Woman allegedly laced husband's steroids with antifreeze

Trying not to indulge in stereotyping... but... why was the victim using steroids? They are illegal, and they are known to cause serious damage to the internal organs when used repeatedly over time. In addition, there is for some users the problem of "roid rage" (see http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Roid+Rage). Not all users of anabolic steroids have these episodes, only some. But that is like saying not everyone who has a closetful of yellow-cake enriched uranium is going to peddle it to some third-world nutcase seeking to build a nuke and use it to extort his neighbors, but gee-- all it takes is one!

So it's possible this guy was an abusive a$$hole who was terrorizing his wife. Look at her picture -- not the face of a stone-cold killer, IMJ, but still, anyone can be guilty or pre-meditated, cold-blooded murder and just not *look* like it -- but still, she does look a whole lot more like a very unhappy, heavily stressed individual who has not acquired that state just recently, too.

But the way she killed him on its face shows she was not in imminent danger of being killed/assaulted. After all, how can he juice up *and* do something violent toward her at the same time? Well if the one thing (juicing) clearly entails the next thing (beating her up), it can be said that in so doing what she did, she timed her act of self-defense to coincide with the exact time he next did something that they *both* knew would lead to her being attacked. That may be a fair argument to make around self-defense; it's been used many times by wise strategists to come up with ways to cause the foe's very initiation of an attack to lead inexorably to his defeat. Classic example: Damage bridge supports but camouflage it, then wait on the other side for the enemy to come running over it as you feign unintended lateness to your position, thus seeming to lose your chance to destroy the bridge. The enemy figures the day is his, and as he is half, 3/4 of the way across, down goes the bridge. His very act of attacking led directly to his defeat.

But there's this one problem: Why was she still there? As many have pointed out, the weakness in the "Battered Woman Defense" is that there are many resources available to DV victims (FEMALE ONES ONLY, of course) for them to utilize to get away from abusive husbands, boyfriends, etc. So why the hell didn't she pick up and leave a long time ago?

I am aware of the dynamics of the abused and abuser, etc., the psychology of control and submission, the concept of the masochistic personality that doesn't choose to be masochistic but is anyway, and thus a victim of its own messed-up psyche as well as that of an abusive nutcase. In true consensual dominance/submissive ("dom/sub") or in sado-masochistic relationships, the sub/masochist remains in control of what degree of dominance/bondage/pain/etc. they receive because they know their own boundaries and can and do assert them when crossed, respect and accept themselves, and know what they want from the relationship. They involve themselves only with doms/sadists who are likewise respecting of the sub/masochist's boundaries, who accept and remain in control of themselves, and are certain to learn the technical details of what to do to the sub/masochist to avoid inflicting too much pain or unintended injury and to provide just the necessary/desired level of *whatever* is needed for both (key word: both) of them to enjoy their activities. That is a much different thing from abusive-cycle relationship dynamics, either involving men or women.

Presuming these two did not have that going on... and assuming this guy was abusing his wife in fits of roid rage, there's still this: when being attacked or abused, you can kill the attacker or abuser, or you can leave and report on what is happening. He's already got illegal drugs in the house, that alone is enough to get the cops involved. Or failing that, she could just plain go away. There are many communities that have special shelters for women that are secret, keeping them from being discovered by genuinely abusive husbands/bfs. (But none for men, of course.)

Smyrna, DE, had a population of just over 10,000 in 2010 according to Wikipedia. I am guessing they have few if any in-town community resources to deal with this kind of thing (aside from what the police can do) as do cities and bigger towns. In addition, just over 10% of the population live/lived below the poverty line. So this is not a thriving center of economic activity, alas. And I don't know, but I am guessing the perp and vic were both pretty under-funded people. That can lead people to feel or believe they have nothing to work with when they need help; people are conditioned to believe that when you need help, you have to buy it (sometimes true, but often, not -- often you need only ask). If you don't have much money, you might think there is nothing you can do. But really, everyone knows that 911 is already paid for. So why didn't she just avail herself of that? Maybe she did, I don't know, maybe she has tried dealing with this situation using the police and still got no help. But Delaware is not a big state, and this town is smack-dab on the border between two counties. I do not know which county is administratively "in charge" of covering Smyrna's bigger needs for things like social services, but really, was the nearest town with a social services office that far away?

I have conjectured enough. Even if this guy was a roid-raging abusive a$$hole, there were alternatives to murdering him. Abusive bullies ought to be jailed, yes. But not murdered. I'd say the same thing if the sexes were reversed or if the woman in the picture were my own kin -- or me.