My family, on both the paternal and maternal side, has been remarkably stable and happy. Each side gets along well internally, and the two sides are actual very friendly with each other, which has always made it enjoyable to attend family events, especially those that involve attendees from both sides. Additionally, in my entire extended family, there have been no criminals, no "ne'er do wells", etc. And, there has been only one divorce -- and that was precipitated by the trauma surrounding the sudden and unexpected death of a teen-aged son.
Then, there's my cousin, Jonathan -- son of my Aunt Joanne, and, well, a murderer.
In May 2002, my cousin failed to deplane a flight from Connecticut's Bradley Airport to BWI, where a professor from the University of Maryland was awaiting his arrival. Jonathan was being flown in to be interviewed for a professorship. He had been a gifted veterinarian for several years and was being considered for a position in Maryland's Department of Veterinary Medicine.
Several calls revealed that Jonathan had missed his flight because the night before he was supposed to fly in for the interview, he had shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, and was now jailed.
While under the treatment of a psychiatrist for depression stemming from the breakup of the relationship with his long-time girlfriend, Jonathan had been prescribed two medications by that psychiatrist. It just so happened that those two particular medications were contraindicated -- meaning that the drugmakers for each had given very clear instructions that under no circumstances should they have been prescribed in tandem. Why, you ask? Well, doctors and drugmakers had observed that patients taking both drugs in combination sometimes experienced homicidal feelings.
Not long after beginning the prescribed pharmaceutical regimen, Jonathan experienced just what had been previously observed. Under the influence of both drugs, and upset by an interaction with his ex-girlfriend, he committed a terrible series of acts. He drove to his parents' home while they were at work, unlocked his father's gun cabinet, removed a pistol and ammunition, loaded the weapon, drove to his ex's parents' home -- where she lived -- found a hiding place in her parents' bedroom, and awaited her return from work.
She arrived home with her younger sister and bounded upstairs. He emerged from his hiding place, confronted her about the demise of their relationship, then pointed the pistol at her and shot her until the gun's clip emptied. Within moments, the poor, 24 year-old girl was dead from wounds to the chest, face, head, and arm.
Not realizing his gun was empty, Jonathan walked downstairs, pointed the gun at his ex's sister, and fired. Thankfully, the gun clicked on an empty chamber. Finally realizing he was out of bullets, Jonathan exited the house and ran. Not long after, the police spotted him. Seeing them, he stopped, said he had just killed his girlfriend, pointed out where he had dropped a blue, plastic bag containing the gun, and submitted to arrest.
Over the course of a year, with a lot of back and forth over his culpability vs. the role of the drugs he'd been prescribed and his physician's incompetence (he apparently had stated his homicidal feelings to the psychiatrist, who failed to report them to the authorities), the state eventually offered Jonathan a plea deal with a 42-year prison sentence attached. He accepted the sentence, which included a no-parole provision required by Connecticut state law. Provided he lives long enough, he'll leave prison at the age of 72.
Until her death yesterday, my Aunt Joanne remained steadfast in support of her son, believing him to be twisted by the drugs into a state he never would have entered unless under their influence. She appealed his conviction, seeking a new trial (the original trial had suffered a number of potentially injurious failings, including incompetent representation and the fact that the judge in the case had been a friend of the victim's family and had refused to recuse herself), and sought a new location for his sentence (the state refused to place him in a facility where he could receive treatment for depression and other mental issues, even after he tried to kill himself while awaiting sentencing). She visited him in prison often, and never wavered from being his biggest champion. Now she is gone, and with her likely goes any hope Jonathan had for a future without bars.
Those of us who were less close to Jonathan have always had difficulty with the "the drugs did it" defense. His particular series of acts seemed terribly deliberate -- to require planning, forethought, cunning, and execution that most of us consider outside the abilities of a thoroughly drug-addled brain. We thought he must have known what he was doing, and that it was wrong. Though we've been asked to visit Jonathan, to write him letters, to appear as character references, we've just never been able to bring ourselves to support him. He sits in a cell, his talents wasted, his ex-girlfriend's life brutally and unforgivably ended, her sister forever traumatized by the horror of the night her sister died, her parents bereft of a daughter about whose future they will always wonder, his parents bereft of the son they thought of as sweet and innocent, all of us who called him "family" somewhat touched by the knowledge that we shared many holiday and other family events with a boy, then a man, capable of one of humanity's most base and awful acts.
No comments:
Post a Comment