Women Murders
Marriage is a life long commitment between two people. Vows are taken as
a
promise to one another, " Till Death Do us Part" may be the most well
known
vow, but with the two women I will be discussing they take it into
their own
hands to speed up the process. The following stories are about two
women who
commit murder in some form, perhaps intentional or not who are not
punished as
far as the story tells us. Fortunately, we have a legal system
that is designed
to prevent these homicides and programs specifically
designed to help women in
cases like these that feel they have no other
choice but to murder their husband
to achieve freedom. As you will see these
women were so desperate that they felt
murder was their only option. One
woman did it for freedom, and the other for
companionship, both are murderers
any way you put it. Emily Grierson, lived
alone in an old " eyesore" of a
house that no one had been inside of since
she stopped giving china painting
lessons ten years ago. She was considered a
tradition in her town, and was
shown special treatment thanks to a former mayor
who’d pardoned her from the
rules that applied to negro women at that time.
However, the next
generation didn’t look upon Emily so kindly. Tax forms were
constantly mailed
to her home, the townspeople found the smell that seeped from
her home so
unbearable that they snuck onto her property to correct the
situation. Emily
had no contact with the townspeople, Until she met Homer
Barron, a
Northerner foreman, notorious for drinking and taking a liking to
younger
men. Within a few days, Emily and Homer were seen riding together in a
buggy,
and spending alot of time together. The townspeople thought that the
they
would marry, but when they heard that Emily bought arsenic they assumed
she
would kill herself and were happy for her, they said " it would be the
best
thing ". When the streets were done Homer disappeared, it was assumed
that he
went to prepare for his marriage to Emily. He returned a few days
later and was
never seen again. Miss Emily was seen buying a men’s toiletry
set along with
men’s clothing including a night shirt, from that point on it
is assumed that
they are married . Some time after that, Miss Emily passed
away. A funeral was
held, and once she was in the ground, the townspeople
opened up the room that
noone had seen in nearly forty years, what they found
was quite disturbing. A
room set up for a bridal with a man’s suit and shoes
looked almost as if it
were just placed there, with the exception of the dust
and discoloring. They
found the man it belonged to laying in the bed
decomposed with traces of an
embrace that had long been unreturned.It was
Homer Barron, and the pillow next
to him had an indentation with a long
strand of iron gray hair resting on it.
Miss Emily was unavailable for
questioning due to her death, so it is assumed
that the arsenic from earlier
in the story was not used for rats, but to keep
Homer there with her, for
fear of loneliness or perhaps she was insane, the
author does not disclose
this information. I think that she killed him in fear
that he would leave
her, and this is the first man she would be permitted to see
since her
father’s watchful eyes were no longer around. This is truly a case
of
homicide, unlike the next story I will discuss where intentional murder
is
committed in a different way. Delia Jones is a washwoman in a poverty
stricken
area of Florida. She is married to a man named Sykes who is abusive
to her in
more ways than one. The verbal abuse is more evident than the
physical aspect of
it. Delia had to endure years of Sykes comments on her
weight and profession,
along with being assaulted and tormented by his cruel
jokes. Sykes openly has an
affair with a fat woman named Bertha. He was
paying for her to stay in town,
even though Delia was at home cooking and
cleaning,trying to make a living.
Sykes preys on Delia’s fear of snakes
from the beginning of the story, first
with the whip resting on her shoulder,
then he takes it too far and brings home
a real snake. After asking him
numerous times to get rid of the snake Delia
finally voices her aggression
and hate for her husband. He doesn’t hit her
this time, he makes a few
threats and retreats out the door. When Sykes didn’t
return that night, Delia
felt great, thinking maybe he was really gone for good,
freedom at last.
While she is finishing her wash she spots the snake in a
basket, somehow it
escaped from its soap box in the kitchen. Without a second
glance Delia ran
out of the house and climbed onto the roof of the haybarn. She
slept there,
too scared to go back into the house. In the morning she sees Sykes
go into
the house and doesn’t warn him of the loose snake, and after a few
minutes
she hears screaming that doesn’t sound of human nature. She watches
from the
window as a struggle ensues, and as she approaches the door she
sees
Sykes dragging himself half dead to get help, but she just looks,
turns away and
waits for death to take its toll; comforting herself with the
feeling that the
doctor was too far to save him. In both of these stories the
women committed
murder. Emily poisoned Homer Barron . Delia watched her
husband die, but
didn’t do it with her own two hands. Both are at fault
morally but legally is
another question. Emily Grierson was of sound body and
mind when she purchased
the arsenic she later used on Homer. Her killing him
was premeditated, however I
don’t think that she fully understood the
consequences of her actions.
According to the modern penal law which is
based on U.S. vs. Brawner,471 F.2D
969(1972), if she did not possess "
substantial capacity to either appreciate
the criminality of her conduct or
to conform his conduct to the requirement of
the law". I personally think she
knew what she was doing, but with all the
loop holes in the criminal justice
system Emily could easily slip through with
the insanity defense. If that did
not work for her, she could also use the "
diminished capacity " defense
which also examines mental competence,but it is
merely pleading to a lesser
crime.Unlike Delia, who did not intentionally murder
Sykes. She didn’t
place the snake in the house, nor did she lure him into the
house. Delia
watched her husband die which is not a murder charge because she
didn’t
actually commit the crime. According to Article 63 of Frances Penal
code "
Any person who willfully fails to render or to obtain assistance to
an
endangered person when such was possible without danger to himself or
others,
shall be subject to imprisonment...", in the U.S. we have a similar
law,
called the " duty to aid " law, but it is hard to prove that the witness
in
question really heard or saw the endangered person. There was a famous
case of a
woman who was stabbed 38 times in the doorway of an apartment
building in broad
daylight with over thirty witnesses and not one person
called the police or
tried to help the woman who died of blood loss. This
woman laid there for forty
minutes and bled to death before the police
arrived, when all it would of took
was simple phone call to save her life.I
think that is very similar to what
Delia did and if she were prosecuted
all she would have to say is that she
arrived after he was already dead. I
don’t think the insanity defense applies
to Delia in any way. She was fully
aware of what she was doing. Unlike Emily who
knew what she was doing, but
somehow saw justification in keeping Homer’s
corpse in her bedroom, Emly
doesn’t appear to be the most mentally stable
woman. Delia hated her husband
and saw this as her chance for freedom, so she
let him suffer and die. Emily
just didn’t want to lose him whether it be to
another woman or whatever other
dillusional ideas she had.