Beyond Terror Blog

It was 6:30 p.m., a Saturday evening—September 22, 1984—he was
drunk, dressed in his jeans and T-shirt, with stocking feet. He had fallen
asleep at the kitchen table in a drunken stupor at about 4:00 a.m. that
morning, and he had started drinking again at 6:30 a.m. and throughout
that day. His drink of choice was Petri Brandy. It was a favored drink of
many of the people who regularly drank alcohol in the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan. The brandy was usually mixed with a little water or taken
straight with a “snit”—a short glass of beer as a chaser. After beating
her up in the morning and threatening her with a knife, he was again
threatening to kill her along with her brother Bill and son Robert and
then commit suicide in the late afternoon. She had been repeatedly
asking him to leave the home and sober up, but he would not leave. She
had endured his beatings quite regularly over the past three years, many
times hospitalized with injuries and sometimes near death. “I can kill
you and then commit suicide; the police won’t be of any help to you.
They won’t do nothing to stop me,” John said, while glaring at her with a
hateful look in his eyes and a very weird look on his face. Jean—standing
at the threshold of the bedroom door, nearly five feet away—had a rifle
held at her right hip, screaming, trembling, demanding that John leave
the house until he could get sober, telling him that she refused to be
beaten again. What will he do, thought Jean. She previously believed
she would be beaten if she stayed, and killed if she left. Now, he was
convincing in his thoughts of suicide and she feared she would be killed
even if she stayed. If she didn’t get him out of the house now, he would
surely kill her in her sleep. “I’m going to kill you, your brother, and
Robert too, now give me that fucking gun,” he said, as he got up off the
bed and lunged at her, grasping for the rifle she held at her hip.
Oh! Pain in my chest . . . my back . . . What’s this . . . blood,
thought John, as he looked at the front of his white T-shirt, rapidly
becoming soaked with blood dripping from his mouth and nose. The
weird look on his face, suddenly becoming an astonished and terrified
look, as he looked at Jean while he staggered backwards, falling upon
the bed, thinking, oh, God! (coughing) She . . . she shot me. I can’t
breathe—choking—gurgling. I should have killed that bitch before she
fired, can’t breathe, can’t see . . . (hearing screaming) . . . can’t hear
what they’re saying . . . light’s fading . . . can’t . . . I can’t . . . “I’m sorry,
Jean. Oh God . . . Oh God . . . I’m sorry.” (coughing, choking) . . . can’t
breathe . . . anymore . . . I . . . I . . . Oh God! As he lay on the bed, violently
threshing and dying, his eyes then were becoming a fixed stare. No more
sounds, coughing is over, no more blood splattering on the walls, blood
now just oozing from his nose and mouth. Jean stayed at the threshold
of the bedroom door, while screaming, and seemed paralyzed, nearly
five feet away, a rifle still held at her right hip. She continued screaming,
trembling, frightened, and unsure whether she was still alive. Was he
going to get up, or was he really dying? Afraid that he would grab her if
she bent down to him to try to stop his bleeding, not sure if he was still
alive, Jean was unable to move. While still holding the rifle, she yelled at
their seventeen-year-old son—who was crying and checking on his dad
for any signs of life—“Robert, call the ambulance.” She then thought,
with a slight sense of guilt . . . the beatings are over . . . she would
not be beaten tonight . . . or ever again. Her thoughts of not having to
endure a beating again produced a very slight momentary smile in a
corner of her mouth. However, she collapsed and crawled away from the
bedroom door into the living room, dragging the rifle with her. Rising
to her feet, she stumbled into the kitchen and collapsed at the kitchen
table, dropping the rifle to the floor, her head in her hands, hysterical,
frightened, still trembling, and struggling for a full breath of air.