Suicide Ain't No Couple's Dance

[catelin]

The key concept to suicide is that you fucking kill YOURSELF. Why is it, then, that someone decides to take some other poor sap along for the ride? I personally have never understood the idea of wanting to make oneself dead. I've got too much of a survivor instinct. You're in a plane crash in the Andes with me, I will be using my pocket knife to make ass steaks. No doubt. But even assuming that there's a bona fide reason for shortening your stay on the planet, why include someone else in that? As usual, my question relates to a case I'm working on. Aside from being the vivacious bon vivant my friends all know and love, I'm an ATF-trained arson prosecutor. You'd never know by looking, eh? Oh, and I mean the training on how to investigate and prosecute arsons, not how to commit them. Just figured I'd make that clear, in light of that pesky ATF/Waco dealio. So I've got this case comes across my desk where one guy decides he's going to blow himself to bits. Efficient. I have no problem with that, as long as it's away from others. However, he decides to do it in his place of employment. Pulls out the gas stove from the wall, turns the radio on, and sits down for the long sleep. A neighbor boy, about 20, smells gas. He sees the guy and runs in to pull him out of the small building. Well, suicide king gets pissed and ends up igniting the gas...building goes boom. Boy of twenty now has burns over fifty percent of his body and may not live. Suicide king has burns, but of course, not nearly as serious as the poor kid who went in to save his sorry ass. The rub in all this is that 20-year-old good Samaritan's mother got to stand by the sidelines and watch her son's clothes burn onto his body. Right in front of her eyes. Man. No good deed goes unpunished. Sometimes it sure seems that way.

Comments

makes me so

[seventhsister.livejournal.com]

sad. Cate, you sound like such a wonderful woman. A real inspiration for me.

Re: makes me so

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Likewise! Considering the source, that's a grand compliment for me! : )

[blackhellkat.livejournal.com]

I just shake my head sometimes when I read about cases like this. I think I'll reserve my comment about Mr. Suicide King since it wouldn't be very kind.

WOW arson prosecutor! Arson cases are tough....I'm always amazed how the can collect evidence from arson sites.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Arson cases are fascinating from an evidence point of view--real Sherlock Holmes stuff. The total devastation in an arson case (unfortunately, most of the arsons I deal with involve deaths and/or injuries) is hard to stomach sometimes. Kid cases and burn cases are the ones that stick to the inside of my head. How's the law school saga going? Have you heard anything from anyone yet? Or decided on a school?

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

not to seem like too much of a smart-ass, but did you really need ATF arson training to figure this one out?

:)

grim story.

Even Smartasses get eaten in the Andes

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Heh! What you know and what you can prove are sometimes two different things. Physical evidence is where it's at, baby! For instance, in this case, what if my victim dies? The other guy could say that HE started the explosion. "I had fallen asleep, and didn't realize the gas was on. Then this kid came in and he must have lit a cigarette or something. I don't know." I'd have to find physical evidence on the scene to rebut his story. The one thing in this business that I learned through the school of hard knocks is that nothing is EVER as you think it's gonna be.

Wowzer Cate!

[wisteria.livejournal.com]

First of all...I just shudder at the case. That poor mother and son. I better just keep my trap shut regarding the other guy.
Secondly......Wow! The multifacited Cate! You never cease to amaze me! A mother, an artist, and a but kickin ATF lawyer!!! hehe! I imagine sometimes it would be hard not to be mulling it over at home....your's does not seem like the kind of job you can just "leave at the office".

Re: Wowzer Cate!

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Hehe! I don't actually work for the ATF. They trained me, but they don't own me. Feh! I'd never be able to work for the feds. But that's an entirely different story. : ) Believe it or not, most of the time you can put things out of your mind. There are just images that pop up once in a while...sort of twinges from cases past. That's to be expected though, when you see things that shouldn't be forgetten--ever.

[curtankerous.livejournal.com]

Wow. Tough stuff.

As difficult as some of these cases can be for you, I am glad to see that you enjoy attacking them with a direct detail-oriented fury and also that you have such strong empathy for your victims. It's a rare prosecutor that makes such a deep and personal investment in their cases. Cheers to you!

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Gracias. One of my most formidable opponents (with whom I get on very well outside of the courtroom--he's a prince) described my courtroom demeanor as "a pit bull in a mother hen suit." That cracks me up!

[razorart.livejournal.com]

That case reminds me of a book I read in the mid-80's where a father actually tried to burn his son alive (I forget the kid's name) to get back his ex wife for some bullshit.

The kid lived--in pain and disfigured, getting constant skin grafts, etc. The last I saw him, on some talk show or something, he still looked like a serious burn victim.

What a sick fuck of a person to do that to anyone, no less your child.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

That sick fuck is Charles Rothenberg. His son David was 6 years old when he doused him with kerosene and set him on fire. Left him with serious burns over 90% of his body. Served 6 1/2 years of a measly 13-year sentence. Call me unevolved, but I could put a bullet in this prick's brain today and it wouldn't even raise my pulse rate.

[omy.livejournal.com]

I also know of a case where a mother tried to burn her own child alive, a three year old girl, to get back at her lesbian lover with whom she was rasing the child. She then tried to claim that the girl burned herself while playing with a lighter. My mom knew the woman's lover, who said the child looked like she was burned with a blow torch.
So awful. How could anyone do such a thing? Kinda makes you lose faith in humanity.

[(Anonymous)]

"Call me unevolved, but I could put a bullet in this prick's brain today and it wouldn't even raise my pulse rate."

Okay--now I'm impressed.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

It's the little ones ya gotta watch out for. We're mean. ; )

[sorrento.livejournal.com]

at the moment i'm angry. it's not serving any purpose. just have to be more aware of these pricks and the harm they can do to others.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

When I first started in this profession, it used to really tear me up--what people were capable of doing to each other. I don't know if it bothers me any less, but I don't rage against it anymore. Nowdays, there's so much stylized violence in various media that I think people forget how extremely personal violence is...and what a disturbingly large number of people get off, for whatever reasons, inflicting it upon innocents.

[doctorgogol.livejournal.com]

My my. Prosecutor, yes, but an expert on arson? You continue to amaze, my dear Cate.

The only interesting aspect of Backdraft was Robert De Niro's arson investigator. What a fascinating profession to me... I could have watched an entire film based just around his character. Now I have this mental image of you staring down some demented pyromaniac, looking all tough and sexy.

And as for the suicide... Great Caesar's Ghost. The saddest thing is that it's not as uncommon as it sounds. Here in Vegas a few years ago some gene pool winner blew up his apartement with gas in a attempt to do himself in... his APARTMENT, mind you. Needless to say, he had no iota of interest in the three apartments around him he damaged beyond repair. At least no one was killed by this idiot, who is, I believe, currently a guest of Clark County. At least I hope so.

[curtankerous.livejournal.com]

Didn't that guy take his girlfriend and her new boyfriend hostage?

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, arson investigators rock!! They are some of the smartest people I know. It's an amazing field, for sure. I've been really lucky that I've got a lot of law enforcement people who hook me up with the cool trainings. I may get to attend an arson school in Glenco, GA this fall once my big child molester case is done. Heh! The fun never ends!

[kokopopo.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, are you representing the kid's family against the would-be suicide? his employer? the building owner? In any event, good luck!

[catelin.livejournal.com]

I'll be prosecuting the Suicide King once he's released from the hospital. That will probably be a while. Charges will depend on whether the kid who went in to save him dies or not.

[(Anonymous)]

The heat down there is really something, isn't it?

I've often with I had Joe Lansdale's penchant for the gauche quip.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Joe Landsdale, huh? My turn to be impressed. : )

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you.

The first chapter of Bad Chili is so funny it injures people who aren't even reading it.

[chaizzilla.livejournal.com]

people scare the shit out of me. i don't know if this is "welcome to the real world, c***" or just recovering from a reality smackdown. what you described about the mother watching the son is my worst nightmare -- seeing something happen to cheetah. i can't even yell around him without getting sad over whether it gets to him or not. he tries to remind me he's not spun glass but.. i won't be having kids but when you love someone you love someone, it changes everything, makes you vulnerable to the world you can't control. i spose it's a good thing he's an adult and not my kid b/c at least he can tell me to chill when i get all protective. :)

it really sucks, imho, that people go crazy like that too, and there's so little resource out there for people who are loosing it. i know that part from experience. the strength it takes to avail oneself of mental health services when you really needed them is more than someone in a crisis usually has. at best you manage to get your hopes up enough to give it a try and come out of it wishing you just had the guts to end it. people shouldn't have to bottom out. this is one amazingly fucked up world to have a life on for the greater portion of those stuck with it.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

The real world can be a dark and scary fucking place, fer sure. On the other hand, it's full of such precious and beautiful things that I could weep most days just from sheer wonder. You make a good point about mental health services. Even when they are there, sometimes it's hard to get the people who need them to take advantage of them. The legal question that creates, of course, is how much responsibility are we going to place on someone's shoulders when their conduct injures an innocent person? I probably sounded very callous, and it's hard not to when I see how such consummate selfishness (and I know this is sometimes not a choice of the person who suffers from it) spreads itself out like a bloodstain to other lives. I can understand despair. I can understand not wanting to live. I can't understand the brain/spirit mechanics behind including others in that choice against their will.