I was just watching the local news and the mayor of Coppell’s picture is on every channel. They said something about a murder suicide, but since they kept showing this woman in a flattering light I assumed she was one of the victims. I just googled the story under the assumption that her husband had killed her and her daughter. It turns out she was the killer, her husband passed away some time ago. Here is an example of the sickening video they are showing locally:
Coppell City Hall mourns loss of mayor
They have a comments section and clearly I’m not the only one stunned by the way they are handling this:
Children can be so annoying. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to shoot your child in the face.
Coppell City Hall mourns loss of mayor?????????? You must be kidding. The scum mayor is a MURDERER!!!!!!!!!! I hope this scumbag mayor’s funeral procession is NOT honored with a police escourt.
At no point during that video do they mention that she was a killer. The whole thing is handled euphemistically as “The deaths of the mayor and her daughter”. But obviously they knew she killed her daughter and then herself because 30 seconds before the end of the video they note that she “was in great spirits” and “wasn’t despondent”.
Here is another story:
Stunned friends, neighbors mourn deaths of Coppell mayor and daughter
You wouldn’t know she was a murderer except for the hint nestled in this quote:
“I had a Christmas party one year, and Jayne and Don and Corinne came to visit us. We had a wonderful evening together, and they signed my door,” Rafiqui said. Don Peters died in 2008 of cancer.
Today, Lisa Rafiqui’s neighbor is considered a killer, but she says that isn’t the person she knew.
They can’t even directly call her a killer, or use her name when they do…
For those who might misunderstand, I’m not suggesting we start honoring men who kill their families. I’m glad they are demonized; anyone who would do such a thing is scum! But how can the media even to begin to justify glorifying this woman?
Wow, talk about the elephant in the room. The reporters are covering it like there was a gunman who killed both of them and not like she killed her daughter than herself. I thought it was strange that she left instructions on how to care for the family’s dogs in her suicide notes. That does make it seem like less of a crime of passion, huh?
Good point on the instructions for the dogs. Although perhaps she killed the daughter in a fit of passion and then made out the notes before killing herself. Either way, it is very troubling to see how they are painting the killer so sympathetically.
Wow, that’s just insane. I wouldn’t say that the media is glorifying her, but they are certainly trearing the situation more gently than they might in other circumstances. Probably because the woman was the mayor, because it is a high profile case,because of fearf of survivors suing for libel, and because there is more than likely a mental issue here. I would guess that they will tread carefully until the facts are known and go light if there was a mental health issue–which is typical of murder-suicide. If there is some other motive–like in the Susan Smith case (where the mother strapped her kids into their car seats and drove the car a lake because her boyfriend didn’t want the kids)–then it will be purely a murder and the media will come down harder.
As to this comment, “Children can be so annoying. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to shoot your child in the face.” I’m unsurprised. There are a lot of child-haters out there. Check out some of the “child-free” websites out there or notice how some people react even to your own kids if they cut up in public. Loads of people hate kids. I once had a guy scream at me in the grocery store and remove my groceries from the conveyor belt at the check out because my son was crying.
The dog thing, just weird… It does make you wonder about premediation or if the mother was just so nuts that she thought she was saving her daughter from “the horrors of this life”–like when that born-again woman killed her five little ones so they could “be with Jesus.”
No matter what; it’s horrendous. To kill a child that carried for nine months…
I highlighted similar thoughts the other week at roissy:
I am against a mother or father choosing abortion to protect the individual from eventual pain, or in this case, murdering a child, or did misunderstand her motive? in any case, i find it hard to imagine a worser crime then what she did, and that the media is treating her as the Emperor and his new New Clothes….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes
The mayor was female – therefore legally and socially privileged. Happens all the time.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/16/babara-kay-the-multicultural-approach-to-justice/#ixzz0trbWeRxF
“In 2007 Aset Magomadova, at the end of her tether in dealing with a troubled and by her account troublesome 14-year old daughter, strangled the girl to death with a scarf.
Let it be noted, before going any further into this story, that to kill a healthy human being by strangulation, you have to cut off their air supply for 2.5 to 3 minutes. They lose consciousness and go limp long before they are at risk of dying. So you really can’t argue that you have strangled someone in self-defence or by accident or in a moment’s confusion or loss of control. If a person dies after you have had your way with a scarf around her neck, you can be sure the intention behind the attack was not benign.
And now to the sentencing of Aset Magomadova. Calgary Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Sal LoVecchio convicted the mother of manslaughter, acquitting her on the original charge of second-degree murder, and pronounced a sentence of…probation. No jail time. Dead daughter. Mother killed her. No jail time.”
Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/16/babara-kay-the-multicultural-approach-to-justice/#ixzz0uMPK9khu