Mstang had an interesting point - She said "If she truly found religion? Good for her. I'm all for that. But if she really did find religion then she should know what she did was wrong, repent, and want to pay for her sins and stay put." (paraphrasing) I agree wholeheartedly.
Exactly. "Getting religion" should never be a free pass. Not anywhere.
As for the Indonesian punishment thing - I won't say too much or express a personal opinion because there are Australians in their legal system struggling. But I will say - there are some young Australians there who were convicted of drug smuggling. They were mules. The case of one of them especially is complicated because the Australian Federal police were asked by the boy's parents to stop him from leaving the country, they found out that their son had just been recruited for his first ever trip as a drug mule. The AFP not only opened gates to let the boy go, they then tipped off the Indonesians. It was part of a sting to get the bigger fish, but it was still mostly the drug mules, and the next couple of fish up the line only (and no bigger fish than that) who got caught. The boy was originally given a life sentence, or it might have been 20 years. He appealed, and is now on death row. So it's not just extra years you can get.
I have been reading up on the SS case last night. DDD, the boyfriend you mentioned - he had broken up with her and made it clear (to me as I read the letter) that although her having kids was an obstacle for him, he had other problems with her. She had spent the day of the murder trying to reach this guy, chasing him down and tracking what he did and what he said. He seemed to be very sick of it. I interpreted his letter as trying to let her down gently. Apparently she didn't take it that way. They had been at a party that the guy had thrown and she had been kissing another woman's husband fairly passionately. Both naked in the hot tub. The boyfriend saw it and that was the deal-breaker for him, apparently. He said in his letter, "If you want to catch a decent guy you have to behave like a decent woman" or words to that effect. I think he put in the bit about not wanting to raise another man's kids, as his way of trying to find obvious excuses that she wouldn't be able to argue around. He also did say in the letter that even if she didn't have the kids, he still didn't want to ever have sex with her again. And that was before she told him she'd had sex with his father. There was some discussion over whether this was a lie or not, she was trying to get his attention. But that relationship was dead in the water before the kids died.
It was a very interesting (and long) read last night. It presented the case in a way that made it possible to see her in as much sympathy as possible. I'm not saying it was all her way; not at all. But it clearly presented the defence case as well as the prosecution case. And I cannot see how on earth she can claim spousal abuse drove her to this. There was absolutely no hint of this at all, except possibly in that after the "carjacking" nobody left her alone. Whenever police interviewed her or the media interviewed her, there was always family present. She always had a buffer between her and the media. In a number of cases, people who were trying to get to see her (including from organisations set up to help parents in what was believed to be her situation) were blocked from getting to see her, even after it had all been agreed on. She MAY be able to claim that because she was surrounded by family, she was unable at any point to tell her side of the story. However, her husband did at some point realise what she had done and turned against her. At that point she should have said, "Thank goodness he's gone, now I can tell everyone how bad it has been." But she didn't.
In my digging, I found a lot of references to women who kill their children. We consider it unnatural, but it happens a lot more than people care to admit. A lot of these women come from dysfunctional backgrounds.
SS's background sounds pretty horrible. But there have been many worse. Sure, she has a diagnosis of mental disorder in various forms, especially in terms of her need for attention and her pathological lying. But for legal purposes, she was sane at the time of committing the crime (although that is perhaps the closest she could have come to legal insanity) and definitely sane at the time of lying about it. Her lies indicate that she knew she did the wrong thing and was trying to cover it up, which lets out a lot of legal insanity pleas. She was clearly sane at time of trial and time of sentencing.
Having "found religion" - it implies (to some people) that she has been out of her mind all along and only now has found sanity (because for some people, not having faith = insane).
It smacks to me of desperation, of trying to pull every string at once. Also a desperate grab for attention of any kind. it's been a few years now of anonymity; she's probably craving limelight again.
Never forget - when she announced the carjacking theory, her main interest did not seem to be, "I have to find my kids," it seemed more to be "Did I look OK on TV?" and "Has my boyfriend rung yet? Please, husband, don't be jealous when he does."
The guy was never going to ring.
Marg
