes—only Amy Shaw’s head had been snipped from each picture, as if she were already dead in Shaw’s mind.
    Detective Burger faced the task of interviewing the young daughter of the victim. In any testimony given by a child, it is necessary to establish that the youngster understands the difference between reality and fantasy. Carefully, the Des Moines detective gave the little girl some examples of truth and lies and she nodded wisely, showing him that she did, indeed, know the difference.
    “Can you tell me what you remember about the morning when your mother got hurt?”
    She knew that there had been trouble between her parents because her dad was keeping all their clothes. “My mom told us to stay in the apartment until she got us clothes to put on from dad. My mom walked out and said, ‘Where are their clothes?’
    “And he said, ‘What do you mean? What clothes?’ and then BANG! BANG! BANG! And Mariel was crying and telling him to quit. When I came out, he was still shooting her a couple more times and I tried to get him to stop but he wouldn’t.”
    The little girl said that her father had never moved from his seat in the car while he shot her mother. When the loud BANGS! finally stopped, she had done exactly what her mother had asked her to do. She had turned around and gone into the house and dialed “0” and asked for the police.
    “She told me if she ever got killed, she would go up to heaven—and she told me to call the police.”
    Then she had taken her little brother by the hand and led him outside. Her father had told them to get into the car. “I didn’t tell my dad that I called the police because he really would have gone [far away] and then you guys would have never found me. That’s what I thought, anyway, so I didn’t let him know.”
    If Bob Fox hadn’t been almost in front of the Driftwood Apartments, Burger realized, the tragedy might have been compounded. The little girl said they had been so glad to see the policeman, and as soon as he had said, “Come on, kids,” they had scrambled out of the car to the safety of his car.

    Eric Shaw was charged with murder in the first degree. His attorneys argued that his health would be threatened if he were forced to remain in jail, because there weren’t proper facilities to care for him. They almost pulled off that argument and one Superior Court judge wrote an order that would allow Shaw to go to his specially equipped home. However, that was quickly rescinded when prosecutors argued that he was too dangerous to be allowed his freedom pending trial. Besides, it would have cost the county $150 a day to guard him.
    In January 1975, Shaw changed his plea to guilty of second-degree murder. On February 21, 1975, he was sentenced to twenty-five years in the state penitentiary. He was paroled to supervision in Arizona in 1987, and was released from supervision in July of 1993. He was fifty years old. To put the woman he called “Ruby” in the ground, Eric Shaw gave up a promising new marriage, a lifetime of financial security, and an education that could have led to a meaningful career.
    Worst of all, he robbed Amy of her life, and he robbed his children of their mother.

That Was No Lady
    I once went to the most peculiar murder trial I’d ever experienced. The defendant in the second degree murder trial in Judge Donald Horowitz’s courtroom didn’t create the usual courtroom disruptions; there wasn’t any swearing or shouting or wrestling with courtroom deputies. The pretty woman at the defense table was actually a perfectly mannered lady. Jackie was quite demure, turning only occasionally to greet friends in the spectator section. She smiled sweetly at a couple who had brought a change of clothes for the next day’s session. It was important to her to look her best each day of her trial, and she never wanted to be seen in the same outfit two days in a row.
    I remember how Jackie nodded happily when she saw the lime green pantsuit on the padded hanger. She was obviously something of a