While perusing the Seattle P.I. this morning I stumbled upon this story:
Note by woman's body says boyfriend 'shot me dead'
TACOMA, Wash. -- Olga Carter didn't want to leave any doubt about who was responsible. Not far from her body police found a note saying her boyfriend had "shot me dead."
A plea of innocent was entered Tuesday in Pierce County Superior Court on behalf of Donnell Wayne Price, 45, charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of Olga Carter, 39. Judge Thomas P. Larkin set bail at $1 million.
Police were dispatched to the couple's home early Sunday after a woman - apparently Carter - frantically called 911 and said she was fighting with a man who had a gun. Officers said they arrived and forced open the door when they heard screaming, then withdrew to the yard after hearing a gunshot.
After a 2 1/2-hour standoff, Price surrendered and told police Carter was inside a utility room at the back of the house and needed medical aid, prosecutors wrote in documents filed in court.
In the kitchen, adjacent to the utility room where Carter was found dead of a gunshot wound to the neck, police found a note that read in part, "Mr. Price shot me dead. He thought I fooled around."
Police also found a bloody .357-caliber pistol in an upstairs bedroom.
- You know I am sure that many people read this same article this morning. Maybe some people didn't even finished reading it before they had determined that it was just another domestic violence case, as they move on to the funnies...But you need to know that this wasn't just another case of domestic violence that made the news. Not for Olga Carter and certainly not for all her family and friends that are now forced to live with the loss. I didn't get to know Olga personally, but I do know that she was someone's daughter and may have been someone's sister. She could also have been a mother but the news report does not tell us if this is the case. But we are told that she was someone's girlfriend and this person who at one time must have declared his love for her, is the person who took her life.
Thankfully, Olga had the strength and the courage to write the killer's name on a piece of paper - maybe even knowing at that point in time that her time had come. That at least it would be there in clear view when the police and the medics arrive to tranport her body to the morgue.
What makes something that may have started out so right and so innocent, turn into the macabe scene that awaited the police as they entered the residence. What possesses someone - a man in this case - to murder in cold blood the person he declared so much love for. I could certainly rant about the need for gun control laws in this country, but I must admit that if a gun wasn't available at the time then the perpetrator would have used a knife or another instrument to brutalize this woman.
So the million dollar question is "what forces one person to succumb to the use of violence in a relationship when the rest of us choose to resolve our differences through less violent means - like communication?
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