For some reason unbeknownst to me I have waded through this entire thread, so by rights I think I get to give my perspective on how it might have all gone down. But I’m going to do in in a “Time to Kill” manner. Let me tell you a story:
There is a very accomplished and successful WOMAN who is a rider and trainer and runs a prominent training facility. She has a host of clients including a MAN who she’s recently had some business disagreements with whom she realizes it’s time to cut ties with. Upon the initial discussion as to how that all needs to happen he goes ballistic and is verbally abusive to her, then he goes on social media and begins to denigrate her and make threats of ruining her. She confronts him again and tells him that he is living on her property and she no longer feels safe so he needs to find somewhere else to live. He refuses, then escalates the threats on social media to include discussing his access to guns. She does some searching on social media and discovers that this behavior is a pattern for him and he has a disturbing and violent background.
At this point he has created a frightening environment for her family, her employees and her other clients as it is becoming more and more obvious that he is very unstable. Since he still will not leave her property she begins the legal process of evicting him and eviction signs get posted on the property. This man is now threatening to call zoning, ICE, SafeSport, child protection services on face book. The police start showing up on her property everyday for a week—either because he has called them on her or she has felt so threatened that she has called them on him. It is now apparent that he is willing to slander her not just on facebook, but lie about her to the police. The police are being completely ineffective in helping her in this situation because with the crazy things he is telling them they don’t know who to believe.
She lives with her fiancé and his children and she loves them very much and is trying to build a family. But the threats have become so concerning that her finance—justifiably she knows—wants to get his children away from this crazy man. Even though she knows he is right it feels like abandonment that he wants to, needs to, leave her for the sake of his children while she is being a victim of this man’s attacks and abuse. It’s gone way beyond a few nasty words on social media. They compromise because he knows she needs him right now and agree to move with the children into the barn. The legal process for eviction is so slow, but at least she is able to get the Fire Marshall out to confront him. But to no avail.
Living in the barn, she is exhausted and hasn’t slept for days. Her life is crumbling around her. Her business is struggling because clients don’t want to be around this drama and are threatening to leave. Her employees are worried their lives are about to get complicated because even if ICE shows up and they are legal it’s another tangle that has to be fixed that no one wants. Money is tight anyway, and the job market is making it really hard to keep good employees, so there is that much more stress. Her emotional support system is getting pretty shaky because living in the barn is not much of a long term solution and it’s beginning to look like he’s a squatter and not going to leave anytime soon.
Then child protective services shows up. This is beyonds threats. This is damaging to these children she loves and devastating to the family she is trying to build. and it is frightening because she doesn’t have any understanding of how this system works and she knows that the children are going to be taken away if not by the government then by her fiancé. He will definitely leave her now—if not out of good sense to get the children out of this crazy man’s clutches, but because it is the most obvious way to respond to this new problem.
She is enraged. She decides to go give him another piece of her mind, but grabs her gun thinking she may need it for self defense since those last internet posts about him having guns and being willing to use them. She marches over there. Only to get in a screaming match and find out that he’s sent a complaint to SafeSport and others. She assumes it’s all true because if he’s crazy enough to sic child protective services on her family then all those other threats are going to be manifested as well. She’s done. He’s effectively destroying everything she cares about so what’s the point and she shoots him. Her life is over anyway because this man has ruined everything—her relationship, her livelihood and her sanity. And no one will help her.
There but for the grace of God go I.
Our legal system is supposed to be blind to gender, but it’s not. Neither are we COTHers. I’ve been around here a long time and been reading some of your posts for years—if the genders were reversed I’m positive some of you would be singing a different song. Of course, in reality MB surely made some mistakes dealing with this situation prior to the shooting that we don’t know about—but the bullying by LK? That’s documented and real. If the genders were reversed I suspect the help, advice and concern he was getting from law enforcement and other government officials would have been more helpful.
Here’s what I think happens. Either there is a plea deal where he pleads to a felony but gets a light sentence—because LK is certifiably [edit]–or it goes to court where the case will be made that LK is certifiably [edit]. If I’m on the jury I vote that he is guilty, but that this was a crime of passion with provocation and knock it down to the lowest charge I can with the least amount of prison time possible. Being a convicted felon he still looses his livelihood and life as he knew it. She recovers with a life long disability and hopefully someone gets her the [edit] she needs.
