Brothers dead in murder-suicide (NY)

[CO Liberal]

Brothers dead in murder-suicide
Cops: Man killed mentally disabled brother, self over health concerns

BY SAMUEL BRUCHEY AND ZACHARY R. DOWDY
STAFF WRITERS

February 2, 2005

In the past few years since their mother died, Roland Nielson began caring for his mentally disabled younger brother John in the Levittown home where the two men had grown up nearly half a century ago.

But the responsibility of providing for the younger brother, who was unable to work, was a growing burden, especially as both men's health began to decline, police and neighbors said Tuesday night.

The result, they said, was tragic.

Tuesday afternoon, after more than a week of failing to reach John Nielson, 54, by telephone, a mental health counselor contacted Nassau police. At 12:30 p.m., uniformed officers forced their way into the white colonial house on Sprucewood Drive and found the bodies of both brothers dead from gunshot wounds.

<more>

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-limurd0202,0,6826276.story?coll=ny-li-big-pix

[Betsy Ross]

1. Repug plan

take away health and care services and pass out guns. Problem solved.

[CO Liberal]

2. My Doctor (Who is Very Liberal....)

...has the following bumper sticker in his examining room:

REPUBLICAN HEALTH PLAN:
DON'T GET SICK

[Postmanx]

3. How could this possibly happen in the gun control paradise of NY?

[iverglas]

4. oh, no, Paco!

http://www.nj.com/news/expresstimes/nj/index.ssf?/base/news-6/110725236717010.xml

BELVIDERE -- Linda Rambo was already dead or close to death when her husband allegedly beat her with the same gun he admitted using to shoot her, a medical examiner told jurors Monday.

Warren County Medical Examiner Isidore Mihalakis' testimony came on the fifth day of the murder trial of former Pohatcong Township dentist Roy Rambo.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b1-3rambo-jan25,0,2768540.story?coll=all-newslocal-hed

The first officer at the scene was officer James Heebner of Pohatcong police. He testified he was one of the officers who examined the body and found an unloaded .380-caliber pistol on the receptionist's desk, where Rambo said he had put it.

A former sporting goods salesman, Heebner sold the pistol to Rambo on Dec. 8, 1995. He said he didn't remember that until later in the investigation. Rambo had a valid New Jersey handgun purchaser's permit.

How could a LAW-ABIDING GUN OWNER possibly have done such a thing????


Edit ... I gotta say it ... a pistol-packing dentist named Rambo; talk about yer Walter Mitties ...

[-..__...]

7. I dunno.

"How could a LAW-ABIDING GUN OWNER possibly have done such a thing????

How many "LAW-ABIDING" New Jersians own a car and have a drivers license
and yet get behind the wheel while intoxicated or exceed the speed limit?

No system of trust and/or responsibility is perfect... there's always going to be someone who fucks things up for everyone else.

Punish the fuck-ups... leave everyone else alone.

:shrug:

[iverglas]

14. stupid questions, eh?

How could someone have used a firearm to kill in a jurisdiction where it was illegal for him/her to have the firearm ...

How many "LAW-ABIDING" New Jersians own a car and have a drivers license and yet get behind the wheel while intoxicated or exceed the speed limit?

Exactly, eh?

So your point was ...?

[CO Liberal]

5. This Happened in Levittown - On Long Island

A good 40 or 50 miles from NYC.

[Postmanx]

15. Who said anything about NYC?

NY has some of the most draconian gun control restrictions in the country, and look, someone still managed to get one and kill someone else.

[slackmaster]

6. IMO this article would fit better in the Health Care forum

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=222

The social safety net failed these two unfortunate men. Health problems are often the root cause of suicides.

If you want to argue about gun control over this, I'll simply say that the slight possibility that not being able to get a shotgun might have presented this tragedy is not grounds for me giving up my humble pump-action Mossberg. Or I could take the old Archie Bunker line - Would youse feel better if one brother had pushed the other off a cliff then jumped?

[aikoaiko]

10. Agreed.

Sad case, but not sad because of the use of a firearm.

[jody]

8. CO, would your perspective be changed if the weapon was an ax? n/t

[iverglas]

11. hahahaha!

Good one.

Suicide by axe.

Google that.

This was a murder-SUICIDE. Some people just don't kill other people unless they are also going to be able to kill themselves.

Funny how handy a firearm is for that purpose.

[CO Liberal]

12. Exactly!!!

Guns are the tools of choice for those who commit murder-suicide. They make it fast, easy, and many of these murder-suicides might not have taken place if they had been harder to commit.

An armed society is NOT a polite society. It's just a society filled with people that can kill each other easier.

[iverglas]

13. and I did google it ;)

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=%22suicide+by+axe%22&meta=

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6516600&dopt=Abstract

Was "the incredible suicide by axe blows" in reality a homicide?
Article in German
Keiser-Nielsen H.

In 1935 the middle-aged wife of a farmer was found with several wounds in her head, originating from blows from an axe that was found nearby. The death was accepted as a "most unusual case of suicide" and was reported by Willy Munck in this journal (27:308-318, 1937). The present author, who at that time was a young medical student and dealt with the victim in hospital, was of another opinion but tried in vain to have the case re-considered. On the basis of some original observations, it is suggested that "the unusual suicide" should rightly be considered as a murder case.

Not to make light of the issue, but ... Yes, constable; I came into the kitchen and discovered my wife beating herself about the head with an axe! She'd been very depressed lately. Man's laughter off, as they might say in the theatre.

There is apparently a report of such a suicide in Croatia, but that's all I could find out. It seems to have been worthy of a write-up in the literature.

[slackmaster]

16. What, then, is the solution?

CO, a hardball question for you:

Would you require that people with chronic, incurable, debilitating medical conditions relinquish their firearms because they are at elevated risk for suicide?

A comment: We don't know and will never know the dynamics of how the incident under discussion happened. It may have been a mutual consensual decision. I think people have a right to choose the timing and manner of their own deaths.

[CO Liberal]

17. From The Referenced Article

The younger victim was found in the bedroom with at least two gunshot wounds to the chest, Laurson said. The elder victim was slumped over in the living room with a gunshot wound to the head. A 12 gauge shotgun was found nearby.

"The gun was found in a position consistent with a self-inflicted wound," Laurson said.

The solution is for those who are pro-gun must realize that there are people in our society who are NOT able to be responsible gun owners, because they lack the ability to make reasoned choices where guns are concerned. Stories like this drive home the need for reasonable gun control measures.

[Township75]

18. What are those measures?

?

[slackmaster]

19. I don't accept out of hand your conclusion that these were not responsible

...gun owners, or that less than reasonable choices were necessarily made in this tragic situation. We do not and can never know if the younger victim died unwillingly. We don't even have enough information to say his disability made him unable to make reasoned choices. It's not hard to hypothesize possible scenarios in which the two brothers came to a mutual suicide pact, which although it may violate a law or two is IMO a morally acceptable decision for people to make when they are in an unacceptable situation with no hope of getting out.

Not to beat this to death, but if these men had access to adequate physical health care and counseling the one who did the shooting would very likely have had no reason to conceive and execute the gruesome plan.

The solution is for those who are pro-gun must realize that there are people in our society who are NOT able to be responsible gun owners, because they lack the ability to make reasoned choices where guns are concerned.

CO, I doubt that anyone who contributes to this forum would disagree with your statement. What you have conspicuously not done here is offer a specific, achievable way to fix the problem. Suppose these men didn't have a gun and couldn't get one. Would that fix the underlying apparent cause of their deaths? Obviously not. Would it have prevented their deaths so that they could continue to suffer? I don't know, but my gut feeling is that as their circumstances deteriorated in your gun-free utopia eventually they would have come to a place where swallowing Drain-O or throwing themselves in front of a train seemed better than continuing their tragic lives.

Stories like this drive home the need for reasonable gun control measures.

I don't see it that way at all. To me this story demonstrates the need for comprehensive health care in our country. With the wealth and resources we have there is no reason anyone who needs health care shouldn't be able to get it. Remove the underlying cause for a suicide and access to weapons becomes irrelevant, not to mention someone living a better life.

[Postmanx]

21. slackmaster makes an excellent point

Other than outright prohibition, exactly what gun control measure would have prevented this occurrence.

[RoeBear]

27. Come on CO...

you said "reasonable gun control measures" are needed to prevent things like this from happening; what do you suggest?

[Retired AF Dem]

28. In your neck of the woods

you need to be afraid of killer cookies. If guns don't get you the cookies will.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&e=2&u=/nm/odd_cookies_dc

[MrSandman]

29. No good deed goes unpunished...nt

[Retired AF Dem]

30. The legal professionals

making our country a better place.

[Romulus]

20. hey -it happened on CSI

A guy whacked himself in the head with a fake "Lizzy Borden Axe' he had been duped into buying.

He was distraught over the fact that his his "CSI team stalking" may have bungled one of their cases, so he killed himself. The guy was part of the "CSI cult" of amateur forensics investigators, and while acting as such he took some evidence from a crime scene that the CSI people had missed.

If it wasn't possible it wouldn't be on tv, right? :evilgrin:

[CO Liberal]

23. If it wasn't possible it wouldn't be on tv, right?

So using that "logic", you expect to go to a used car lot some day and find a car that's the reincarnation of your mother.....



After all, it WAS on tv, right? :evilgrin:

[iverglas]

24. me, I'd be happy

with Mr. Ed.

Damn, I can't find a pic of the talking St. Bernard from the atrocious kids' sitcom "Doghouse" on Cdn TV some years ago. Starring the wife of the former Liberal Premier of Ontario:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:bcXVbfxPtyQJ:www.theatre-orangeville.on.ca/2001/springplanting_pr3.html+doghouse+ytv+peterson&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Shelley Peterson is an incredibly versatile and multi-talented artist. Her illustrious career has spanned stage, television and film and Shelley has performed over one hundred roles including the lead in two television series, Not My Department for CBC and Doghouse for YTV and USA Network.

Pffft. I went to public school with her, and she's an airhead bimbo who couldn't act her way out of a paper bag, but happened to be born rich and connected and not have to learn how to do an actual job. ("Not My Department" was a Cdn version of the BBC's "Yes, (Prime) Minister" in which she played the Sir Humphrey role, what we call a Deputy Minister. With prime ministerial press officers who are wont to call US presidents morons, and the general hilarity of Parliament and the well-known Canadian bent for political satire, you'd'a thunk it would be funny. It was horrrrificly unfunny, unfortunately.)

If only they had nice objective criteria for casting roles on stage and screen ...

[Romulus]

26. exactly! (n/t)

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[aikoaiko]

22. gosh I wish I knew what got deleted......

..... my imagination runs wild sometimes.

[Wickerman]

25. trust me

it wasn't worth your excitement. A minor rule violation. Another day in the Gungeon.