I gotta baaaad feeling about this TN preacher's wife

[Stinky The Clown]

She has, so it is being reported, confessed to killing him.

Why did Andrea Yates come up in my mind when I heard this? I have a feeling we're gunna hear a very sick and sordid story of spousal abuse. Spousal and familial abuse.

It never came out that way in the Yates case, but it sure smelled like it was there.

I contend that having your wife bear kid after kid and then make her home school them (to the exclusion of sort of personal life) is abusive. I'm not at all saying home schooling is wrong. I **am** saying that an overbearing, relgiously insane husband essentially forcing his wife to do that *is*.

Flame away . . . . . . .

[wryter2000]

1. I have a bad feeling, too.

It's going to be 24/7 about this woman now. Oooh, look! A shiny thing!

[panader0]

2. My gut feeling is that he had it coming. The facts will be out soon.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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

[blondeatlast]

14. Then why click on it? If you don't care, hide it or move on. nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

16. Well, since you asked

When I saw the topic headline I was eagerly anticipating how this bit o' crap news could possibly have a political spin to it. Imagine my disappointment after getting to the end of the post and not finding anything remotely political. I, too wish I could unring the bell in this case, but alas, I cannot. Thanks for asking! Cheers!

[LittleClarkie]

18. The political bit would seem to be

that their Republican values lifestyle would seem to have backfired all over them.

[Vinnie From Indy]

21. Amen to that!

:)

[radio4progressives]

20. are you kidding? This case is the perfect political poster child

of the insanity and lunacy that the christian taliban is, and is that what we as a country want to foster within the political arena.

listen, HRC isn't running around the country weaving scripture into political debate on issues like the border security matter, like she did yesterday just out of the blue.. she's pandering for the american taliban voters.

this case could be very political. And in fact, the Women's Rights movement was to be liberated from just exactly this kind of abuse!

So it's quite political.

[tandot]

4. Maybe she caught him molesting their daughters? Or maybe she is

just a nut case. It wouldn't be the first time that a priest is/was accused of molesting children.

We'll know more soon.

[Pirate Smile]

5. Yesterday, the news reported that members of the Parish were

suspicious of the wife. They didn't say why and they made it sound like it was something more then the standard "check the spouse" routine. :shrug:

[LiberalEsto]

6. The key work here is "making"

If a couple has such a hierarchical, authoritarian relationship that one "makes" the other do stuff like have repeated pregnancies and stay home to school them, then there will be resentment and possibly rebellion by the person who was forced.

If a husband and wife jointly decide to have a large number of kids and home-school them as a matter of free choice, that's an entirely different thing.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Ezzzzz-Aktly!

[LeaveIraqNow]

10. Why do you assume that.

Why do you assume that because she has children and is a stay at home mother that she is forced to do it. Quite a few women enjoy getting to spend os much time with their kids and enjoy having a large family.

[LiberalEsto]

11. I wasn't making an assumption about her specifically

I was commenting about how someone could have lots of kids and homeschool them for one reason, and how someone else could do it for entirely different reasons. I have no idea what this particular woman's family circumstances were, since I haven't paid attention to the story.

The other point I was making is that someone who is the weaker party in a highly-authoritarian relationship might be more likely to "snap" due to their circumstances, than someone in an egalitarian relationship who might, on the surface, appear to be living in similar circumstances.

[NoGOP]

8. I just going to wait and see what comes out of this..........

without speculating about an affair, abuse, mental illness, etc... I know, I'm boring.:)

[TomInTib]

9. That was my first thought when I saw the family pic. n/t

[greenbriar]

30. yea, that one daughter doesn't seem very happy

not happy at tall

[opihimoimoi]

12. Not all make it to the other side of the Death Highway....Depression

heightens the Odds....

The Husband prolly fostered a depressed wife who lashed out..rather tragically...

Who to Blame??? The Pubs of course...they hold the purse strings to the Nation...Ya see them promoting better Mental health through more counselors and clinics?? Nope, its Bombs and Bullets.

[DearAbby]

13. Always got to me...two people claim God spoke to them

One is found legally insane, the other is in the white house....what is wrong with this picture?

Andrea Yates was told by God to kill her kids...GeeDub* was told by God to kill other people's kids...

About this case, I donno yet..I am sure that the coverage on this will be 24/7 for the next few weeks. Halloway is getting old, they need a new obsession to distract with.

[TNDemo]

15. Was she homeschooling?

I don't know whether she was doing that or not. She and her husband were the youth pastors for years at a church in my neighborhood. I imagine we know some of the same people but haven't talked to enough people to know what the story is. How long were they in Selmer?

[emdee]

24. They were not homeschoolers....

the Vice Principal of the two older girls was interviewed on CNN today. The mom regularly volunteered at the school.

They'd been in Selmer a year and two or three months, I think they said.

emdee (A Christian homeschooler who isn't thinking of killing anyone) :-)

[Stinky The Clown]

25. I didn't say they were homeschoolers ......

That statement in the OP was in reference to Yates.

But I'm smelling some of the same pathology here.

[emdee]

27. I know you didn't....

but several here were wondering if they were homeschoolers so I was just answering that question. Every other part of the Yates-comparison may well be true, who knows?
emdee

[Theide]

17. Sounds like a classic case of abuse

This whole thing just makes me think that you are correct. I have seen too much of this sort of thing to have anything else come to the surface of my mind when hearing about it. From experience, I can tell you that there comes a time, in an abusive situation, where you either break or fight.

When things are bad enough, the only solution you can see is to eliminate the source of the pain. I almost got that point when I was 10 years old, after my sister counted the number of times my parents hit me with switches (as hard as they could) for the simple crime of playing with the neighbor children, who I was not allowed to play with because they were not of the same religion (Jehovah's Witnesses). She told me that she lost count somewhere around 400. They took turns. When one of them wore a switch out on me, the other would take over with a fresh one (On bare ass and legs). I was not allowed to cry, or I would get more of the same. My legs and ass were bloody all over when the were finally exhausted and stopped. I still bear those physical scars, but the emotional ones are much worse. (Both myself and my sister had multiple instances of such cruelty. I might mention the time that my mother used a switch to tear a pair of my sister's panties to ribbons for the crime of accepting a ride for both of us from one of her classmates from the school bus stop to the house, a distance of two miles in 10 degree weather.)

I have to question myself some 25 years later. When I hid the rifle under the chicken coop, intending to shoot my parents in their sleep, I have to wonder if I would have actually done it. Had my father not found the gun the next day, I am convinced I would have.

The reason for this brutal beating, and many others, was that the church elders told my parents that they were not discipling me enough (along the lines of "spare the rod and spoil the child"). This sort of thing is common in extremely religious cultures.

The point in telling this story is to tell you that I understand what I think likely occurred. She was willing to do anything to end the madness. Unlike myself, she did it. If the story is what I think it is, Good For Her!!!!!!!

Sic Semper Tyrannus!!!!

[area51]

28. abuse

I'm so sorry this happened to you & your sister, Theide.

[Theide]

34. Strangely enough, we both wound up healthy,

happy, and fairly well adjusted. I guess it just goes to show you that we are capable of living through more than we think, and coming out of it more or less undamaged.

Thanks for the sympathy, though. Felt kind of wierd to actually talk about that shit after so long.

[radio4progressives]

19. why should you be flamed for this speculation?

sounds perfectly within the bounds of logic and reason to me...

[Stinky The Clown]

22. Only when one is logical and reasoned

Thank you for seeing the reason for the post ... and it was pure speculation on my part .... but that's what I sense is coming down. The coverage today included many of the 'church ladies' saying what a good man he was. That gets my radar on alert.

[mandyky]

23. Same here!

Either he was abusing her or the kids or he was gonna leave her.

[guidod]

26. I agree, nicely said.

[poppet]

29. Well, according to Nancy ..

Grace's show, she volunteered frequently at the childrens' school and had returned to school herself to finish an education degree. I believe there were quite a few years between child no. 2 and child no. 3 - at least 5 years, so it looks like they were not having as many kids as possible. Nancy Grace was trying to get her guests to speculate about motive. Apparently, the wife has told authorities a motive, but they are keeping the motive secret for the time being - so maybe it has something to do with the kids. I also believe she signed over custody of her three girls to her husband's parents.

[CTyankee]

31. didn't know about signing over the kids to his parents

I just thought they had them temporarily. This makes me think that this woman had a serious mental problem and perhaps went off her meds and shot him.

My friend at Literacy Volunteers just lost one of her students, a young guy of 26 who was schizophrenic, went off his meds and killed himself. Very sad.

At first I thought it was abuse of the kids that made her shoot him. I saw the picture of those 3 little girls and thought to myself what would make me shoot my husband and sexual abuse came into my mind immediately. The delay in releasing motive might have been because they wanted to talk to the girls about their relationship with their father. Given that he was a much respected minister in the community, they might have wanted that time to get the facts straight. At least that's my thought now.

[kath]

32. the fact that police are not disclosing the motive certainly does make one

go "hmmmmmmm".

[laugle]

33. I totally agree with your analysis and did you hear Andrea's husband just

got married again? The first thing I thought of was; he's going to start having kids all over again. The man was a selfish, slimeball!

[Katherine Brengle]

35. We have no way of knowing yet...

Listen, we have NO reason to assume that the guy "deserved" it or anything like that. Of course the possibility is there--it always it--but the assumption is more than a little frightening.

Here's some food for thought--what if it were the other way around, and the husband had admitted to killing the wife? I don't think that anyone would be speculating that she "deserved" it--more than likely, we would still be indicting the husband...

Just a thought...