As I noted yesterday, the first reports of Criste Reimer’s death created a strong impression of a loving husband pushing his wife to her death, because he (or they) had run out of options due to growing debts related to Criste Reimer’s health problems. Many bloggers are saying that our “profit-driven health health care system” was the real culprit in Criste Reimer’s violent death.
Not Dead Yet was a proud sponsor of the SiCKO Rally in Chicago. Being on the front-lines of a “bottom-line” health care system, we support universal coverage. We can find enough martyrs in this system without trying to make Criste Reimer one – and erasing her status as a victim of domestic violence.
The second wave of stories, in which Criste Reimer’s mother and sister talked to the press, tell a different story. Here is some of what was reported in an interview on a Wichita news show:
The family doesn’t believe Criste had cancer as Stanley told police. They believe he was after oil money from property in Texas given to Criste by a relative. But whatever the motive, the family never suspected Criste would die like this.
The family also cast doubts on reports of Criste’s cancer and added they have had concerns aobut Stanley Reimer’s emotional stability for some time. Criste’s mother also says that her daughter had been staying with her for several months, but that Stanley made a surprise visit a month ago. Criste went back home with him at that time, but had recently told them she wanted to go back to her mom’s home.
This pattern of sympathetic portrayals of elderly husbands killing their wives isn’t exactly unusual. Neither is the “second wave” of coverage that gives a darker picture. We saw that play out in the media here a few years ago in the coverage of the murder of Shirley Harrison.
It turns out that mutual suicide pacts and motivations of real compassion are rare in such murders or murder/suicides. Julie E. Malphurs and Donna Cohen have conducted several studies on this increasing type of domestic violence.
Donna Cohen, in a media release from Carers New Zealand, shared some of the research findings:
“These are not acts of love. They are not compassionate homicides. They are acts of desperation and depression, other forms of psychopathology, or domestic violence.”
Dr Cohen’s research indicates that older men – who almost always initiate the acts – routinely proceed without their wife’s knowledge or consent. She says true pacts occur in perhaps one half of 1 per cent of elder homicide-suicides.
Of the hundreds of homicide-suicide deaths in the US each year, the rate amongst over 55s is twice that of under 55s. Homicide-suicides now account for about three per cent of all suicides, and about 12 per cent of homicides in the older population.
“One of our most distressing findings is evidence that older women who are killed are not knowing or willing participants,” says Dr Cohen. “Often they are killed in their sleep or shot in the back of the head or chest.”
Her research indicates that about a third of elder homicide-suicides occur in a context of domestic violence, an ugly contrast to the Norman Rockwell image of loving clan matriarch and patriarch.
In the end, it looks like Criste Reimer’s death — if it’s true her husband pushed her to her death – had nothing to do with compassion or the health care system.
Instead, it’s another instance of a man stressed and resorting to violence as a coping mechanism. –Stephen Drake