Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

Savage would defend Gary Ridgway, the infamous Green River Killer.
    Savage argued for acquittal on grounds of mental irresponsibility, but Lee Yates’s questioning of Emily Borden elicited a portrait of a man consumed with compulsive jealousy. Although Terry Ruckelhaus’s obsession with her seemed psychotic, he had been fully capable of formulating carefully thought-out plans to kidnap her and keep her captive.
    Emily’s grandparents had gone out of their way to be kind and welcoming to Terry. They had protested only when he began to hurt Emily.
    And he had turned on them in a maniacal frenzy.
    On April 6, Judge Johnson made his decision. Terence Roger Ruckelhaus was convicted of second-degree murder with no premeditation but with conscious intent to kill, and first-degree assault. He would not serve life in prison, although there were many who knew of this case who felt he should.
    Thirty-two years later, Terry Ruckelhaus has vanished into society, leaving no records behind him with which to trace him.
    Emily, too, has moved on. Today, she would be fifty years old, and Ruckelhaus, if he is still alive, would be sixty-one.
     
    Emily Borden’s liaison with Terry Ruckelhaus is a classic example of love slowly killed by sick jealousy. If Terry had ever allowed himself to trust her, to accept the affection she’d given him so willingly at the start of their relationship, untold tragedy could have been averted. But he smothered her love, binding her so tightly to him that she was suffocated and repulsed by his possessiveness. He spent years in prison while Emily picked up the frayed ends of her life. One thing was certain: she never wanted to see him again.
    What Emily suffered at Terry’s hands was, sadly, not unusual, and certainly not something that has stopped happening as women have won more rights over the decades since. Indeed, women who strike possessive men as uppity and too strong for their own good often invoke abuse. Except for the date of this murder, nothing has really changed. Every day, women are trapped in what domestic violence experts term the “circle of abuse.”
    A startling diagram designed to demonstrate how domestic violence occurs in an endless, seemingly inescapable circle is rimmed with the words “Physical Violence—Sexual—Physical—Violence—Sexual—Physical Violence.”
    Inside the ring of virtual terror are the behaviors that foreshadow domestic violence for women in every single demographic level of society:
    Jealousy and possessiveness
    Isolation
    Emotional abuse, belittling comments
    Intimidation and insults
    Coercion and threats
    Minimizing and denying the man’s behavior
    Blaming the woman
    Using children as hostages
    Demanding “male privilege”
    Economic abuse
    Many women who read Emily’s story and the checklist above are going to recognize danger in their own relationships. I hope sincerely they will rethink their own engagements or marriages, and extricate themselves before they are caught too tightly.
    It is never too late, though, even if they are legally bound to someone who treats them badly.
    One factor has changed since 1976; there are far more groups and agencies where women who are afraid can turn. I hope that they will seriously consider contacting the closest domestic violence organization in the areas where they live. For those with Internet access, go to www.google.com and type in “domestic violence” to locate places that offer help.
    At some point, the circle of abuse must be broken. I don’t want to keep writing books and stories about women who have been hurt—or killed—by someone whom they once loved.
    Let’s all work together to break the circle.

The
Painter’s Wife

Every decade or so, Hollywood produces a movie with a story line that is all too familiar but whose theme is so chillingly intriguing that moviegoers flock to see it. When ordinary people become the victims of a home invasion, we all feel a sudden doubt: we may not be as safe as we thought we were. There are few thoughts more frightening than the possibility of someone hiding in our home—someone who really doesn’t care if we live or die.
    I always think of a particular movie when I read about actual cases of home invasion: The Desperate Hours . It first hit theaters in 1955. Humphrey Bogart starred as the villain who invaded Fredric March’s home and threatened his family. In 1990, the same scenario starred Mickey Rourke and Anthony Hopkins in those roles. Both