Woman guilty of abusing elderly husband

the Register Guard ^ | 20 june 02 | by bill Bishop

[Glutton]

Woman guilty of abusing elderly husband

By BILL BISHOP
The Register-Guard

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A jury on Wednesday convicted a 31-year-old Eugene woman for torturing her elderly, mentally ill husband with heated scissors and knives, beating and threatening him at their Santa Clara home.

Dorothy Grace Jones, also known as Dorothy Grace Vega, faces up to 19 years in prison if given back-to-back prison terms for first-degree assault and two counts of second-degree assault, both Measure 11 crimes with mandatory sentences.

The five-woman, seven-man jury deliberated for just more than two hours before convicting Jones on five charges, including criminal mistreatment and menacing.

Jones met her husband when she answered his newspaper ad seeking a roommate last year. They married soon afterward on Aug. 17, Deputy Lane County District Attorney Debra Vogt said. The abuse began within two weeks, according to court records.

In closing arguments Wednesday, Vogt said the 65-year-old husband was "the perfect victim" for Jones because she could intimidate and control him in order to use his disability checks to buy methamphetamine. If he reported any abuse, Jones could blame the man's mental illness, Vogt said.

The jury viewed two knives that appeared to have been heated and scissors investigators found that were burned and had red candle wax stuck to it. They match scars and open burns on the husband's chest and torso, depicted in photographs taken after he was hospitalized Nov. 11 for treatment of a knife wound on his leg.

Other photos showed him with eyes blackened and swollen shut. Jones claimed the injuries happened when he fell in their home. Jones fled Nov. 11 as her husband was in an ambulance headed to the hospital. She was arrested in Douglas County a month later in connection with other crimes, according to court records.

"This woman was torturing an elderly person she had a duty to take care of," Vogt told the jurors. "She is his wife. She probably could have been charged with a lot more. There were so many crimes."

Defense lawyer Herbert Evans described the husband as a "poor, schizophrenic, chronically psychotic" man who could have inflicted his own injuries.

He said the case presented "honest uncertainties."

Jones is being held in Lane County Jail. No sentencing date has been set.

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[Glutton]

I hate crankster gangsters. This definately was not a marriage born of love. I hope she never sees the light of day again.

[concerned about politics]

Has she been awarded a NOW medal of honor yet?
Maybe a place in the she-man hall of fame?

[NautiNurse]

This is a horror story. It's times like this that an-eye-for-an-eye really sounds appropriate.

[Tacis]

A new poster girl for the forces of "she was only a battered woman only doing what she had to to stop the pain." If fact, I surprised that her lawyer hasn't been sued for failure to raise the usual defense. Any female who murders, tries to murder, or beats her husband or significant male other should automatically have the defense raised on her behalf. The NOW people will tell you that ofen battered females don't want to say anything negative about their batterers. So, the court must say it for them. Here, theis poor, sweet young honey was only acting to protect herself.

[Barzah]

Her husband was elderly and mentally ill, there is no way she was simply defending herself. There is more to it than that, she deserves whatever she gets.