I must warn you in the strongest possible terms, this video is extremely disturbing, especially if you’re an animal lover. DO NOT let your children see this! I could only watch about 10 seconds of it before I totally fell apart.

I found some additional information about this video. In addition to Marija Volarevic’, there were two other perpetrators involved in the making of this ‘eye candy’, which was actually posted on YouTube for a time until it was pulled for obvious reasons.

Ivo Skica Volarevic is Marija’s brother and the cameraman, and and fellow named Antonija Miskic was also involved in some capacity – probably immoral support. All three of these losers are from some podunk town in Croatia.

Obviously, this terrible act of cruelty was premeditated, and done with the intent of posting the video on YouTube. Everyone wants to be famous, and this was Larry, Darryl and Darryl’s shot at their 15 minutes.

So now we know. The price of fame is the lives of 6 puppies.

UPDATED INFORMATION

OK, here’s all the information I could gather on our girl here. Well, actually, I found it all on a website that calls itself ADDICTED (that’s right, all caps). Her full name is Marija Lpp Volarevic, and she’s 16-years-old. She is 5ft 6in to 5ft 8in tall and lives in a little Croatian town called Bugojno, which looks a bit like bunghole, which is another word for asshole, which is what Marija Lpp Volarevic is a walking, talking example of.

I also found this cute little picture montage of our heroine (Marija is the blond). Again, the I have to thank the owner of the website ADDICTED. She’s a 14-year-old Portuguese girl named Filipa, and I thank God for her today. After watching the 16-year-old puppy killer today, it was incredibly comforting to see a normal, well adjusted 14-year-old kid doing her best to do something about the puppy killer.

Big Thank You To My Daughter Amanda For Tipping Me Off About This Unbelievable Douchebag.

That’s what dogs do. And they don’t judge. I could rob a bank, cheat on my spouse, hijack a bus filled with kindergartners and my dogs would love me. Even Hitler’s dog loved him. And even Allan Dwayne Schoenborn’s dog loved him.

Take a look at Schoenborn’s mugshot. I double dare you not to make a judgment about his character based on how he looks. Would you give him a job? A ride? A quarter? But to be fair this was probably taken after he had a really tough couple of weeks. Regardless how he looked, though, his dog loved him.

There had been others who loved Allan Dwayne Schoenborn. Probably not so much his former common law wife Darcie Clarke. She didn’t seem overly fond of him when she accused him of sexual assault and got a peace bond against him to stop him from being near her when he was drinking. But he was undoubtedly loved by his three beautiful children, Kaitlynn, Max and Cordon. They would probably still love him today if he hadn’t gone and murdered them in April, 2008.

Kaitlynn was all of 10 years old. You can see from her photo that she was a lovely, lovely girl. Max was 8, a good looking boy, and Cordon at 5 was absolutely adorable. I find if absolutely incredible that someone as frickin’ fugly as Allan Schoenborn could have fathered such a lovely family. Thanks to him, though, this world has been deprived of those charming children, but is still cursed with his repulsively evil and malevolent presence.

In September 2007 his former common law wife had moved the family from Vancouver to Merritt, British Columbia to get away from him. She had been afraid that he’d harm her since he accused her of cheating on him. The increasingly confrontational arguments they were having, the sexual assault and Schoenborn’s declining mental state didn’t make for happy families, so she made the wise decision to get away.

Clarke subsequently made the unwise decision to drop the sexual assault charge and allow Schoenborn to have continued access to the children.

Allen Dwayne Schoenborn had been diagnosed as paranoid in 1999. Kaitlynne had already been born, but regardless of this diagnosis Clarke had two more children with him.

Even after he crashed his truck trying to get Kaitlynne to the hospital when he mistook her sleeping as a symptom of illness.

Even after he accused her of putting drugs in Kaitlynne’s teething gel.

If it had been me, I would not have chosen a mentally ill man to be the father of my children. Just sayin’. Especially not one who refused to be treated for his mental illness — except for self-medicating with booze.

Allen Dwayne Schoenborn never sought medical help. Not when he heard voices. Not when he thought he had a transmitter in his brain or his teeth. Not when Clarke asked him to get help.

So Clarke and the children moved to Merritt, and Allen Dwayne Schoenborn knew exactly precisely where they were. Indeed, he and Clarke continued to have an on again, off again kind of relationship although she refused to have them all live together as a family again. “He didn’t like it, but was willing to accept it,” Clarke testified. Really? I don’t think so.

Whenever Allen Schoenborn came to visit the kids, Clarke would stay with her mother. There was nothing in his demeanor that triggered any alarm bells for her in regard to the children’s safety. I’m thinking she didn’t look too hard.

Personally I would have been alarmed by his threatening of a student and an adult in authority at his daughter’s elementary school. He apparently got it into his noggin that the child had been picking on his daughter, and his threats left this little person shaken and in tears. The police came and hauled his ass to jail. It was the third time in a week he’d been arrested. The other two times were for an outstanding warrant and for being intoxicated outside the police station.

Judicial Justice of the Peace Fraser Hodge presided over the bail hearing, and Allen Schoenborn put on a great performance. He gave Mr. Hodge the impression that he and Clarke were a couple looking to patch their lives back together, that they were eventually planning to move to the Okanagan to start a new life.

“I’m a responsible adult just trying to work my way home,” Mr. Schoenborn told the hearing. “It’s really hard to be without the ones you love.”

He painted himself a simple and responsible man. “I have a very good sense of sorrow on what’s happened,” he said.

Mr. Hodge had “grave concerns” about Allen Schoenborn, but chose to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I know we’re close to the line here on this one, but I am going to give Mr. Schoenborn a chance,” he said. “I have grave concerns about both your record, and your behavior . . . and particularly as (one of the current charges) relates to a young child,” Mr. Hodge continued.

“I’m giving you a bit of a break,” Mr. Hodge decided, letting Mr. Schoenborn go on $500 bail. This was three days before the slaughter of the innocents.

That very day social workers warned Darcie Clarke they would intervene if she did not take adequate steps to protect the children from Schoenborn’s increasingly strange and alarming behavior. Still no alarms going off in her head.

Two days later Clarke told Allen Schoenborn that their relationship was over, done, finito.

The very next day, April 5, 2008, Allen Schoenborn was allowed to spend time with the kids at the family’s trailer home. Clarke went to her mom’s for the night. Schoenborn made the most of their time together. The children were tired after a long day of flying kites, watching TV and playing games, and were tucked into bed.

Their doting father targeted the oldest first, striking at Kaitlynne’s neck with a knife. When Allen Dwayne Schoenborn testified at trial, he describe the attack:

“It just bounced off her. She woke. I swung at her, I was already through with it in my mind. She may have put her hand up. She said, ‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’ I swung it again, something quick at her neck. I thought this was the quickest way to give her up. I told her to go to the white father. She gave up.”

Allen Dwayne Schoenborn went next to the sleeping 5-year-old Cordon. He put a pillow on the boy’s face and his hand behind his head:

“He fussed a bit. I moved the pillow away and put my hand there. I laid on top of him, with all my weight.”

It took about five minutes for Cordon to die. He said he felt little gasps of air slip between his fingers as Cordon’s chest heaved.

“And then he didn’t. He laid quiet.”

Finally, Allen Dwayne Schoenborn turned his murderous attention to Max, 8, who fought hard when Schoenborn put a plastic bag over his head and drew it tight at the back of his neck:

“He fought me, he fought me. I told him it was daddy, ‘shhh.’ He settled down right after I said that. He was still there, he heard me. Maxie was about two minutes.”

Schoenborn took the time to clean the blood off Kaitlynne’s body in the bathtub, then wrap her up in a blanket and put her on her bed. He arranged the boys together on the couch.

Allen Dwayne Schoenborn wrote “Forever Young” in blood on a pillowcase and “Gone to Neverland” on the flip side. “Forever Young” was also written in large letters on a living room wall above the TV.

Allen Dwayne Schoenborn then fled the scene, taking the family dog with him.

Clarke arrived home at about 2 p.m. and she saw her boys Cordon and Max lying on the couch. She thought it was odd that both would be napping.

“I looked closer. They weren’t alive.”

Clarke wept as she described finding Kaitlynne.

“I went to her bedroom and she was all tucked up in a blanket. There was a huge gash from her ear to her mouth and a cut on her wrist.”

Clarke said she kept repeating to herself that it wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be real. “I started running around screaming, ‘no, no, no!”

Allen Dwayne Schoenborn and the dog eluded capture for ten days. He was finally caught in the wilderness by trappers Kim Robinson and Pat McCoy. Allen Dwayne Schoenborn seemed worried that Robinson, who was armed with a rifle, was going to shoot him. Robinson testified:

“He asked three to four times if I was going to kill him. I said if I’d seen him killing his kids I’d have blown his brains out, no doubt about it.”

Allen Schoenborn seemed surprised to learn that Darcie Clarke was still alive and had not killed herself, Robinson said.

“He asked, ‘Isn’t she dead?’. He was surprised she wasn’t dead. I saw agitation when I said that.”

Allen Schoenborn was arrested and taken to hospital and treated for dehydration. He had some minor cuts on his arms. He did not resist arrest. His loyal dog was unharmed.

While in jail awaiting trial, he wrote a self-pitying letter to Clarke detailing how he’d tried various methods to kill himself while on the lam — including slashing his wrists and freezing to death (in April?) — in an attempt to “join” the children.

“I was not running from my doing or police. I was running toward my children,” he wrote. He was singularly unsuccessful as a suicide. He was afraid even that Robinson would shoot him. Why didn’t he beg Robinson to finish him off if he wanted to join his children?

Clarke visited the killer in jail to find out why he had murdered their children, and heard for the first time his “belief” that the children were being molested. He didn’t say who was abusing them, but believed it was his duty to kill the children to “protect” them — to save them from a “life of humility.” Yeah, right.

“And it just came on me in one big flood. And I realized there’s nothing I can do about it, no matter how hard I try. So I put them where they’ll be safe … and stay young and innocent.”

And dead.

Allen Schoenborn then told Clarke he didn’t torture the kids despite what she’d been told.

“I didn’t torture anybody, Darcie,” he told her. “I thought it was going to be quick. I thought it was going to be quick and when it, it, it didn’t go quick … Not like I knew what I was doing.”

Too bad his determination to murder was greater than his determination to die.

The prosecutor’s office didn’t buy this kill-to-protect crap. It just seemed too coincidental that his ex tells him the relationship’s over and they won’t live as a family again, and the very next day the children are murdered.

If it looks like vengeance and smells like vengeance, it’s vengeance. And never, ever at any time was any evidence found of any sexual abuse inflicted on the children. The only sexual abuse in this situation was perpetrated by Allen Schoenborn himself upon Clarke.

In February, 2010, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Powers, who heard the three-month trial in Kamloops without a jury, found that the killings were deliberate and planned by Allen Dwayne Schoenborn, and found him guilty of first-degree murder in their deaths BUT that he was not sane at the time. Guilty but not criminally responsible was the verdict. That’s right, deliberate and premeditated murders, and a subsequent ten-day flight from police, but he’s not responsible.

“I find on balance of probabilities he was suffering from a disease of the mind,” Justice Powers told the court Monday. Hmm, a balance of probabilities, he said. That’s justice? Why couldn’t that balance weigh in favor of the victims, past and future, for once?

Justice Powers rejected the Crown’s assertion that Allen Dwayne Schoenborn killed his children as revenge against their mother.

“Any reasonable or rational person would know that was wrong,” Justice Powers said. “However, due to his psychosis at the time he was not able to make that decision.”

Once again the courts have given Allen Dwayne Schoenborn the benefit of the doubt. He possibly was in a delusional state when he murdered three innocent children, but possibly he wasn’t. The court psychiatrist said it was impossible to tell what his state of mind was.

Outside the courthouse, Kim Robinson pulled no punches when asked by reporters what he thought about Allen Dwayne Schoenborn being found not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder. “That’s bullshit. He’s an asshole. He’s not insane.”

So instead of prison, Allen Dwayne Schoenborn was sent off for a psychiatric review to determine where and how he’ll be spending his future.

The British Columbia Review Board at the Forensic Psychiatric Institute in Port Coquitlam ruled that Allen Dwayne Schoenborn poses a serious threat of violence to the public. Despite his plea to be freed immediately, convicted child-killer Schoenborn will remain in psychiatric care.

Upon hearing the board’s decision, Allen Dwayne Schoenborn said he agreed. “I think you decided right for me and the public,” he told the panel.

He also asked panelists not to allow the children’s mother to make a victim impact statement, calling it hysterical.

The panel disregarded the request and did hear a statement from Clarke. She told the panel that she’ll never be able to get the image of her dead children out of her head.

“I fear if he ever gets out, I will have to go into hiding for the rest of my life,” Clarke said in her statement, parts of which were read out to the panel.

All that separates Allen Dwayne Schoenborn from freedom is the panel of experts. And if he ever convinces the panel he is sane, he could be walking the streets a free man. I am praying that he is never given the benefit of the doubt again, as long as he lives.

And what about Darcie Clarke? She made some very bad choices in her life, but instead of going to hell she is living it each and every day.

Oh no.

I lay in bed and listen to the deafening noises emanating from my kitchen as my brood prepares me breakfast in bed. I listen with stomach turning intensity to the crashing, and banging of what must be every single pot, pan, bowl and kitchen utensil that my kitchen can offer and on one memorable occasion, the smoke detector going off. I listen to cries of “you’re a butthead! Yeah! Well you’ve got fart breath.” (those two will never be English scholars)

This year they brought me a breakfast consisting of extremely crunchy scrambled eggs which were half raw, burnt pancakes with what appeared to be cut up dried spicy mango pieces (gag) and cold coffee. I devoured every single bite (silently praying that I didn’t get food poisoning) and proclaimed that they are going to be fine chefs some day.

They then presented the homemade tchotchkes, cards and flowers. The sole exception is my oldest who has graduated to the most horrendous, eye watering and I’m sure, skin burning perfume that his $3 bucks can buy. I exclaimed over each gift, and for once, all of my boys kiss me without complaint, and tell me they love me.

After my little troopers filed out to get ready for mass, I finally got to leave the bedroom and survey ground zero – my kitchen. Oh dear God, somebody call FEMA. I loved every minute of it.

Eun Y. Kang, 39, of Venice, California, will never know the joys of motherhood or learn the art of faking delight after receiving a gift of vomit inducing discount store perfume. She will never receive the handmade macaroni encrusted picture frame or the hand painted picture that resembles a demonic Rorschach test with your child gleefully shouting, “that’s you Mommy!”.

Kang, who was four months pregnant with twins, was brutally raped and stabbed to death (allegedly) by Boneetio Kentro Washington, 22, of Culver City, CA. Kang, a Korean-American, was the owner of P-1 Cleaners, a dry cleaning business in Beverly Hills, CA.

She immigrated to the United States in order to care for her sick brother some years before, then opened her business. Her family, friends and neighbors all described her as creative, kind, compassionate, friendly, smiling and trusting with a passion for fashion design.

Homicide is a leading injury-related cause of death among pregnant and postpartum women, second only to car accidents. Pregnant women are most often murdered by a loved one, usually the father of their baby. But in Kang’s case, it appears that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another victim of the ultimate urban bogeyman; the random act of violence.

On December 8, 2009, around 10:00 pm, Eun Kang returned to her Venice, CA home and began unloading her groceries. It appears that Boneetio Washington had entered Ms. Kang’s duplex through an unlocked patio door. His intentions are not known, whether he was there for burglary or premeditated sexual assault.

When Eun entered her home, he attacked her, knocking her to the floor and then began to violently rape her. Her screams awoke her landlord and neighbor, Arnold Springer. Springer stated:

“I heard her scream, and I turned on the lights in my room and outside — the porch light — and I had my flashlight. I had it on shining my light in there. She was screaming `No. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. No.’ I shined my light in there and I saw him. He was raping her.”

The elderly Springer screamed at the man to stop, yelling that he was calling the police. It appears that is when Boneetio Washington began stabbing Eun. Springer ran for his home and dialed 911. Officers responded quickly to his call for help and when they arrived, found Boneetio inside Eun’s residence. He was apprehended without incident.

Eun had suffered multiple stab wounds and was transported to an area hospital. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done to save her life. She was pronounced dead at 11:15 pm. Her unborn son was pronounced dead at 11:18 pm.

It was not until the autopsy was performed the following day, that it was discovered that Eun was carrying twins. The second child was officially declared dead at 3:10 pm on December 9, 2009 according to Ed Winter, a spokesman for the coroner’s office.

Jim McDonnell, LAPD chief of detectives, stated:

“‘Sickening’ is the term that immediately comes to mind. This suspect had no value for the sanctity of human life for the victim or her unborn children.”

On December 17, 2009, Boneetio Kentro Washington was officially charged with three counts of capital murder with the special circumstances of multiple murders, as well as murder during a rape and murder during a burglary. He is also charged with one count of rape and one count of sexual penetration. Boneetio pleaded not guilty to all charges. The District Attorney’s office is deciding whether or not to seek the death penalty.

And what of Boneetio Washington? Boneetio has a long criminal record involving mostly petty crimes such as trespassing, vagrancy and burglary. At the time of the murder, Boneetio was on probation after pleading no contest to burglary charges in September, 2009. Boneetio’s trial in that case was delayed due to a doctor testifying that he was not mentally fit to stand trial. Boneetio was committed to Patton State Hospital from July 2009 to September 2009, when a doctor declared he was mentally capable of proceeding and Boneetio made a plea bargain.

At the time of the 2008 burglary, Boneetio Washington was already on probation for a trespassing conviction and living in a garage. Before that, he was convicted of trespassing and larceny in Rhode Island, where he was born. In 2006, he was charged with breaking and entering and assault in North Carolina.

In a twist of fate, Boneetio Washington was detained two days prior to Eun’s murder for allegedly attempting to break into a Culver City home. Culver City police say that, although Boneetio was allegedly seen trying to turn the doorknob of a home, he didn’t actually enter the house, so they could not arrest him for attempted burglary or trespassing. Lacking any probable cause, Culver City police released Boneetio. Two days later, Eun Kang and her two unborn children were dead.

California, like a lot of states, is facing severe budget crises. In particular, with the ever increasing amount of people being incarcerated, a lot of states are releasing criminals early. The majority of these convicted individuals were serving time for non-violent crimes. But every once in a while, a violent or potentially violent offender is released.

The union representing rank-and-file Los Angeles police officers says the rape and murder of Eun Kang is the kind of crime that could become more prevalent if the state releases 40,000 prison inmates under a federal mandate. The union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, quotes a statement by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, President of Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, and Eddie Jones, President of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Association:

“The alleged assailant of Ms. Kang was a former convicted felon with serious mental problems. Yet, he was released. State officials must immediately re-examine their policies on the release of convicted felons with serious mental challenges. This murder just proves again the case we have been making for months now. The budget-driven decision to provide early releases to criminals has, and will continue, to result in tragedy.”

Because the records are sealed, we do not know what prompted Boneetio Washington’s commitment to a mental facility. All we know is that a man with a history of mental illness, no close personal ties to an area and absolutely no resources was released and returned to society to roam the streets without any form of supervision.

If Boneetio Kentro Washington is found to suffer from mental illness and could not appreciate the horrific crimes which he committed, then he should be committed to the custody of a mental health facility until the time that he is capable of standing trial.

Boneetio Kentro Washington must be held accountable for his actions. He extinguished three innocent lives. Eun Kang did not know Boneetio, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This quiet, hard-working woman was just coming home after a long day at work, looking forward to relaxing. She had no idea of the horror that awaited her within the sanctity of her own home.

At the meeting with 50-year-old Hartford Distributors vice president and COO Steve Hollander, 50-year-old director of operations Louis J. Felder and the president of Teamsters Local 1035, 51-year-old Bryan Cirigliano, Omar Thornton was confronted with the evidence.

Omar Thornton was offered the choice of resigning and walking away without any consequences for his actions or being terminated by the company for theft. Without a word, he wrote out a one sentence letter of resignation. He then asked if he could get a drink of water.

Hollander and Felder escorted Thornton to a small kitchenette. In there, Thornton had left his lunch bag containing two semiautomatic pistols and a sack of extra ammo. He reached into the bag, pulled out a Ruger semi-automatic pistol and opened fire on Hollander and Felder.

Louis Felder went down immediately, shot in the head. In spite of being at point blank range, Steve Hollander was only hit in the arm and grazed along the side of his head. Even though he was still in the meeting room and could have ran for his life, Bryan Cirigliano went to the aid of his two colleagues. He too was shot and killed.

Omar Thornton then went out and searched the building for other people he felt had wronged him over the past two years. He alternately walked and ran through the warehouse, shooting at some workers, passing others by. Thornton chased two men — Victor James and Edwin Kennison — out of the warehouse, shooting them as they ran down the driveway. A witness said that as Mr. Kennison begged for his life, Thornton finished him with two rounds to his head. James was hit in the back and later died at Hartford Hospital.

Someone tried in vain to lock Omar Thornton out of the building after he chased James and Kennison into the parking lot. Thornton shot out the glass front door and let himself back in.

Douglas Scruton was investigating a noise that he had heard near the office area of the warehouse when he drove his forklift around a corner toward the loading dock, encountered Thornton and was hit by several bullets. He died on his forklift, which then went out of control and crashed into a wall, starting a small fire.

Three men — Mr. James from the parking lot, Craig Pepin and Francis Fazio Jr. — tried to warn fellow employees that Thornton had a gun and that they should flee. Thornton chased down all three and killed them.

One man, 77-year-old Jerome Rosenstein, went one step further and tried to run Omar Thornton over with a Golf Cart. Unfortunately he failed, but after a couple of rough days it appears he’s going to make it. Mr. Rosenstein is recovering from gunshot wounds at Hartford Hospital, listed in stable condition (as of August 6th, 2010).

Meanwhile, Manchester police had begun to respond to the many 911 calls that began coming in, including this chilling call from Steve Hollander.

Click Here To Hear Steve Hollander’s 911 Call

The first five officers that arrived on the scene wasted no time taking action to save lives. They immediately formed a team and made entry into the building, searching for Omar Thornton. There would be no Columbine here. Eventually they forced Thornton to retreat into the now-deserted office area, where he could no longer do any harm.

Omar Thornton found an empty office to hide in. He then decided to call 911 and let everyone know why he just killed 8 people.

Click Here To Hear Omar Thornton’s 911 Call

After informing the world that he was a martyr for The Cause, Omar S. Thornton took the coward’s way out. He put the barrel of his pistol to his head and blew his brains out.

Omar Thornton wanted everyone to believe that he was being racially harassed at his job at Hartford Distributors. Somewhere in the middle of his rampage, he called his mother to give her the news:

“I just shot the five racists who were out to get me. I took care of them, Mom,”

He complained constantly to his girlfriend, 26-year-old Kristi Hannah, that his co-workers muttered racist slurs as he walked by or scrawled racial epithets on the bathroom walls. She claims to have seen a picture of a hangman’s noose with Omar Thornton’s name written in it, and heard conversations that Thornton recorded on the sly of his supervisors making racially disparaging remarks about him, but so far, none of this information has been corroborated.

Hannah told reporters that Thornton claimed he went to company officials with his evidence, but nothing was ever done about it. He said the same thing happened when he asked the union for help in dealing with his issues. Both the Union and Hartford Distributor officials say that Thornton never complained about racial harassment, and if he had, it would have been taken very seriously.

According to public records, Omar Thornton had a pattern of switching jobs every couple of years. He also declared Bankruptcy when he was age 24, and was still under the gun financially at the present time. Ironically, on the afternoon of the shootings, a bill collector called Kristi Hannah’s house about one of Thornton’s unpaid debts.

Omar Thornton also had a pattern of complaining about racism at the workplace. He told his family, his girlfriend, anyone who would listen how the racists wouldn’t leave him alone and let him live his life. It was no different at Hartford Distributors.

Omar Thornton left a string of victims in his wake. But they were more than that, they were human beings. They were husbands, fathers, brothers, sons. They were sports fans, and loved football or baseball, and the Yankees or the Red Sox. They liked to eat Chinese food, and good barbecue ribs, and Italian pasta.

They were people.

From The New York Times:

Margaret Hudson of South Windsor, Conn., gave voice to a pang felt by many who knew these men as she gestured toward Craig A. Pepin’s nearby house and said, “You can already feel the emptiness of the neighborhood.”

Mr. Pepin, who was 60, had driven beer trucks for three decades. But he was better known in South Windsor, his hometown, as a coach of youth sports.

“He was a father to every kid in South Windsor,” said another neighbor, Pat Wardwell, as Mr. Pepin’s front yard filled with teenagers and young adults who had once been his charges on the town’s ball fields.

In Stamford, Louis J. Felder, a 50-year-old father of three, had been vocal in rooting for his daughter’s basketball team. Mr. Felder was the only member of the company’s management team among those killed. His computer-based systems for managing inventories in warehouses proved so popular with the owners of Hartford Distributors that they hired him as director of operations, according to Reuben Askowitz, a longtime friend who was in Mr. Felder’s wedding party.

Once, when Mr. Felder’s vehicle blew a gasket on the two-hour commute from Stamford to Manchester, the Hollander family, the owners of Hartford Distributors, handed him the keys to a nearly new Audi A8 sedan to replace his damaged heap, Mr. Askowitz recalled.

But the tale most cherished was the one about a young Mr. Felder, who saw his father trapped under a car when a jack gave way. Mr. Felder, still a teenager, but a big one, lifted the car, saving his father from being crushed, Mr. Askowitz recounted.

“That’s why people say he’s Superman,” Mr. Askowitz said. After that feat, he said, who would have imagined that the elder Mr. Felder would attend his son’s funeral.

Mr. Felder’s father was among hundreds who attended his funeral at Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford on Wednesday.

His brother, best friend and three teenage children described him as a man of large proportions. He was not just large physically; he was gregarious, fiercely competitive and always in charge, they said.

“He was always pushing me to be better, which he always did out of love,” said Joel Felder, his brother. “Even when he knocked me out.”

The others included Bryan Cirigliano, a rugged former driver who was the shop steward at Hartford Distributors and the president of the Teamsters local representing more than 100 workers there. Mr. Cirigliano had escorted Mr. Thornton to the meeting with the managers, a role he had played, formally and informally, many times, according to John Hollis, who preceded him as president of the local.

Whenever Mr. Cirigliano, whose father and brother had both worked for the company, heard a manager dressing down one of his members, he would intervene, Mr. Hollis said.

“He would immediately stand between the employer and employee and get them to take that issue elsewhere,” he said. “He was very outspoken and very, very sensitive to, as he called them, his union brothers.”

Other victims had been contemplating their retirement from the beer business. Victor James, 60, was planning to quit early next year.

Douglas Scruton, 56, had two years to go before he could leave with 30 years under his belt, said Gary Hoffman, his brother-in-law.

Jerome Rosenstein, 77, who was wounded and was in critical condition Wednesday at Hartford Hospital, was a salesman whose retirement was imminent.

Mr. Scruton, who was operating a forklift in the warehouse when he was fatally shot, was so eager to get away that he and his wife had already moved to a house in New Hampshire, where he lived on weekends. During the week, he stayed with a friend in Manchester, Mr. Hoffmann said.

But wherever he lived, Mr. Scruton was a rabid fan of the University of Connecticut sports teams, as well as the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots, Mr. Hoffman said. He even had a room dedicated to watching sports in his house; Mr. Hoffman dubbed it the Doug-out.

Mr. Scruton was such a fanatic, Mr. Hoffman said, that he would “buy four or five papers each day and just read the sports section and throw the rest away.”

Mr. Hoffman said that Mr. Scruton would not have been party to any of the racial discrimination that Mr. Thornton, who was black, complained to friends about.

“Dougie’s color-blind,” Mr. Hoffman said. “He could never do a racial thing.”

Francis Fazio, another victim, did not live in the suburbs east of Hartford, but about 40 miles away from the warehouse in Bristol, Conn.

Mr. Hollis, the former president of the local, said that the only sports Mr. Fazio talked about at work involved his son.

Beer ran through Mr. Fazio’s connection to Bristol’s mayor, Arthur Ward. Mr. Ward once was a salesman for another beverage distributor and his brother-in-law works for Hartford Distributors, he said.

“He’s a very personable guy, very easy to get to know — in fact, a person you wanted to know,” Mr. Ward said.

For Edwin Kennison Jr., another victim, who lived in a top-floor apartment in East Hartford, the sports passion was attached to the New York Yankees.

A neighbor, Donna Plenzio, said she had told Mr. Kennison, 49: “I don’t even need to watch the games. I know what’s happening just from the noises you make.”

Mr. Kennison, who had a 13-year-old daughter, had intended to get a 2010 Yankees tattoo to add to the two he already had.

Like Mr. Kennison, another of the victims, William C. Ackerman, 51, had an imposing figure that masked a gentle nature, according to Mark Sullivan, who described himself as Mr. Ackerman’s lifelong best friend.

“He would give you his last two cents and the shirt off his back,” Mr. Sullivan said.

“He was a big dude, he was a tough dude, but he was mashed potatoes inside.”

As for the Hollanders, who own Hartford Distributors, they are well known as one of the most philanthropic families in Connecticut. It is common knowledge that they have never turned away an organization that has come to them for help. They run Hartford Distributors like a family – most people work there for thirty years and retire. As far as I can tell there has never been a complaint lodged against their company for any type of discrimination.

OK, now I need to make something perfectly clear here, for the sake of 8 dead men whose reputations have been smeared across the country by a psychopath and his family. Omar Thornton did not murder any of these men because they were racists. He murdered these men because he was a thief and he got caught, and he was about to be exposed as a liar to his family and his girlfriend.

First of all, does it make sense that Hartford Distributors would offer Omar Thornton a chance to resign, even though they had video showing him stealing beer off the delivery trucks. If they were racists, wouldn’t they want to fire him for theft and ruin his chances of ever getting another truck driving job?

Omar said several times he shot the five racists that were bothering him, men who were all at 50-years-old or older. It seemed strange to me that men who were far above his age group would harass Omar by calling him names whenever the passed him by in a hallway, or by drawing racist cartoons on the bathroom stalls, while people he worked with directly, and were closer to Omar’s own age of 34 never did.

Omar Thornton shot three of his victims strictly because they were warning other employees and potential victims that he had a gun and was hunting people down. How does that fall under the category of “handling the racial problem” Omar?

Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow had this to say about Omar Thornton’s rampage:

His uncle says that when he called his mother after the shootings he talked about having killed the “five racists” who were bothering him.

Well, nine people are dead, not five, and not a single one of them lost his life because somebody called Omar Thornton a vicious name or drew a hateful picture.

Frankly, more ominous than his family’s reports of racial bias against Omar Thornton are questions that should be asked about whether he may have been suspicious of others to the point of paranoia, along with company reports that he was being fired for stealing beer.

In other words, Omar Thornton’s killing spree had nothing to do with racism. His victims were not racist who somehow asked for their fate, as some columnists I have read suggested. Hartford Distributors is not a den of racism where men like Omar Thornton are bred.

No, in my opinion, Omar Thornton’s rampage was the culmination of a life of failing to meet responsibilities, whether they were financial or personal. He was the baby of his family, and, as you can see from the videos, bay him they did (and still do). He always selected weak women who wouldn’t question his stories of mistreatment, and the stories always explained the jumps from job to job.

Omar Thornton must have had a good idea what this meeting was going to be about, so he went prepared, arming himself with two 9MM Ruger SR9 semi-automatic handguns and plenty of extra ammunition. If the company fired him, he wasn’t going out with his tail between his legs. He’d make them pay. And the best part was he’d end up looking like the real victim, if he had trained his family and his girlfriend right.

To be fair, Omar Thornton’s mother has taken charge of the immediate family and announced that any further statements will come directly from her. Since then, there has been silence. I applaud her for that, and hope this is a sign that cooler heads are now in charge.

Finally, I cannot praise the Manchester, CT, Police Department enough for their response to this tragedy. Within 15 Minutes of receiving the first 911 call, there were three teams of officers inside the warehouse. The first group, which was hunting for the gunman, and two rescue teams. In my opinion, they were instrumental in preventing the death toll from ending up much higher.

On a side note, police have approached Kristi Hannah and asked her to look at a video of Omar Thornton transferring beer from his delivery truck to a woman’s car. This is the same video that Hartford Distributors officials showed to Thornton before asking for his resignation.

They asked her to come down to the station and see if she could identify the women in question. Her immediate reaction was to ask, “Is she blond?”, after which she told them she would watch the video on TV when it was released to the public.

The woman in the video is allegedly Christy Quail, 33, who was picked up by cops and charged with 2 counts of 6th degree larceny. I just found it strange that Kristi Hannah wanted to know if she was blond, since Hannah herself is blond. Just saying.

What Omar Thornton did was disgraceful and cowardly, but the things people like Kristi Hannah, Omar’s Uncle, Kristi’s son Ryan Hannah, Omar’s Daughter, and several other of his supporters said in the days following the massacre were unconscionable. They showed absolute no respect for the victims or their families, using the excuse “well we’re mourning too” to justify their actions.

I would like to remind Omar Thornton’s supporters of Karma, and how evil deeds have a tendency to come back and bite you later in life. I am a firm believer in, “What goes around, comes around”, and I don’t envy them when these past few days comes around on them.

For the last few hours I’ve been mulling Randel’s story over in my head while drinking an excellent vodka mixed with frozen lemonade concentrate. Just the thing after mowing the lawn.

The lemonade. Not Mr. Richardson.

Randel Eudean Richardson is a married man. He’s married to Kari Richardson. Kari had a statement that she gave to the press yesterday. Would you like to see it?

According to Kari Richardson:

He would never hurt anyone if he was in his right mind. My husband is a good person and a good man. His mental illness has taken him away from me.

Since May, Randel Richardson has been on leave from his job at Cargill, while dealing with mental issues. According to Kari, Randel has been struggling with a ‘debilitating mental illness’ for several months.

On the 28th of July, 2010, Randel tried to go back to work for a day. It didn’t work out.

On the afternoon of the 31st of July, 2010, Kari and her mother went grocery shopping.

Presumably, because I just don’t know at this point, before his wife left the house, Randel appeared to be fully capable of watching Rowan Richardson, his and Kari’s 6-month-old son. But, because this is “People You’ll See In Hell,” instead of “People You’d Love To Throw Into A Pool Of Happy Puppies,” you may be getting an idea of what happened to little Rowan.

There was a phone conversation between Kari and Randel as she was shopping. We don’t know yet what was discussed, but I’m pretty sure it went further than how the weather was on that particular day.

We do know that Randel Richardson, after he had finished the phone call, went down the stairs to the laundry tub. He then filled it about half-way with cold water.

That task done, Randel Richardson took Rowan, his 6-month-old son in his arms and proceeded to hold Rowan down in the tub with his face under the water.

We will probably never know what Randel said while he was doing this, if indeed he said anything at all while he held his struggling son under water. I’m not even sure we’d really want to know, other than to satisfy some idle curiosity. I’d like to think that in the best-case scenario that Randel might have said that he was sorry, but that he had to do it anyway. I’d like to think that the horror of the scene was at least slightly mitigated by a father’s love for his boy. I’d like that.

Rowan died, as babies do when they get into death matches with grown men. Randel left his son’s limp body in the laundry tub and went back upstairs to wait.

Kari Richardson arrived home with her mother at about 5:30 in the afternoon. She asked Randel where her son was. Randel told her that Rowan was downstairs.

Police received an emergency phone call at about 5:34. First responders gave Rowan CPR, which sprayed water out of the infant’s mouth with every compression. The emergency personnel were distracted somewhat by Kari repeatedly screaming, “He killed my baby!”

Police, however, were present to hear Randel Richardson, who was sitting on the couch, state:

I did this on purpose.

Randel Richardson has been charged with one count of first-degree murder.

I am unsure of the hellworthiness of Randel Richardson. It may just be the vodka talking. You decide. I’m done with this.
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With her husband working as a computer technician, Saiqa Akhter was able to spend her days taking care of her two children – 5-year-old Zain Akhter and 2-year-old Faryaal Akhter.

Like many women who have birthed themselves a couple of babies only wish they could do, Saiqa was living the dream of being a stay-at-home mom, sort of a “I am my kids’ mom” kind of gal.

Oh, there was some stress. Life in the Akhter household wasn’t all happiness and light.

Zain was showing signs of being autistic, which as anybody who has experience with autism will tell you, can be a hard thing for people to deal with. Despite the fact that there is help available for families with autistic children, dealing with a special needs child can be a handful.

At some point on the 19th of July, 2010, Saiqa Akhter decided she didn’t need the hassle of being a parent to Zain – or to Faryaal, for that matter. Saiqa wanted normal kids. A handful of hassle was too much, and the two-year-old might turn out to be autistic as well, so she had to go too.

Yes, Saiqa decided that just killing the little buggers would be a better idea than…well just about anything, really. Killing Zain and Faryaal, Saiqa figured, would definitely make things a little less stressful and make life’s everyday little hurdles a little easier to deal with.

So that’s what Saiqa did.

It took her a while to figure out how to kill her children, but Saiqa did it. After the kids refused to drink the bathroom cleaner that their mommy insisted that they drink, Saiqa took the more direct approach and just strangled the kids with some wire.

Then Saiqa called 911 and told them all about it.

Police arrived at the Akhter household to find Saiqa washing her hands and the two children lying on a bed. Zain was dead, and Faryaal died the next day.

According to Richard Franklin, a premier ballerina and one of two court-appointed attorneys representing Akhter:

She’s obviously scared, and she’s from a different culture and doesn’t really understand our system very well.

I’d like to address Mr. Richard Franklin’s points one by one, if I may.

She’s obviously scared – Fair enough. She’s in jail, under suicide watch, which means she’s probably naked. Saiqa Akhter is likely feeling a bit exposed and a bit vulnerable. You know, vulnerable like a 5-year-old being strangled to death by his mother. Or vulnerable like a 2-year-old being choked by an antenna wire by the same person who probably dressed her that morning.

She’s from a different culture – Yes, Saiqa Akhter and her husband, Rashid Akhter, emigrated from Pakistan back in the 1990′s. Pakistan is a wild and crazy place, full of interesting and primitive practices. We’re fairly sure that the wise and far-sighted people running our immigration department at least hand out pamphlets detailing the restrictions for parents who are seriously considering the idea of strangling their children to death. Maybe the pamphlet rack by the door was empty that day and Saiqa Akhter didn’t get the chance to pick one up and read it on the way home, but really…is there any culture that broadly holds the position that this kind of thing is ok?

She doesn’t really understand our system very well – And why should she? It’s not as if Saiqa Akhter is going to have any real consequences for wrapping a wire around the neck of each of her children on the 19th of July. She’ll be incarcerated during her trial, at which her public defender will plead temporary insanity brought on by post-partum depression or some other such nonsense. The jury, consisting of people too stupid to get out of jury duty and anxious to get back to their daytime TV, will inevitably succumb to her tragic story and sentence Saiqa to stay in a mental hospital until she gets better.

Do you disagree? Do you think that in this instance, the murdering mother will admit what she did was wrong and that she should pay for it?

Not a chance!

How do I know this? Well, Richard Franklin – bless his little heart – also stated to the press, while swirling a ribbon about his manly chest and twirling in a tight pirouette:

We’re going to wait and see how what plays out. There’s a lot of information that doesn’t look good, but by the same token, she seems to have mental health issues.

And, as Richard Franklin did the splits, came down to the ground and placed his head on a leopard’s lap, he told reporters that in other cases where mothers have killed their children:

…the mothers were having some sort of mental stress that lessened their culpability, and some of them wound up in mental institutions instead of prison.

It all makes sense to someone, I suppose.
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I have, however, never considered breaking into someone else’s property and certainly would rather starve myself than kill another person.

On June 23, 2008 Daniel Sonnex, 23, from Deptford, South London, must have found himself in such an emergency situation, although one may suspect it was more the cravings for drugs that drove him and not the need of necessities. He broke into an apartment in South East London that was rented by 23-year-old Laurent Bonomo, one of two French students who had been awarded biochemistry scholarships in the U.K. “Dano” managed to steal a laptop that morning, while Bonomo was taking a shower.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Duthie, who was leading the investigation, said:

“A black Packard Bell laptop was taken during a burglary that took place between 5am and 6am on the morning of June 23. Someone entered the living room of 12 Sterling Gardens and stole the computer. Bonomo said he was in the shower when he heard a suspicious noise. He found the window of his living room forced open and his laptop was stolen.”

However, the earnings these items brought Daniel Sonnex did not last very long, so he returned to Bonomo’s flat six days later. This time he took his friend, homeless drug addict Nigel Farmer, 33.

High on a mix of alcohol, pot, cocaine and XTC, the two men had first attempted to break into the home of EastEnders (a popular soap in the UK) actress Laila Morse earlier that night, but then remembered Bonomo’s residence.

It’s not clear if Nigel Farmer and Daniel Sonnex used a key Dano could have stolen during the first robbery, but somehow they managed to enter the flat without leaving any signs of forced entry and surprised both Laurent and fellow scholar, Gabriel Ferez, who had been spending the night on Bonomo’s settee, while the two students were sound asleep.

What happened next must have been of unthinkable cruelty. The level of violence has led to speculation that the killers were also on crack cocaine when the bio-chemistry students were slaughtered.

Crispin Aylett QC (Queen’s Court), prosecuting attorney, said:

“They must have thought that all they had to do was co-operate while the burglars helped themselves to what they wanted and it would soon all be over. Whatever the burglars may have had in mind, the young men could not, for a moment, have anticipated that they would then be subjected to such an attack – otherwise, you may think, they would have fought for their lives …”

Bonomo and Ferez were tied up and tortured for more than two hours. Describing the ‘almost unimaginable horror’, prosecuting attorney Aylett said:

‘The two men, dressed only in their underpants, were tied up. They were bound at the ankles and wrists.

‘Their heads were wrapped in towels or cloths and they were subjected to an attack of brutal and sustained ferocity.’

Nigel Farmer and Daniel Sonnex started out by torturing Bonomo with knives for his bank card PIN numbers, which he gave them without much resistance. Farmer then kept them captive while Sonnex left the flat to get money out of the ATM. He returned with a few hundred pounds taken from Bonomo’s account. Farmer then handed Ferez’s bank card and PIN number to his buddy Dano who headed out again to clean out Ferez’s account.

While he was babysitting his hostages, Farmer phoned Sonnex’s brother Bernie.

Bernie overheard Nigel Farmer at the other end of the line, “screaming, ranting and raving”, and telling someone to, “Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll cut your hand off.”

For one reason or the other, Sonnex was too stupid or too high to remember Ferez’s PIN number and the card was swallowed by the machine. OK fair enough, you messed up, now go back, apologize and take off with what you have. Nah, not our smart Dano boy- Dano got very angry with himself, he possibly kicked the bank machine in an attempt to hurt someone else for his stupidity…then Dano headed back to the flat to “take revenge”.

Upon his arrival back at the flat, Daniel Sonnex immediately began stabbing both students repeatedly. Bonomo was stabbed 196 times. Think about that. Daniel Sonnex stabbed Laurent Bonomo one hundred and ninety-six times.

Go get a butter knife and a pillow. Now stab the pillow with the butter knife 196 times, as hard as you can. Count it out – 1, 2, 3, 4…..25, 26, 27…..56, 57, 58…..77, 78, 79…..104, 105, 106…..129, 130, 131…..149, 150, 151…..170, 171, 172…..194, 195, 196.

Wooh, that’s a lot of work, isn’t it?

Later, during the trial, the jury heard sickening detail of how Mr. Bonomo tried to defend himself with his hands during the ‘prolonged, determined and very violent attack’ in which he was stabbed in the head, skull, face, neck, back, chest, stomach and thighs.

He “just would not die”, Farmer told a friend afterward. He was stabbed in the head seven times, and four of the wounds penetrated the full thickness of the skull. One theory is that Sonnex and Farmer forced Mr. Ferez, who was stabbed 50 times, to watch Mr Bonomo being tortured. The prosecution said the students were eventually killed at about 8AM.

Sonnex and Farmer then fled the scene with just 360 pounds, two mobile phones and two handheld Sony PSP computer game consoles. Farmer allegedly went back at 10pm and set fire to the flat – badly burning his own face and hands in the process.

A week after the incident, when police issued an composite drawing of the suspect, Farmer walked into a police station and turned himself in.

But the receptionist “did not know what to make of it” and he was asked to wait in line. Farmer then walked up to the booths and said ‘I’ve just killed two fucking people and the police don’t fucking want to do anything about it’ – after which he was led away by an officer.

Sonnex is claiming that he only acted as a lookout for the burglary, and that “a friend” handed him the bank cards from the window and he then went to the cash machines. However, as the jury was told, Sonnex’s palm print was found inside the flat.

During his opening statement, the prosecuting attorney told the court:

“This was a joint venture from the time that Nigel Farmer and Dano Sonnex went out on to the street looking for somewhere to burgle, a joint enterprise, you may think, of unmitigated evil.

Aylett also told the jury they would have to “brace themselves” for the photos of the crime scene. Although the attacks might appear to have been carried out by “psychopaths”, neither of the accused had suffered from significant mental illness. The court was shown CCTV footage of the two accused together on the day of the murders.

On June 4th, 2009, Nigel Edward Farmer And Daniel “Dano” Sonnex were convicted of murder, false imprisonment and arson.

On June 5th, 2009, both defendants were given life sentences; Daniel Sonnex was jailed for a minimum of 40 years for the murders and Nigel Farmer was jailed for a minimum term of 35 years.

To View Gabriel Ferez’s Mother’s Victim Impact Statement, Click Here.

To View Laurent Bonomo’s Father’s Victim Impact Statement, Click Here.

Editor’s notes: Looks like the United Kingdom suffers from many of the same problem with their justice system as we do here in the United States. Overcrowded Prisons, overworked probation officers, dangerous prisoners accidentally released early, a police department so overwhelmed by red tape that they no longer can do their primary jobs of arresting criminals.

This case is a perfect example of of what I’m talking about. Daniel Sonnex, who was serving an 8 year sentence for for a series of violent robberies and stabbing a teenager, was released early and under limited supervision because he was not classified as a high risk dangerous offender.

Some of the reasons this happened boggle the mind. From the British online newspaper The Telegraph:

At one meeting to discuss his release, not all the available documents were presented because an office printer was broken, probation chiefs admitted. Further meetings inexplicably failed to take place and he returned to the streets under limited supervision.

Only two days after being set free he held a pregnant relative and her boyfriend captive at knifepoint, demanding money for drugs. The relative refused to press charges, and his probation officer, a woman with just nine months experience in the job, only gave him a formal warning, instead of violating him on the spot.

This chart, which was published in the British newspaper The Telegraph, covers all the errors made by British authorities while handling Daniel Sonnex’s release from prison:

The excuses that were repeated over and over always involved understaffed government agencies. So, you may ask, why aren’t we hiring more probation officers and policeman. “There’s no money for that,” is always the answer. But why is there always a few 100 billion dollars lying around whenever a banking industry or an automobile industry need a government bailout?

I can name dozens of cases just like this one from the crime annals of the United States – we all can. The fact that it continues to happen to this day has to make us wonder if we are the only people who care.

This Story Was Written And Submitted By PinkFlower. Super job for a first effort, especially considering English is not her first language. She is German and living in the United Kingdom. I admire the hell out of her for submitting a story in a second language, and doing it well. I have a hard enough time doing a story in English as my first language, I don’t think I’m brave enough to try what PinkFlower did.

Rollon Marko had a girlfriend. Her name was Courtney DeLano. At approximately 3AM on the night of May 22nd, 2010, Marko put a bullet in the chest of the 19-year-old woman, mortally wounding her. She would die a few hours later at Bronson Hospital in Portage, Michigan.

No one really knows why Rollon Marko shot Courtney Delano. According to Donald Morgan, a 51-year-old truck driver and neighbor of Marko and DeLano, he heard two people arguing loudly in the parking lot just before the shooting:

“There was just a bunch of yelling and screaming, like they were fighting over something. I don’t know what the fight was about.”

A few minutes later, there was a loud pop, followed by by the sounds of Rollon Marko running in the hallway banging on doors and yelling:

“Where’s the ambulance? Where’s the ambulance? She’s dying!”

In spite of the witness statements, Rollon Marko tried to say it was an accident, first telling detectives he was cleaning the pistol when it suddenly went off, then, in the same interview claiming the shot that killed Courtney DeLano was fired as he was putting the gun back in its box.

As it turned out, Rolland Marko should have saved his breath. A forensic laboratory sergeant with the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office, James Dunlop, testified at Marko’s preliminary hearing and said that he abused Marko’s Smith And Wesson 40-caliber double-action handgun three ways to Sunday and couldn’t get it to go bang. Dunlop also told the court he found that the pistol’s trigger required 11 to 11.5 pounds of pressure to discharge – a “long, deliberate pull,” according to the weapons expert.

Kalamazoo County District Judge Robert C. Kropf said he gave great weight to Dunlop’s testimony in deciding to bind over 27-year-old Rollon Michael Marko for trial on charges of open murder (whatever that is), committing an assault of a pregnant individual intentionally causing miscarriage or stillbirth, and two counts of felony use of a firearm.

“I do not find the weapon was accidentally discharged,” Kropf said after listening to about 90 minutes of testimony. When Rollon Marko heard Judge Kropf’s decision, his response was more proof of just how arrogant this little prick is:

“But I thought I was being charged with involuntary manslaughter?”

Not exactly the brightest bulb on the line, is he?

So now we wait for Rollon Marko to go to trial. I have a bad feeling that this one is going to wind up being settled in a plea deal – that seems to be the usual result in cases where the murder happened in private and there are no witnesses except the defendant.

I hope not.

But there so much more to this story, so much more I need to tell you, about how Rolland Marko beat Courtney DeLano over and over again, about how she would have him arrested, only to refuse to testify against him on the most serious charges, over and over again. And about how she would leave him only to return in a day or two, over and over again.

Believe it or not, Rollon Marko was in court the day before the shooting happened. He was being sentenced for charges that resulted from a domestic violence incident in April where he assaulted Courtney DeLano and threatened a police officer with a knife.

The assault charge, however, was dropped in a plea deal because Courtney DeLano didn’t want to cooperate in prosecuting Marko. Without her testimony, prosecutors said the case against him lacked the evidence that would have been needed for a conviction.

This was Courtney DeLano’s typical reaction to Rollon Marko’s abusive behavior. She would have him arrested, then refuse to prosecute. She would leave him, only to return a few days later.

During a previous incident, Rollon Marko shoved Courtney DeLano and kicked her in the chest after a dog urinated on him. He also threatened to kill her. Another time, Marko slapped DeLano in front of her friends.

John Dyer, Courtney DeLano’s grandfather, spoke of the couple’s troubled relationship:

“He’s hit her. He’s blackened her eyes. He’s choked her.”

“She said she would (break off the relationship with Rollon Marko), and then she’d go back,” Dyer said. “I believe that (the police) should’ve at least kept him away from her some how, some way, even though she didn’t want it that way.”

Daniell Reynolds, Courtney DeLano’s mother, could read the handwriting on the wall months before her daughter’s murder.

“I looked at my friend and I said, ‘he’s gonna kill her and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

If it sounds like I’m being a little hard on the victim, Courtney DeLano, well, I am. I chose to be tough because there are a lot of women out there who find themselves in relationships just like this one. Women who are abused on a regular basis and don’t get out in spite of the many cases just like Courtney’s, because they just can’t live without a man who punches and kicks and slaps them, and threatens their lives.

I did it to remind those women that even if they don’t care about themselves, there are family and friends who always get left behind to grieve for them. Take, for instance, Daniell Reynolds and her experience after Courtney DeLano’s death:

After Saturday’s shooting, Reynolds went to the hospital. But it was too late, DeLano and her unborn son, who she’d already named Logan, had already died. Reynolds was only allowed to touch her daughter’s hand. DeLano’s body, she was told, was a crime scene.

“I just wanted to hold her,” Reynolds said while wiping tears from her face. “I just wanted to touch her hair. I couldn’t even kiss her forehead. I couldn’t touch her.”

Those same friends and family members tend to blame themselves for not doing more to keep their loved one safe. They punish themselves for not confronting the abuser, or forcibly keeping the abused person away from him. Again, here’s Daniell Reynolds, Courtney’s mom:

“She loved him. She loved him so much. (If I intervene) then she rebels and he gets all of her.”

But mostly I did it so these women who think they can’t live without their abusive partner will wake up and realize that there’s a much better chance they won’t live very long with him. Sadly, it’s too late for Courtney DeLano, but it’s not too late for them.

Note: I realize that there are many abused women who stay in their relationships strictly out of fear. They have been so thoroughly broken by their abuser that they no longer have a will of their own, and can’t break free no matter how much they want to. This story is not for them. I don’t wish to be accused of being insensitive to the plight of these ladies, so I felt the need to clarify things for everyone.