Deadly Desperation

By Robin Caldwell

She had known him for two months when she allowed him to move into the rented house she shared with her two small children. On the surface, he was everything she ever hoped for, and everything she felt she needed. He was handsome and charming, which accounted for the initial attraction. Only God knows what else connected her to this man, but with a little imagination we could figure it out.

The police were dispatched to the woman’s house; responding to a call from worried co‑workers. Unfortunately, the landlord opened the door, and that’s when she was discovered dead – murdered by the man she met two months earlier. She was a registered nurse and the mother of two small children robbed of continued service and the love of her kids. With the same gun he used to murder her, he delivered another fatal shot, and killed himself.

I have seen a lot of murders like this in my life. One Sunday morning as a child I was awakened to the news that my beloved babysitter, Mary, had been shot and killed by her husband who had also killed himself. A few years later, I would learn that my cousin’s best friend’s dismembered body was found buried in the front yard of the home she shared with her husband – her murderer. There was Kelly, a high school acquaintance who was killed by a jealous ex-boyfriend. Karen, my buddy from middle school, was found dead and stuffed in the trunk of her Mercedes-Benz; her live-in boyfriend was the murderer. And, I recently learned that Joyce, a former neighbor, was strangled to death by the boyfriend she told me was the love of her life.

This latest murder, however, has me really scared and concerned. I am not scared about the possibility of some man killing me or any of my girlfriends. Nope, I’m more scared and concerned about the choices we make as women, especially the choices we make out of desperation that can prove to be deadly to both the body and/or the spirit.