Divorce Plays a Part in Several Violent Episodes
Divorce has a way of heightening emotional stress. Often people in the midst of divorce act as a result of their passions, rather than reason. And in a few situations, the result of stress and anger is extreme violence.
Two of these stories have emerged from across the U.S. this week. One story out of Chicago ended in tragedy, as an estranged husband ended his own life and those of family members.
In another story out of Atlanta, a husband and stepfather is still on the run after a mother and daughter were found slain.
The story out of Chicago began when the estranged husband, who was upset about a potential divorce, told the children at his wife’s home to go upstairs before doing the unthinkable: he shot his wife and a friend of hers in the kitchen, then moved to the bedroom and shot himself.
The three deaths came in the late evening. The husband had gone down into the basement of his estranged wife’s house and told the group of children, all under 12 years old, spending time there to go upstairs. They did not witness the shootings.
The gunman did not live at the house. He was angry, apparently, over the break-up with his wife and the divorce that was to follow. It was unclear if the wife and her friend, who was male, were in a romantic relationship. They each suffered a gunshot wound to the head, while the husband suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and to the head, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The three remain unidentified. The gunman had no history of domestic violence, and he didn’t appear to have left a note. The incident occurred on Chicago’s Southwest Side.
In Atlanta, a man who had recently been served divorce papers is a suspect in the murder of his wife Lynnale Baker and her 19-year-old daughter ShaeLinda Sanders. Kenneth Baker is currently at-large, with police searching for him. He is considered by law enforcement to be armed and dangerous, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Friends of the victims remember them as being well-loved. “She was an angel,” said Julia Pattillo about Lynnale Baker. “She was like a second mother to me. She always made it known that no matter how down you were about yourself, you were beautiful.”
Sanders would have graduated from high school this month. “She had a very big heart,” Pattillo said of her friend. “We could go to Wal-Mart and she would make it the funnest place on earth.”
After 1 p.m. on the day of the shooting, Kenneth Baker himself called 911 to tell police what he had done. “He told a relative he had killed his wife and stepdaughter,” said Griffin police chief Frank Strickland. Officers arrived at the home to find the women slain.
A week before, Lynnale had served her husband with divorce papers. Trouble had been brewing long before that, however. “He and (Sanders’) mother were always fighting,” said a classmate of ShaeLinda’s. “When they did, she would have to find somebody to talk to.”
Police retrieved Kenneth Baker’s 12-year-old son from school, and he is now in protective custody.
