Couple found dead hours before foreclosure auction

[cali]

Losses loomed for Spencer pair


By Gerard F. Russell and Craig S. Semon TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
[e-mail]


SPENCER — Police believe a man facing a foreclosure auction yesterday took his own life after shooting his sick wife, shooting their horse, setting fire to the home they shared and torching his pickup truck.

Michael S. Khoury, 69, and his wife, Joyce M. Khoury, 66, owned the house at 19 Woodchuck Lane, which was scheduled to be auctioned at 10 a.m.

A neighbor called 911 to report the house fire. When police arrived they found the burning truck in the driveway and the house ablaze.

According to the office of Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr., the Khourys were found shot inside the house, which is on a short, secluded street off Route 9.

Mr. Khoury was found with a gunshot wound shortly after 6:15 a.m. in the doorway of his home. He was taken to St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, where he was pronounced dead a short time later. Mrs. Khoury was found dead in a bedroom, said Timothy Connolly, spokesman for the district attorney.

A horse found in a barn on the property was shot several times. The horse was taken to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in Grafton. Tom Keppeler, a Tufts spokesman, said the horse was able to walk into the hospital, escorted by Spencer Animal Control. The horse, a 22-year-old male, was in “stable yet guarded” condition late yesterday, Mr. Keppeler said.

<snip>

http://www.telegram.com/article/20100115/NEWS/1150499/0/NEWS06

[KittyWampus]

1. starting over at 69? Not an easy task. More heartbreak.

[hlthe2b]

3. This is tragic in more ways than I can even express...

May they find some peace.... May these cases form the basis for a major wakeup call.. So many of our people are literally bleeding despair.

[hamsterjill]

27. Well stated!

I second the sentiments.

[Turbineguy]

2. The bank will collect the insurance

and be able to pay bonuses. That's the important part.:sarcasm:

[Winterblues]

8. I have never let myself feel hatred, real hatred in my entire life.

But I am on the verge of that feeling, and it is for the banks and no one individual..

[JuniperLea]

23. I cursed GWB for years...

For causing me to hate him; Cheney too. There's a long line of responsibility here.

[izquierdista]

10. Now that he's a "dead peasant"

Corporations will be scrambling to see who had insurance on him.

[northernlights]

12. the good news is if he couldn't pay taxes, he probably stopped paying insurance too

:cry:

[RebelOne]

18. Doubt insurance will pay on a suicide.

[JuniperLea]

21. The property insurance will pay the lender due to the fire...

Arson is covered; the bank is always covered. If you don't get proper insurance that covers the bank, the bank will and charge it back to you.

[1monster]

22. Many life insurance companies will pay on a suicide AFTER the policy holder has held the

insurance for a stated period of time. Mine said one or two years, if I remember correctly. Not that I ever plan to use that out.

[LeftHander]

24. thank goodness....it would be horrible if the bank did not benefit from this tragedy...nt

[phantom power]

4. "Horse in stable condition"

[omega minimo]

32. Piss ant on Ignore

[Occulus]

47. How very mature

Horse. "Stable" condition. Something about ironic wording....

[Cali_Democrat]

44. So strange how they would throw that in there.

Very odd.

[Occulus]

48. They probably just wanted to make the pun

Not exactly an appropriate article for it, but still...

[sharesunited]

5. Guns solve problems. Best wishes to the horse.

[proteus_lives]

52. Yeah, it's a gun issue.

:eyes:

You didn't just miss the point, you weren't even in the same time zone.

[sharesunited]

56. The only creature left living is a gun wound the assailant couldn't kill with.

He killed his wife just fine. His horse he could only wound.

This man is an incompetent second amendment proponent. What else would you call him?

[proteus_lives]

57. I'd call him hopeless.

Owning a gun doesn't make someone a second amendment proponent. Once again you ignore the point in order to push your flawed agenda.

He could have strangled her, poisoned the horse and hung himself.

This is an economic issue, not a second amendment one.


It's a good thing most Americans don't buy grabber-logic.

[sharesunited]

59. He loved his horse more than he loved his wife.

But he entertained thoughts of taking his horse with him to the "other side."

Having his finger on the trigger and the means of conveniently and efficiently administering death was this man's moment of truth.

I do not support giving him that moment. He made bad choices, and he is representative of any one given that power.

He is a selfish prick. His so-called right to keep and bear arms totally enabled his stupid decisions and the damage he inflicted.

[Hekate]

62. 'Scuse me. I believe in gun control, but this is an economic despair issue. Jesus...

His wife was sick, and they were about to be homeless with no way to start over. He was going to be 70 years old soon.

The horse is ancient, for a horse. You have any idea how many "pet" horses are on the market right now? -- because people are in economic trouble, and horses are expensive to keep. That particular horse will be taken out of pity and drama now, but if he had tried to sell it it would probably have ended up in a glue factory.

Christ on a trailer hitch -- the man lost hope. :cry:

Hekate

[sharesunited]

63. You can despair and not be empowered to commit damage like this.

It is only gun love which enables it.

Everything you say is true. But some so-called Constitutional right gave him the ability to impose his will.

I am not okay with that.

[proteus_lives]

64. Are you lazy or just willingly blind?

"His so-called right to keep and bear arms totally enabled his stupid decisions and the damage he inflicted."

No they didn't. It's an emotional and economic issue. He chose to destroy himself because he lost hope and his money situation crushed him.

And as always you have no argument. Because millions of gun-owners walk the streets of America without incident.

I know it's easier to blame an inanimate object but you should summon the courage to examine the human factor.

[JuniperLea]

6. Those that hold the money don't see what's going on with Americans...

And when they get a glimpse, they don't understand.

I heard some people talking on the streets of downtown as I walked to lunch yesterday, passing several eatery patios. Bankers and other suits discussing the hardship of Obama's proposed fees, which they labeled taxes, and a clear support of massive bonuses for the banking industry upper crust. Another discussion between servers outside on breaks, wherein it was discussed how the family is looking for a smaller apartment even though elderly parents are moving in, and how kids and grandparents will be sharing bedrooms... and how grocery shopping will consist of bags of beans and rice.

There's a huge gap... at it's getting ugly out there.

[zazen]

15. you are so right--and it's surreal, straddling both worlds

In one part of my life, related to my now defunct career and events with these former clients/current friends, I come into contact with pretty wealthy people and various officials/leaders/politicians. On the other, I just got my credit union to extend my mortgage one last time, just yesterday, because I'm too overqualified to get work, and I'm seriously looking at food stamps and potential foreclosure. I'm at these events, in old clothes and scuffed shoes and mostly costume jewelry, and I bring up these issues in various ways, and honest to God, with very few exceptions, these folks--and they're all Democrats--just don't get it. They still hand their kids $50 every time they drop them off at the mall. They still take expensive vacations. They still own million dollar plus homes and drive Lexuses.

It was only when the Congressional Black Caucus began to make more noise about this in early December that they began to get it. But they still basically don't get it.

It's surreal.

[JuniperLea]

19. I hear you...

I'm in that limbo world myself, having worked mainly for billionaires my entire adult career, and now with clients in the headlines daily... and an upside down mortgage, everything so expensive I cringe when I need to call a plumber or when my refrigerator is making noise, washing machine, car, etc. There is no such thing as "disposable income" in my world. I don't go to movies, rarely to Starbucks as a big treat... had boxty and a pint of Smithwicks for lunch at the local public house with my daughter yesterday as a special treat, otherwise it's Netflix, popcorn, and a cheap Trader Joe's IPA for entertainment... taking the dogs to dog beach is huge on my list too. I'm going to a $15 show at The Troubadour tonight... man, I've been splurging what with boxty and a cheap show all in one month. My boss just got back from three weeks in Argentina... I don't begrudge him this, he works hard and he's been good to me, but it's hard to look forward to dog beach or a pub lunch or a cheap show... or my big whoo hoo New Year's weekend trip to San Francisco... you can't even weigh those things on the same scale.

I feel lucky to have what I do have. I'm watching friends and family sell things in an attempt to keep ahead of the bill collectors. I never thought I'd be in this position, never. I'm sure the couple in the OP never thought so either. They never should have been.

[zazen]

28. yes--the disparity between expectations and new reality can push some over edge

Your situation sounds more extreme than mine. What a vivid description of our cultural insanity. And yes, I do feel comparatively grateful, because I still have a house and we have great public schools and my ex has tenure and benefits and can support the kids.

It's almost like there's a continuum here of increasing levels of internal dissonance. You and I are feeling it, but we've got a context in which we don't take it completely personally. And internal dissonance might not be within someone who's lost extreme wealth. It might be someone from the working class who's lost their sense of security and dignity in the world, whose experience in being foreclosed upon is so dissonant from their sense of self-reliance and the theory of individual responsibility that they have no way of processing it short of ending it all (to their way of thinking.)

It really is heartbreaking, and reminds me I need to do more reaching out to people in my neighborhood. Folks like this are far too proud to ever ask for help on their own.

[JuniperLea]

43. "far too proud"

Exactly. This thought leads me to believe it's even worse out there than those of us with a broader perspective can imagine.

And yes, perspective is everything. Someone in their 60's or 70's who planned carefully for retirement but find themselves in such dire straights as those illustrated in the OP, and of a generation that didn't complain but pulled themselves up by the boot straps, are finding no boot straps to grab. From their perspective, the situation is hopeless. There's no time to earn money again, no time to stash extra away... and no extra.

[leveymg]

7. Some asshole speculator will buy the place, anyway.

What further evidence do you need of the failure of this Administration and Congress to do what's necessary to help normal middle-class people in distress. Appalling neglect and indifference to suffering.

[angstlessk]

9. Third murder/suicide in three years in a population of just over 10,000

wonder if they all were due to foreclosure, and if so, maybe the bank president needs to be investigated?

[northernlights]

11. he either didn't have a powerful enough gun or shot the horse between the eyes

which is the wrong way to "euthanize" a horse. 22 caliber won't penetrate bone, but just injure. And "between the eyes" even with a strong enough caliber doesn't penetrate the brain, but blows apart the sinus cavity instead. Done properly, shooting can be the quickest and most humane way to euthanize. Improperly, that poor horse must have been terrified, in terrible pain, and in need of surgical repair of the sinus cavities.

Fortunate that he was close enough to get to Tufts -- it's a decent vet school. And how lucky he is that the police and animal control took him there instead of killing him.

Please, if you ever find yourself in the situation of having to euthanize a horse (and those situations can occur, especially during natural disasters) -- if you do not know how to properly do it, do *not* shoot between the eyes. It will not work, and I've heard of situations where ignorant fools tried and took a dozen+ bullets into a panicked, struggling, agonized, shrieking animal blinded by his own blood, before the asshole accidentally got it right. :cry:

[jberryhill]

14. Can you provide a link to the proper location?

Not that I'd have much call for it, but I'd hate to get it wrong if I had to.

(He said, tucking away the small tube he carries "just in case" someone needs and emergency stab tracheotomy...)

[northernlights]

38. yes

http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/vetext/INF-AN/INF-AN_EMERGEUTH-HORSES.HTML

In one of the horse forums I frequent, one woman's farm took a direct hit from a tornado a couple years ago, while she was at work. A 3 year old filly she'd bred and raised ended up down in the pasture with bad fracture. She was enormously grateful to her neighbor farmer who was home and checked out her place afterwards, and immediately ended that filly's suffering.

She was *not* grateful to mistakenly watch the news that night and see her baby filmed from an overhead news crew as she thrashed about in pain, unable to rise due to her injuries. :cry:

[jmowreader]

16. Speak of the devil: how to properly shoot a horse

http://www.equisearch.com/horses_care/health/senior/eqeuthan2466/

They have firearms made specifically for this in Europe--they've got a device on the end of the barrel that helps you properly align the gun. Why they don't have these in the US I don't know--if you chemically euthanize a horse you have to cremate it to keep flesh-eating animals from digging it up, eating the carcass and dying themselves, but if you shoot it you can cremate, bury or whatever you want.

[Robb]

13. Well, it's his fault for buying a house he couldn't afford.

Sorry, just trying to get ahead of the expected response from the personal responsibility crowd. :grr:

[JuniperLea]

20. Seriously...

Thanks for tempering the sauce.

[Soylent Brice]

17. that's fucking sad.

[FreakinDJ]

25. The REAL SHAME is this is a UK publication

Would like to see Larry King, or Anderson Cooper Highlite this story too

[Fla_Democrat]

34. What makes you think that?

I was a bit confused, but did some poking around on the link. Going to the "Local" tab at the top of the page, I found a link for....

Governor praises volunteers for service
January 15, 2010
By Bronislaus B. Kush TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
WORCESTER — Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s schedule was chock-full yesterday.

http://www.telegram.com/article/20100115/NEWS/1150489/1101/LOCAL


<snip>

WORCESTER — Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s schedule was chock-full yesterday.

His calendar included the swearing-in ceremony at The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts of Marian J. McGovern as the new colonel and superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police.

Before that, he took time in the morning to join volunteers and members of the service program Commonwealth Corps in their efforts to spiff up the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance’s homeless shelter for families on Cambridge Street and to help distribute furniture to needy people at the nonprofit’s warehouse on Webster Street.
</snip>

Looks like a local Massachusetts paper to me... :shrug:

[northernlights]

55. I take it ignored is being a jerk?

I used to live in that area and nearly bought a minifarm in Spencer, Mass years ago. In fact, the victim's names are familiar to me, although I can't quite place them.

The paper is the Worcester Telegram.

[northzax]

36. You're thinking of the London Telegraph

This is the Worcester Telegram.

[FreakinDJ]

37. Exactly - my bad

[Fire1]

26. He OWNED the house on Woodchuck Lane but it was in

foreclosure?? Some clarification is needed here.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

58. What do you mean? You still own your home when you owe a balance on a mortgage loan.

The property is deeded to you. In return for the bank loan, you grant a mortgage to the lender.

[alstephenson]

29. Very sad.

[mrbarber]

30. Well, other than shooting the horse..

I think the rest of the property he destroyed was a grand FUCK YOU to the banks.

Torched the house AND his pickup? He wasn't messing around.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

31. This needs to be a national story.

My god this is what is happening to so many people. They are absolutely desperate. The foreclosures must stop. There must be a
moratorium on all of them until this mess is straightened out. This could have been avoided.

[taught_me_patience]

33. We need to understand why the house was foreclosed

In order to understand the complete story.

[cali]

35. no, I really don't. the man's wife was dying. they could have at least waited for

her death before auctioning off the house.

[slackmaster]

41. "The Khourys owed about $11,000 for taxes from 2007 to 2009"

That's part of the story, and why it always pisses me off when people try to blame California's fiscal problems on our property tax limits (commonly known as Proposition 13).

The public record data that I can get to easily show several refinances and equity loans going back to 1992. I can't confirm the purchase date or price, but the property is assessed at $336,100.

I think it's likely that some of their borrowing was for medical expenses.

Very sad story.

[JuniperLea]

46. medical expenses...

That was my first thought... it's a recurring theme for that age group.

But there will always be the short-sighted DUer that wants to place blame on the couple because they refinanced.

[northzax]

49. Prop 13 and the Gann Amendment

Are almost entirely to blame, frankly. When you gut the primary source of funding for municipalities, by an average of 57%, and then require a supermajority to levy taxes at any level, you're going to wreak havoc on schools, infrastructure and public investment. And frankly, that bill is coming due. Government in California went from remarkably progressive on issues like education and infrastructure to remarkably regressive. California is the world's sixth largest economy being run like Alabama. Property taxes are replaced by user fees and service charges (which are much more regressive) infrastructure lasts 40 years, it's time to start repairing it. Shame it takes 67% of the legislature to raise the money. You think a health care bill that needed 60 senators was bad? Imagine if it needed 67. You need a supermajority of 67% to raise taxes, but only a majority (50+1) to levy fees. Instead of taxing everyone to pay for what was once the world's greatest public university system, you raise tuition. Instead of taxes paying to maintain the greatest water distribution system in the US, it's user fees. Instead of the beat public education system in the US, welcome to one of the worst. Instead of a great electrical system, you get Enron's rolling blackouts. These things cost money, and capital investment. Prop 13 makes that sort of planning a practical impossibility.

[slackmaster]

50. As a working middle-class California homeowner, my taxes are much higher than the national average

What I don't pay in property tax, I pay in income tax and sales tax and gasoline tax, and what businesses extract from me to cover our high corporate taxes.

Anti-13 people never want to talk about the overall tax burden.

[northzax]

51. Exactly.

So you replace the progressive real estate tax with a sales tax, a gasoline tax, sewer fees, water fees, etc. All of which are regressive. You're paying more, and Tom Cruise is paying less. How's that working out for you?

[slackmaster]

54. The problem with that theory is an assumption that the legislature has some fiscal discipline

That the only reason other-than-property taxes are so high is that property taxes are limited. That the legislature levies taxes only to cover needed services.

If the property tax caps and 2/3 requirement to raise taxes were repealed, do you really believe MY overall tax burden would go down?

I don't. Proposition 13 was a taxpayer revolt that included a lot of moderate people like my parents. I voted for it (as a non-property owner at age 20) because of the reckless way the San Diego County Assessor kept jacking up their property taxes almost every year.

Proposition 13 was a response to abuses of power by the state and local governments. A tendency toward excessive taxation was the root cause, and that hasn't gone away.

[Xenotime]

39. The horse should get to live out the rest of his live on the property.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

40. I wonder if medical expenses aren't behind the story

They fell behind in taxes property taxes in 07 but apparently had been paying until then. She has terminal cancer and is/was 66 - meaning she would have just qualified for Medicare. What kind of medical bills do you think they clocked before she qulaified for Medicare?
And OMG, the THIRD murder suicide in that town in 3 YEARS?!

How many people in similar situations have strange one car accidents or medication "errors"? There is more heartache and despair going on than we can even imagine.

[slackmaster]

45. Very likely

That's the root cause of most bankruptcies in the USA.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

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

[laylah]

53. ...

:cry: What have we devolved to?

[MarcoMcHairyPants]

60. dupe.

[MarcoMcHairyPants]

61. This is really unfortunate

BTW, I wonder if anyone will still want to move into the house...