SUDDEN PASSIONS
An eye for an eye? So passe. We know better now. Sometimes people who are
possessed by sudden passions they kill their spouse or beat a child to death.
Forgive and forget. Just keep it in the family.
Texas jurors found Jimmy Watkins guilty of murdering his wife, but believed
that he acted in “sudden passion” and thus sentenced him only to probation.
Watkins encountered his wife, Nancy, and her lover, Keith Fontenot, at his
home. After wounding his wife, he shot her lover. He drove away, thinking
he was out of ammo. He then realized he had a few bullets left and, his
sudden passion not yet having subsided, returned to the house to shoot his
wife to death as she tried to call 911.
We’re delighted by this verdict. Here at the Outrage we’re kinda prone to
sudden passions, but we hadn’t realized that they gave us the right to off
unfaithful girlfriends or lovers. Cool. We wonder if sudden passion also
applies at work? Troublesome customer? Bang, bang, end of problem. Argument
with your boss? – just keep enough ammo on hand. (But make sure the piece
is licensed – killing is one thing, but using an unregistered weapon could
get you in some real trouble.)
There are some problems with killing adults, even in sudden passion –
sometimes they shoot back. If you’re feeling angry, better to beat up a
completely defenseless child. As for the people who think that knowingly
injuring a child, especially your own child, is an act that only a subhuman
could commit – hey baby, get with the times.
Nichole Ketchum and her boyfriend Larry Gathers beat Ketchum’s 2-year-old
child, Lesshayvia, to death. In addition to bruises from being hit and/or
kicked, the child had burn marks at the time of her death. According to
Stafford County, Virginia prosecutor Eric Olsen “This child just suffered
horribly.”
As the result of a plea bargain, Ketchum will serve six months in jail –
Gathers got 3 years. We’re really surprised they’re having to serve any
time at all – all they did was torture and kill a child. It’s not like they
committed some really serious crime, like writing sexually suggestive emails
at work. (Careful – even in a sudden passion, you can still get hammered for
crimes against humanity – sexual harassment, tax evasion, that sort of thing.)
What kind of environment did this child spend her only 2 years in? There
were six adults living in a trailer in the aptly named “Paradise Estates”
trailer park. Larry Gathers’ brother, Donte, was one of the six. In a
separate incident, Donte Gathers was charged in August with severely
injuring his 33 day-old child.
Nichole Ketchum, mother of the dead child, was not in that trailer the day
her daughter died. She was in the hospital, bringing a new life into the
world. The father is Larry Gathers, her accomplice in the death of her
first daughter. The new baby’s uncle is Donte Gathers, who almost killed his
own child. Welcome to the family.
Rageback:
Should sudden passions be taken into account when criminals are sentenced?
What is the appropriate sentence for a man or woman who kills an unfaithful
spouse? What should the sentence be for someone who kills their own child?
