There's a criminal trial being held north of the city right now, a case of infanticide. A doctor, cast aside by his wife for another man, stabbed his two very young children to death and then drank washer fluid. Aside from the fact that the man is a doctor, it's a story we've heard too many times and in too many places.
There are a few extra details that are being published and discussed following the testimony of the defendant and others at his trial that we're supposed to consider in addition to the more familiar facts. On the night of the murders, this father went to the video store with his kids, rented some tapes and went home to watch them with his children. He claims to have put them to bed early because they had activities planned the next day. He then went to his computer to re-read e-mails between his ex-wife and her new boyfriend (forwarded to him by the boyfriend's Ex - for what reason we don't know). After realizing that he and his Ex had never shared the kind of intense love that she now shared with her new guy, the kind doctor decides to commit suicide, researching methods of suicide on the internet (reminder: he's a DOCTOR). After settling on washer fluid for it's slow, painless effects, he decides he does not want his children to discover his body (because that would be, you know, too cruel), so he proceeds to get a knife and stab both of them to death. We discover during his testimony that his son begged him to stop.
Has your stomach turned yet? Because according to the media campaign his lawyers are spinning, it shouldn't. Even the much-read Pierre Foglia (Le monstre) thinks that this doctor and his deranged, selfish act are just a thin line away from what you and I are capable of. The story is that we've all been through heartbreak and bad breakups, and there isn't much separating us from the poor, heartbroken doctor. We all have the doc's monster in us, the only difference is that his got out.
To paraphrase another columnist, the angels weep while the devil receives pity. Martineau - see May 14, "Pauvre monstre"
Guy Turcotte is a horror, an abomination. This man, who swore to 'first, do no harm' violently stabbed his own son and daughter because he could not accept that he was left by his wife for another man, a man she seemed to love more than him. This man, after making the unthinkable decision to end his children's lives, had the knowledge and access to means that would have sent them softly and gently into sleep, but choose instead to stab them repeatedly, plunging his kitchen knife into their tiny bodies while his son asked daddy to stop hurting him. And he then drank a concoction that he knew would cause a coma and slow death, sparing himself the painful death that he inflicted upon his babies, and ultimately giving others the time to discover and save him before the fluid took his life.
This supposedly intelligent man, with education and access and means to find psychological and emotional support to get him through the break-up, tries to explain that he stabbed his children in order to spare them the pain of discovering his body. And then botches his own death, with claims that he no longer wanted to live.
How dare anyone compare any ordinary person to this viciously deranged monster? With a 'divorce' rate of about 50% in North America, millions of couples break apart and go their separate ways. Thousands of those have messy break-ups. But they don't come even close to stabbing their babies as a result of those break-ups. To even suggest that the millions of loving fathers out there harbor the monster that this man had in him inside their own hearts, and they are a fine line from committing the evil act of murder this man committed, is revolting. My husband, my brother, and the other fathers in my life would NEVER harm their precious children, no matter the circumstance between themselves and the mothers of those children. I am insulted by the insinuation that they or anyone else in any way would come close to harming their kids under any circumstance.
Mr. Turcotte (he is undeserving of the title of doctor) is not "every man". I do not recognize myself or anyone I know in him. His choices and acts are to be rejected, not explained away with excuses of love, passion and heartbreak. His monstrosity is NOT mainstream.
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