Posted on 10/25/2005 5:24:00 PM PDT by wagglebee
A woman who said she was forced to aid her husband in his rapes of two of their children was sentenced Monday to 110 years to life for her role in the crimes.
The victims of the rapes were her son, now 18, and one of the couple's daughters, now 10. The Denver Post is withholding the parents' names to protect the children's identities.
The two children night after night were led by the woman into the couple's bedroom, where they were raped by her now 60-year-old husband, according to trial testimony.
The assaults started on the boy when he was 5 and on the girl when she was 7.
The husband was sentenced in August to 200 years to life for the crimes.
The woman dressed her son as a schoolgirl with makeup before the assaults.
The daughter testified that her mother would lead her into her parents' bedroom, cover her eyes with a washcloth, lie beside her and lift her gown as she was raped by her father.
The woman, 40, said her husband repeatedly told her that if she and the children left, he'd kill all three of them.
But Denver District Judge Herbert Stern told her Monday that she had a duty to leave.
"I think you are the victim of horrific domestic violence, but I don't think it absolves your responsibility to protect your children and yourself," Stern said.
"I know you feel you protected the children," he said. "But I feel you contributed to the victimization of the children, and I believe that outweighs the horror of your own situation.
"Adults have to protect their children."
The woman is disabled and walks with a cane. She never had sexual contact with the children.
Denver Deputy District Attorney Kerri Lombardi said the children wanted their mother sentenced to the maximum - life in prison.
Her minimum sentence is 110 years, although a parole board could let her out in 60, Lombardi said.
During the trial, both victims showed little sympathy for their mother.
"She never didn't want me to do it," the girl testified.
"She was the one helping my dad."
The woman told Stern she loved her children and "tried to the best of my ability" to protect them. "I tried so hard," the woman sobbed.
The woman said that for nearly two decades her husband terrorized her - striking her with a closed fist, and slapping, kicking, violently grabbing and choking her, and hitting her with a TV remote control and shoes.
She was also shot with a "high-pressured BB gun" and made to eat soap, hot peppers and hot sauce, according to testimony.
During the trial, Jan Mickish, former executive director of the Colorado Domestic Violence Coalition, testified that male perpetrators of domestic violence are "goal-oriented" and use battering to terrorize and achieve control.
Some women think that escape isn't an option, believing that wherever they go, their abuser will find them, Mickish said.
On Monday, Trish Thibodo, executive director of the coalition, appeared in the courtroom to support the defendant.
"We feel the domestic violence has been overlooked in this case," Thibodo said. "She successfully kept the kids alive. She took the beatings to deflect (the father) from the kids."
The judge said he was recommending the woman be evaluated by the state hospital and Department of Corrections. He said he will then re-evaluate the sentence but warned that he doubted it would be shortened.
If I had been judge in this case I would have sentenced him to wear school girl clothes and make up his entire stay and be put in the cell with Bubba.
Just a general question for the Christians here- as a "new" one, I have a hard time understanding things like this. How can these kids possibly ever be expected to follow the "Honor Thy Father And Mother" Commandment?
There's no sorrow, empathy or sympathy on my part for that mother. I agree with an earlier poster, grab that child and run. Or stand up like a mamma bear would and take care of business - nothing is more important than your child's safety.
This guy is going to be toast in prison. They don't put up with child predators.
I agree. She could have run (With kids), she could have fought (ie poison, etc) or she could have picked up that phone and called the Police. She deserves more than whatever she's got coming. It's still a tragedy that a mother could be that ****ed up!
---"and be put in the cell with Bubba."---
And then after about a year of that, have him "slip" on a bar of soap and "hitting his head against the towel bar and landing face down in 2 inches of water".
Saves on the cost for the death penalty (which after appeals, etc. costs more than life in prison) and gets rid of the excuse of "then they'll kill the raped or kidnapped victim".
Stupid hag...any knife in her house could have been used to kill the SOB. I'm inclined to believe she participated for her own pleasure also, else she would have found a way to protect her children.
That's just sad, on so many levels.
As I say, anything you can imagine somebody will do--and many things that you could never imagine.
Why no appeals? Shouldn't we be sure we're getting the right person? I am not talking about the sentence .. I am saying what's wrong with double checking that the correct person is being punished? There are enough instances where appeals have proven that the wrong person was being held. Without some sort of double check, the real perpetator might get away and laugh at the fact that the wrong person was executed.
A very good and consisive recap, there.
.......and what would make you even think about that ?
did they have a father and mother fulfill any part of that title / commandment ??
It's also almost certainly an issue as to the abusive man's behavior...in other words, to know that the mother's betrayal would pose even more pain to the children/victims, and thus, that's what he brought about.
I agree that the mother is a victim here but also complicit -- just no excuse -- although it is difficult to determine here whether or not she was even capable of understanding the terror of the situation, given her own experiences of being abused. I mean, I think the mother just exited at some point some ability to comprehend the horror and just complied...moreoreless like a zombie.
I agree, however, that she belongs in jail for a very, very long time. The man responsible deserves a death penalty, in my view.
I've asked myself and others the same thing over my adult lifetime and what I believe the commandment means by God is that we are to "honor" our father and mother and if/when the human versions fail us, look to God the Father and the Virgin Mary as mother and honor them. Just honor the principle of father and mother, and work to forgive -- if at all possible -- the wretched evil that some people enable. It's awful when it's a parent or parents that defile and horrify and denigrate children but it's important to disassocite from them a/s/a/p and to hold dear the CONCEPT of father and mother, not the abusers as profane and horrid.
A difficult commandment, no doubt about it. I have much compassion about and of this one, to and about the problems involved with honoring this commandment.
Probably because, the church I go to is having a "10 Commandments Sermon Series", and that commandment is the scheduled topic for this coming Sunday.
I'm rather fed up with judges and lawyers making free use of the term "feel" when discussing law, verdicts, and sentencing.
Yup. These sentences are just silly. 110 years, 200 years? They'll die in prison but why wait? There's probably a chance the father will meet so-called "jail-house justice" when it's known what he's in for but I don't know if the same activities occur in women's prison.
She was no doubt a victim of domestic violence, but that does not release her from the responsibility of protecting her children. She should have taken them and gone straight to the police. They would have put them into protective custody and he could never have got to them again. They both deserve to rot in Hell.
Words to live by.
set them on fire.
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