| EJF Home | Find Help | Help the EJF | Comments? | Get EJF newsletter | Newsletters |
| Domestic Violence Book | DV Site Map | DV bibliography | DV index |
| Chapter 10 — Domestic Violence Against Men In The United States |
| Next — Stories Of Abused Men In New Hampshire |
| Back — Stories Of Abused Men In Nebraska |
Stories here are reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
Wife tortures child to make him testify against his father in Fallon
Las Vegas woman gets life in 1996 slaying of ex-boyfriend
Native American male counselor encounters abusive woman
Actor Christian Slater's wife, Ryan Haddon, charged with battery
Las Vegas woman charged with murder of her husband
Fight over boyfriend sends one woman to hospital, other to jail in Reno
Elko woman bound over on gun charges after trying to shoot estranged husband
Woman had plan to kill ex-husband, a Henderson police officer
Trial to open in Las Vegas for woman accused of drowning quadriplegic ex-husband in bathtub
Judge gives woman probation in husband's slaying in Incline Village after children request it
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Margaret Rudin, née Frost, was born in 1943. She was convicted of the murder of her fifth husband, real estate magnate Ronald Rudin, in 1994 and was given the nickname “The Black Widow” by locals in Nevada, where Ronald Rudin was found dead, and in neighboring states.
Margaret Lee Frost moved constantly as a young girl and until she was a young adult, living in as many as 15 different states in the same number of years before she met Gerald Mason, whom she married on February 2, 1962, in the city of Winthrop Harbor, Illinois. Mr. Mason was a carpenter, who, according to reports, made $300 a month at most. In 1964, they had a son, Michael. Daughter Kristina would follow in a few years. Ms. Rudin only had two children.
Rudin's first marriage lasted nine years. In 1973, the then Margaret Mason divorced her first husband, saying that he abused her emotionally, and asked Gerald Mason for the couple's 1969 Ford vehicle and $160 each month for child support.
Little is known about Margaret Rudin's second marriage, except that it lasted two years, from 1974 to 1976. The identity of her second husband is unknown, even to her third husband, who thought he was her second husband when they married. Mr. Philip Brown, a prominent farmer and horse dealer, met Rudin in 1978 when she was buying a horse for her son. The couple had two wedding ceremonies that year — once in August in Las Vegas and a second time in Illinois.
By 1979, the Browns' marriage was in trouble. According to Philip Brown's court statements, he filed for divorce on grounds of emotional cruelty by Margaret Brown, after she expressed a desire to move to Las Vegas and regretted having married him. When the divorce hearing was held later that year, Margaret Brown was recuperating from a hysterectomy. According to court documents, Philip Brown gave Margaret Rudin a $10,000 settlement so he would not have to pay her alimony.
Rudin then relocated to Las Vegas, where she reportedly lived with her two children and four other people in a mobile home for a few months in 1980. Shortly after moving to Las Vegas, Rudin met Richard Krafve, a struggling businessman who nevertheless had a large inheritance from his father, a former high-ranking executive in the 1950s with the Ford Motor Company.
Trouble would again ensue with Rudin's fourth marriage. She decided to return to Illinois without Krafve, so that her daughter, born Kristina Mason, could finish high school there. Richard Krafve had made Rudin sign a prenuptial agreement, which allowed him to keep his fortune when the couple divorced. Rudin alleged, during their 1986 divorce, that Krafve was abusive toward her and had threatened her. On May 29, 1987, the Krafve's divorced, with Rudin settling for $32,000 instead of alimony, which she reportedly had requested.
By then, her two children had grown and left home, so Rudin felt lonely. She would hold regular meetings with her friends, but these meetings seemed insufficient to her. She proclaimed to some of her friends that someday she'd “meet a cowboy.”
Not too long after her fourth divorce, Rudin met Ronald Rudin, a Las Vegas resident who enjoyed wearing cowboy boots and hats. They met at church.
According to investigators, Margaret Rudin became jealous of her new husband. Fearing that he had a mistress, she began to trace his steps by, among other things, placing a surveillance telephone recording machine on his business office. According to those investigations, she would also drop by his office to try to catch him with another woman. Ronald Rudin himself began to feel uncomfortable with the situation, and he made various beneficiary changes during their first year as a married couple. In 1988, Ronald Rudin filed for divorce, but the Rudins overcame their problems and he later decided not to continue with the divorce case.
Mr. Rudin later boosted Ms. Rudin's stake in his business to $11 million. Meanwhile, Ms. Rudin opened an antique store in the same building where Mr. Rudin's real estate office was located. Alleging a need for work, she started her own business venture just one floor below Mr. Rudin's office.
Mr. Rudin's feelings of unease in his marriage to Margaret Rudin had not disappeared completely. He secretly signed a document stating that, should he die violently, the suspect or suspects in his death would be denied any inheritance he left them, should that be the case.
In December 1994, Mr. Rudin disappeared. According to Nevada police records, Mrs. Rudin, then age 51, did not report him as a missing person until four days later. After a month-long search, Mr. Rudin's skeletal remains were recovered near Nelson's Landing at Lake Mojave in southern Nevada. An autopsy revealed that he had been murdered. Mrs. Rudin became a suspect.
Las Vegas police discovered that she had apparently been carrying on an adulterous affair with an Israeli man. According to the Las Vegas police department he could have helped Mrs. Rudin kill her husband.
Before Mrs. Rudin could be arrested she fled to Arizona, becoming one of the FBI's ten most wanted. A neighbor watching television recognized her and called local authorities, but by the time they tried to arrest her, she had fled from Arizona, settling in Revere, Massachusetts, where she lived for two years with a firefighter. It is unclear whether he knew who she was or not and that she was being sought by the police and FBI.
Eventually Margaret Rudin sent a letter to a friend in Utah. The letter was intercepted by local authorities and she was arrested and extradited back to Nevada.
Margaret Rudin's trial in 2001 received much media attention, especially in Nevada and surrounding states. Fifty-nine witnesses testified, including Ronald Rudin's other three former wives and the youngster who had found Ronald Rudin's skeleton. One of his former wives described Ronald Rudin as an abusive alcoholic, while another one had remained friends with him after their divorce. On May 1, 2001, Margaret Rudin was sentenced to life in prison with the opportunity for parole in 20 years. Her lawyer filed an appeal in 2002 but the appeal was denied. Ms. Rudin has since appeared on some Court TV shows, claiming her innocence in the murder of Ronald Rudin.
It was noted during her trial that blood samples had been taken by police both from the Rudins' home and from Margaret Rudin's antique store, and that these samples matched Ronald Rudin's blood after DNA testing was performed. Margaret Rudin's lawyer, however, made a point of telling the jury that Ronald Rudin's blood pressure had been high for a period of time and that he also suffered from various health ailments which could cause him to bleed from his nose.
In 2002, the Nevada Supreme Court denied Margaret Rudin's appeal finding she was not denied effective assistance of counsel. (State v. Rudin, 86 P.3d 572 (Nv Sup.Ct. 2004). As of 2008, no record of federal collateral review could be found.
In December 2008 Mrs. Rudin was given a new trial. District Judge Sally Loehrer ruled that attorneys for Margaret Rudin, now 65, weren't prepared to defend her at her 2001 trial, according to several lawyers on both sides of the case. She also ruled that Rudin's main attorney at the time, Michael Amador, wasn't effective, said Christopher Oram, Rudin's new attorney.
In a macabre twist on domestic and child abuse, two men from Fallon, Nevada, were released in July, 1998, from life sentences handed down in 1990 when one of the men's son, then age 9, claimed that his father and his father's co-worker sexually assaulted him up to 50 times in a single night. The boy, now 17, came forward and told a judge that his mother had locked him up and starved him until he testified against his father and the other man.
© 1998 by Caren Benjamin, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
Saturday, December 19, 1998 — For the murder of bookmaker Bruce Weinstein, his former girlfriend was sentenced Friday to two consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
District Judge John McGroarty also tacked on at least another 12 years to Amy DeChant's punishment for robbing Weinstein after shooting him.
Robert Jones, the man who helped Ms. DeChant hide the crime, was sentenced to at least two years in prison. Jones has already served 14 months of that time.
Amy DeChant, 50, met Weinstein, 46, in October 1995. He disappeared July 5, 1996, and his decomposed body was found in the desert about two months later.
Ms. DeChant skipped town, was found by police with a wad of cash in the fall of 1996, and returned to Las Vegas. At that point she was only a suspect. As police built the circumstantial case against her she again fled. She was found in January 1998 in a Florida nudist colony and returned to Nevada to face the murder charge filed in her absence.
At the nearly three-week trial, witnesses testified that she told a number of lies when Weinstein disappeared and hinted to friends before the murder that she wanted him — but not his money — out of her life. Weinstein was known to deal in cash and to keep substantial amounts of it around the house, according to testimony at the October trial. Police found no money in his home after he disappeared.
Ms. DeChant's story was that Weinstein was killed by mobsters angry at him for some aspect of his bookmaking and gambling business. She tried to hide what happened when he was slain because the mobsters threatened her life, DeChant's attorney, Dan Albregts, told jurors.
Robert Jones was also charged with murder. He was an employee of Ms. DeChant's carpet cleaning business. Prosecutors claimed he supplied the gun then helped hide the evidence by cleaning up bloody carpets and disposing of the body. The jury convicted him of accessory to murder after the fact.
At the sentencing Jones asked the judge for leniency, saying he had a number of job offers and only wanted to be free and help support his family.
His attorney, Deputy Special Public Defender Lee McMahon, also asked the judge to impose probation, noting the jury essentially convicted him of cleaning the carpet. With Jones' family sobbing in the audience, McGroarty refused her request and instead imposed the maximum possible sentence.
Weinstein's mother, Sylvia White, did not push for a specific sentence. Instead she asked the judge to give her and the others in her family “peace of mind.” Weinstein left behind two sisters, a brother and a young daughter in a close-knit family whose members spoke to each other nearly every day, she told the judge.
“There are family gatherings and there is a chair that is always vacant,” White said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney David Roger reminded McGroarty that the state could have sought a death sentence against Ms. DeChant but chose not to. A sentence of life with the possibility of parole would send the wrong message to anyone looking at the case in the future, including appellate courts and the Pardons Board, he said.
Weinstein's murder “wasn't a result of passion. It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment situation. This was a murder based on greed. This was a woman who loved the dollar,” Roger told the court.
Amy DeChant said nothing at the sentencing on the advice of her attorney, who earlier this week asked that the verdict be thrown out and has promised to appeal.
Albregts pointed out that even a sentence of life with the possibility of parole would make Ms. DeChant eligible for release when she is 90.
Published with permission of the author
This situation started in Wisconsin in 2001, continued in Oregon and I finally left her in Nevada (2002). After reviewing other stories on your web site I thought that you had interviewed my former girlfriend.
She is an expert at manipulation and even went so far as to tell me that she sometimes needed to be “put in her place” during the early development of our relationship. This was perplexing to me since whenever I said that I did not appreciate how she was treating me, she cried, “You are too controlling.” Before I get too far ahead I need to discuss the formation of that relationship.
When we met she was so thrilled because I practiced my traditional ceremonies, played guitar in a band, and spoke my native language. And best of all, as she told me, I was raising my two children. She convinced me that I was a very worthwhile man. All of the attributes she bestowed upon me were later turned against me in jealous rage.
As our relationship developed we decided to move out west where I was offered a promising career with a pleasing salary. Upon arrival I learned that the agency had changed their minds about hiring for that position. I immediately applied at another agency and was nearly hired on the spot.
My partner became extremely jealous and insecure. I was accused of flirting, of being naive about not knowing when a woman was “coming on to me,” and I would be subjected to a series of questions after I spoke with anyone either on the phone or otherwise. As a consequence I limited my contact with anyone but her, even my own children. As a result my son went to live with his mother in California and my daughter moved out on her own.
Eventually she criticized my love of music, my cultural practices and especially the one who taught me these ways and my language. The worst was her admission that she was jealous of me and my ability to secure a decent paying job almost anywhere in the USA. I received other job offers which I turned down to avoid her rage. I even went so far as to change how I dressed (which she also approved of at the outset of our relationship).
She decided to leave me one day and return to home. I did not object and she became offended because I didn't beg her to stay or anything else. She went to a shelter for abused women and gave them a story about how “I” kicked her out! This information got back to my employer. She later bragged about how the shelter was helping her out so much financially. They financed her trip back home, made her car payment, and paid her car insurance.
After about a week at her home she decided that she wanted to come back to where we were living together. I sent her some money to finance her return trip. If I recall correctly she stated something to the effect that she “arranged it so that I could never go back home.” I later learned that she told a number of key people that I was beating her up while we were together out west.
Abstracted from report by Steve Gorman
November 12, 2003, Las Vegas (Reuters) — Actor Christian Slater reportedly received 20 stitches to the back of his head after his wife allegedly hurled a drinking glass at him during an argument in their Las Vegas hotel room, but the film star declined to press charges, police say.
Slater's wife, Ryan Haddon, was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery after Monday's incident at the Hard Rock Hotel, according to Carla Alston, a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Alston said that with Slater declining to press charges, it would be up to prosecutors to decide whether to pursue a case against Ms. Haddon.
Ms. Haddon, who left the scene immediately after the altercation, returned to the hotel after her husband went to the hospital. Ryan Haddon was then taken into custody, booked at the Clark County Detention Centre and later released, Alston said.
Slater, 34, initially told police that his wife threw the glass at him during an argument but “changed his story and said it was an accident” when he realized she would end up in jail, police spokeswoman Alston told Reuters.
Sources familiar with the incident said the account Slater gave to authorities was that the glass accidentally “slipped” out of his wife's hand when she went to throw water in his face while the two were joking around.
Police spokeswoman Alston said such an explanation defied credibility given that the glass struck Slater on the back of the head behind his left ear, opening a gash so big that it took 20 stitches to close it. He was discharged from the hospital after being treated, she said.
A spokeswoman for Slater later said the actor received only nine stitches.
March 16, 2004, Las Vegas (AP) — A Las Vegas woman has been charged with an open count of murder in the stabbing death of her husband.
State police say 31-year-old Abra Duran was arrested Sunday.
Lieutenant Jimmy Glascock says officers found the body of 40-year-old Richard Duran when they responded to a disturbance call at the couple's home earlier Sunday.
© 2004 Reno Gazette-Journal
Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.
Sunday, April 11, 2004 — A fight over a man sent one woman to a hospital and the other to jail, police said.
Reno police officers about 6:30 PM were sent the emergency room of Washoe Medical Center on a report that a woman was stabbed in the hand.
Reno police said 19-year-old Erica Mantz of Sparks went to Nikole Smothers' Reno home about 3 PM Wednesday. The two had been involved in a dispute over a man both had dated, police said.
As the women fought, Smothers, 19, grabbed a large kitchen knife and slashed Mantz's hand, police said. Mantz needed about 10 stitches for the wound.
Smothers was found and booked into Washoe County Jail on suspicion of battery with a deadly weapon and an unrelated misdemeanor warrant and held in lieu of $3,335 bail.
Abstracted from The Elko Daily
March 5, 2004 — Kimberly Ann Hyde, 43, is accused of trying to shoot her estranged husband. On March 29 th she was bound over to Elko District Court by acting Justice of the Peace Patricia L. Calton on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder with the use of a deadly weapon, burglary, and coercion with the use of a deadly weapon.
Charges of violation of a temporary restraining order, battery, and two counts of disturbing the peace were dismissed without prejudice [emphasis added].
The victim, Dan Hyde, told deputies he was awakened the night of March 5 by someone beating on his window. The window started to open, so he got up and saw his estranged wife, Kimberly Hyde, standing outside.
Once Kimberly Hyde was in the house she wouldn't leave and threatened to kill Dan Hyde, with a Beretta 9mm, according to a sheriff's deputy's report.
Kimberly Hyde forced Dan Hyde into the living room and threatened to shoot him and any deputies who arrived, according to the report.
Dan Hyde ran into the bathroom and called the sheriff's office. He told deputies he heard the gun cocking twice outside of the bathroom door.
Kimberly Hyde tried to fire the gun into the door but the safety was on and she ejected the bullets out of the gun and put a fresh bullet in, not realizing why the gun didn't fire, according to a sheriff's deputy's report.
Dan Hyde said he was able to get away from her and grab the gun when she attempted to take a drink of whisky as deputies arrived.
The deputies then found Kimberly Hyde hiding in the bathroom.
© 2004 by Glenn Puit, Review-Journal
Newly released grand jury transcripts portray a woman accused of plotting to kill her ex-husband as obsessed with carrying out the plan.
Florela McCorkle was indicted by a grand jury earlier this month on charges she planned to kill her ex-husband, Henderson police Sgt. Robert McCorkle. Transcripts of grand jury testimony were released this week.
Las Vegas police investigator Mark Walton told the grand jury he posed as a hit man and met with Florela McCorkle, 38, to discuss the plot.
“She brought out a thick envelope of all the things that she had on him, to include his police identification, his photo identification badge, she had written down his address, vehicle registration information, his girlfriend's pertinent information,” Walton said of his first meeting with Florela McCorkle.
Another witness who testified before the grand jury, Brenda Lawrance, said Florela McCorkle asked her to investigate her husband. Lawrance, a former private investigator, said Florela McCorkle once faxed her Robert McCorkle's personal information, and she even mentioned having her husband scouted so his daily routines could be pinpointed.
“She stated she didn't have the money... to hire a private investigator, and she took it into her own hands,” Lawrance said. “She was doing her own investigation and she was getting his pattern down and his girlfriend's, and she mentioned his partner, whoever that was.”
Florela McCorkle's defense attorney, Stephen Stein, said only one side of the case has come out so far, and he cautioned the public to keep an open mind about his client.
“No one should jump to a conclusion that someone is guilty of a crime simply because they are charged with a crime,” Stein said.
Florela McCorkle was indicted by a grand jury on charges of solicitation to commit murder and attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon.
In transcripts from the grand jury proceedings, Florela McCorkle's boss, Kenneth Farmer, said he was training Florela McCorkle to be a loan officer at a mortgage business on Tenaya Way this year when he noticed she repeatedly talked about her ex-husband.
Farmer said Florela McCorkle told him she wanted her husband killed while he was working as an officer in Henderson so her daughter could benefit from insurance.
“She did want it done while he was on duty so her daughter would be provided for the rest of her life,” Farmer said.
Farmer said he tried to dismiss Florela McCorkle's talk as just that — talk. But while talking to his business acquaintance, Lawrance, about Florela McCorkle, he said he gradually started to become concerned.
Farmer then introduced Florela McCorkle to Lawrance and the three had lunch. Lawrance told the grand jury Florela McCorkle talked openly about wanting to have her husband murdered.
“She had stated that she would have her husband killed,” Lawrance said.
Lawrance contacted police. Walton then went undercover and called Florela McCorkle. The two met in June at an area restaurant.
“I told her that whoever gave her my number, that they must trust you very well,” Walton said.
Gradually, Florela McCorkle warmed up to Walton, and over the course of two meetings, he said she told him she wanted her husband killed. She gave him her husband's personal information, and she said she didn't want the murder to occur anywhere other than her husband's place of work. She would pay him $10,000 for the job, and she provided $1,000 in cash.
“She was very adamant about what she wanted done,” Walton said.
“You don't mind if I cut off his head, shoot him or whatever, disfigure him?” Walton said he asked her. “She goes, 'No.' Then she stated, 'I don't care if you shoot him in the eyes, cut off his penis and stick it in his mouth.'"
© 2006 by Emanuella Grinberg, Court TV
August 7, 2006 — A few hours after Gloria Guzman called 911 to report that her quadriplegic ex-husband had drowned in a bathtub, she told police he had accidentally died as a result of her neglect.
But Las Vegas prosecutors claim that an angry and embittered Guzman intentionally drowned Mark Richards over his decision to end their six-year relationship.
Beginning Tuesday, a Las Vegas jury will be charged with deciding which version they believe at Guzman's first-degree murder trial.
The 26-year-old former personal care assistant faces life in prison if convicted of murdering her patient and companion.
Officially, the couple had been divorced for nearly two years on the afternoon of Feb. 26, 2005, when authorities responding to a 911 call found Guzman tending to her ex-husband's lifeless body in an empty bathtub.
A medical examiner later concluded that Richards, 40, had been dead for at least 30 minutes by the time paramedics arrived.
Guzman and Richards, who were 15 years apart in age, met in 1999 at a convalescence hospital in California, where Richards was receiving care stemming from a 1986 car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down.
After they married and moved to Las Vegas in 1999, Guzman discovered that the state would not pay her to care for her husband. They divorced so that she could receive biweekly checks of $844 for providing 24-hour care for her disabled companion.
But by 2005, the relationship had soured, according to Guzman and relatives of the couple, and Richards decided to leave her and move into an assisted-living home.
In a police statement that lawyers for Guzman attempted to keep out of her trial, she admitted that she was “heart-broken” over the situation, but denied she wanted him dead.
In several police interviews the day of Richards' death, Guzman told detectives that around 9 AM she placed him in the apartment's Roman-style bathtub instead of bathing him in the stand-up shower that he always used — at his request.
She said she wrapped a flotation “noodle” around neck and arms, propped his ankles up with a pillow, and left him in the tub.
For the next three hours, Guzman said she divided her time between Richards and an ill 8-year-old niece who had spent the night at the home. Around 12:30 PM Guzman said she gave Richards one tablet each of his daily medication: Valium, Lortab, and Baclofen.
After Guzman's sister picked up the child around 1 p.m., Guzman said she returned to the bathroom and found Richards floating face-down in the water, the “noodle” unwrapped from around him.
At first, Guzman accepted partial responsibility by conceding that she had “neglected” Richards by leaving him in the tub, according to the police statement. Finally, after prodding from detectives, she admitted that she wanted to “hurt” him and intentionally pulled the noodle out from underneath him.
“He was mean and very demanding,” Guzman told detectives. “I was just doing everything for him, you know, and basically he would treat me like crap.”
Nonetheless, Guzman maintained, she never meant to kill him, and called 911 in an effort to save his life.
A judge denied a defense motion to suppress the statements based on the premise that she had not been properly informed of her Miranda rights, paving the way for the statements to appear before a jury.
Abstracted from story by Jaclyn O'Malley, Reno Gazette-Journal
October 5, 2009 — Mary “Arlene” Baymiller and her husband Charles “Skip” Baymiller had been best friends throughout their nearly 43-year marriage, where they cherished their two children and frequently drove across the country for vacations.
They were inseparable, and longtime friends described their love as “radiating” off of them.
Charles Baymiller was a successful developer and contractor, owning a restaurant and a winery. At age 73 he was retired, but managed several rental properties while maintaining homes with his wife in multiple states. She was retired after teaching kindergarten for 31 years in the Fresno, California, area where her co-workers said she was a highly-requested teacher known for her calm, peaceful classes. But his growing dementia and his forgetting to pay bills caused his wife severe anxiety and sleepless nights, which prompted her to begin taking the prescription medications, Paxil for anxiety and Ativan and Ambien for sleep. When she complained of negative side effects to her medical provider, her dosage was increased.
Charles Baymiller was found dead in his Incline Village home by Washoe County sheriff's deputies who were checking on the couple's welfare. The couple's son, who lives in another state, had summoned deputies to their home after he could not contact them. He said his mother was having panic attacks and nervous breakdowns because of his father's dementia, records show. The son also said she was “overly worried about money” and was not sleeping.
Mary Baymiller also had received stab wounds that authorities said were self-inflicted and superficial, according to court records. She had told hospital staff that she intentionally tried to overdose on her prescription medications in a suicide attempt, records show.
When deputies entered her blood-covered bedroom, they found her husband deceased in his bed, while she was lying on her stomach next to him.
According to his autopsy, Charles Baymiller had been stabbed up to 200 times, with 37 wounds to his throat. He also had defensive wounds, records show.
Her lawyer, Tom Viloria, said during her sentencing hearing that her drug cocktail caused a “catatonic drug-induced state” that caused her to stab her spouse hundreds of times in the throat in their Incline Village bedroom the night of October 4, 2009 or early morning of Oct. 5, 2009.
Mary Baymiller then stabbed herself and tried to overdose on her medications in a suicide attempt. Viloria said she has no recollection of the stabbings due to the drugs' affects. He said because there was no blood spatter on the walls, that the stabbing was not in a violent frenzy because the blood would have flown off the blade and into the wall.
The couple's adult children, Scott and Kathleen Baymiller, both of New Mexico, begged Washoe District Judge Robert Perry Friday to grant their mother probation, saying their father would not have blamed her for his death, and would be upset their family is in such emotional turmoil. Both said through tearful testimony that are not angry with their mother, and do not hold her responsible for his death.
Deputy District Attorney Eliott Sattler said a sentence of probation would send the wrong message to the community. “What does it say to the next person in a difficult situation with a loved one,” he told Judge Perry. “We are living in an aging society. What does that say to them? To condone what she did?”
In a hearing during June 2011 Judge Perry suspended Mary Baymiller's sentence of two consecutive terms of 22 to 96-months and ordered her to be on probation for at least five years. He warned that he was hanging a large sentence over her head if she violated the conditions of her probation, including continuing mental health treatment and medication management and taking her drugs as prescribed. He said there was no reasonable explanation for the slaying “other than the medications involved,” and said she was punished enough.
“There's not a day that goes by that I'm not sorry,” Mary Baymiller told Perry, adding she had a good marriage and deeply loved her husband. “I apologize to my children. It bothers me terribly how upset they are and here I am tearing down their lives.The reason I am standing here today is strictly because of the medications,” she said. “I have never been violent or has there been violence in my marriage.”
Clinical psychologist, Dr. David Antonuccio, was one of multiple doctors who gave Mrs. Baymiller a mental evaluation. He said that she was displaying negative drug side effects prior to the killing such as agitation and sleep deprivation and had visited her doctor to address them. Instead, a nurse practitioner increased her dosages. He said that was not an appropriate adjustment. Dr. Antonuccio said that within weeks, the drugs could have caused her to be in a drug-induced state, where she would be in a “fog-like, sleepwalking” state and later have no memory of her actions. He said the known side effects of Paxil are irritability, aggressiveness, and suicidal tendencies.
“It's likely the medications that Mrs. Baymiller was taking caused her to stab her husband,” Antonuccio testified. “...I believe she had no awareness of what she was doing, and could not form intent. She was not responsible. The drugs caused her to act that way.”
Mary Baymiller spent more than one year in the county jail following her arrest, which Viloria said caused her to become “institutionalized.” He said her family is not going to sue the drug makers because they just want to move on. He said Mary Baymiller, if allowed by the state probation office, will move to New Mexico and live with her children.
“I want to see her happy on some level again,” her daughter Kathleen Baymiller testified through tears. “She is nearly 75 years old. She will never be the same, I know that for all of us, but it can be better.”
Scott Baymiller said the night his father was killed, he talked to his parents on the phone. He said his mother was worried about taking a test to renew her driver's license and that due to a lack of sleep forgot items she studied. She also was stressed that it had snowed and she would have trouble driving to Reno from her Lake Tahoe-area home. Charles Baymiller also had an upcoming appointment where he would be examined for his dementia problems, his family said.
“I got angry with my mother and told her that with the problems with dad we didn't need her anxiety,” he testified.
“...I said I would arrange to put her in a psychiatric facility until he got better...she asked me if I was giving up on her. I said 'no.'
In 71 years my mom hasn't even said a curse word or received a traffic ticket. She's a great citizen. It makes no sense...dad wouldn't be angry at mom. He would be hurt our family is going through this and wouldn't want mom to be punished. He loved my mom. He would be sad our family is hurting like this.”
Scott Baymiller said his father told him in an earlier conversation that something was wrong with him, and asked his son to take care of his mother and sister if the elder Baymiller was unable. [EJF note: Adverse drug reactions, particularly as associated with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), are an everyday occurrence. SSRI Stories tabulates over 5,000 examples.]
| EJF Home | Find Help | Help the EJF | Comments? | Get EJF newsletter | Newsletters |
| Domestic Violence Book | DV Site Map | DV bibliography | DV index |
| Chapter 10 — Domestic Violence Against Men In The United States |
| Next — Stories Of Abused Men In New Hampshire |
| Back — Stories Of Abused Men In Nebraska |
This site is supported and maintained by the Equal Justice Foundation.