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Friday, November 23, 2007

Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father…

posted by on November 23 at 17:02 PM

A gunman shot and killed his ex-wife, their three children and himself in a small-town park as the woman prepared to hand over custody, police said Friday.

Their bodies were found Thursday evening in the tiny community of Unity, Maryland… The bodies of Gail Louise Pumphrey, 43, of Woodbine, and the three children—ages 6 to 12—were found in the cars, Jerman said. David Peter Brockdorff, 40, of Frederick, was found nearby with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police said they recovered a .22-caliber rifle near his body….

There have been several domestic killings involving children in Maryland this year.

In April, a father hanged his two young children before committing suicide in rural Boyds, in Montgomery County. In March, the remains of four young children were found in a town house in neighboring Frederick. The father’s body was found hanging from a bannister, and the mother remains missing.

RSS icon Comments

1

I know this is off topic but there are an awful lot of police helicopters just hovering around. I counted 3 walking out of the pike and broadway qfc...they were a little west...like in the i-5 area...but just hovering...there still there. whats going on here?

Posted by whaleofashrimp | November 23, 2007 5:13 PM
2

Father: "happy fucking thanksgiving!!"


WOAS - big brother is watching

Posted by high and bi | November 23, 2007 5:25 PM
3

I don't get it. Aren't you at some ski resort? With your family? Don't you have better things to do then go trolling around the internet to make a point that you have made over and over, hundreds of times before? How about ignoring this crap for, oh I don't know, the holiday, and hanging with your family as an example of a healthy family unit? Hey, even better, I'll hang with your lover and kid. We'll eat and chat and laugh, and you can spend your time doing this.

Posted by Soo | November 23, 2007 5:38 PM
4

Wow, Soo. Somebody pee in your stuffing?

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | November 23, 2007 6:11 PM
5

Um, soo this is a national headline, you didn't have to come all the way over here to wee lil' slog to find about this story.

Posted by seattle98104 | November 23, 2007 6:43 PM
6

Whale shirmp - black friday stuff at Westlake. Fireworks off the roof of Macy's, lighting of the city christmas tree, a few streets shut down to fit all the spectators in...

Posted by Anon | November 23, 2007 6:47 PM
7

Soo, everytime a str8 person says that two parents of the same gender are not fit to be parents, a str8 father shoots his children and their mother, and then kills himself in shame. Soo it's vital that DAN continue this crusade which you find so meaningless. The str8 community must know what damage they do to children and families. See, now YOU can get back to that big piece of pie. Yum.

Posted by Sargon Bighorn | November 23, 2007 7:00 PM
8

This reminds me of a tragedy that happened about ten years ago in San Francisco (estranged father shoots mother and throws two toddlers and himself off the Golden Gate Bridge). I mentioned to my soon-to-be-ex that this kind of story sometimes made me wonder whether we were wise to break up... that as a mom, I was frightened of what he'd do if he really lost it. He looked me straight in the eye and said "Oh, I'd NEVER hurt the CHILDREN." Somehow, this wasn't quite reassuring...

(p.s. we did divorce, and while it wasn't fun, he didn't go off the deep end).

Posted by mamagotcha | November 23, 2007 7:53 PM
9

I'm thinking maybe we should take up a collection for a nice warm soap suds enema for soo.

Maybe it'd dislodge that big hunk of jaded stuck right up there. Or maybe not.

Posted by Wolf | November 23, 2007 8:27 PM
10

Soo wung Foo
I wuv woo
Don't settle for pooh
from the defensive
crew.
Speak up
Speak proud
it's only soon
they'll reveal themselves the
to be
real prude.

Posted by booh | November 23, 2007 10:00 PM
11

The only reason some deranged gay guy hasn't done the same thing is that there are just fewer gay dads. Give it enough time and you will find a gay version of this story. Crazy comes in all sexualities.

Posted by Jim | November 23, 2007 11:51 PM
12

Jim, that's not the point. Gays ought to have the right to have a few crazy assholes make headlines for killing their legal and state-sponsored families. But as it is, they don't even get the chance.

Actually, I wonder how many of these incidents are caused by closeted people who would have been perfectly well-adjusted gay parents.

Posted by Chris in Tampa | November 24, 2007 12:31 AM
13

I wonder if this is what happens when mom's seem more likely to force fatherhood on males incapable to handle the "insanity" that comes with knocking up a "mistake". The father murder suicide seems more and more common.

My theory, I think a lot of fathers really really don't want to be fathers, mothers really really don't care. And in the lands of minimal cranial capacity it turns into murder/suicide absolute hysteria, oh and I think the right to life people bear some responsibility.

@11 ... furthermore, especially in the land of absitence only education. Gay people have a HELL of at lot more of a choice of whether or not they become a parent or not. People in Seattle, or at least where I grew up with this notion that there is a choice of whether or not to have children. In the woods it seems, children just "happen" and are left to fend for themselves when they drop. Gay parents perhaps are better parents, because in order to make it happen, they really really have to want it.

Posted by OR Matt | November 24, 2007 11:15 AM
14

It's okay if we kill them as long as we don't molest them. Happy Falwell, Robertson, Bush! Oh, when will they understand that it doesn't matter, that we're all the same?

Posted by Sean | November 25, 2007 10:50 AM
15

Sorry, OR Matt; but you can't blame this on the Moms. In most cases it's Mom who is trying to get away from abusive Dad, who means it when he says "I'll kill you before I let you leave me."

To these sick guys a family isn't made up of people - they are props to his ego, extentions of his self, his possessions. Abusing his wife allows him to get rid of all the bad feelings he has about himself [in his mind it's all her fault because she becomes the repository for all the negative feelings he has.]

To sicko-Dad, losing his wife/kids means losing a part of himself. So he can't let them leave him all alone. And he has to kill all the parts of himself before he kills himself, right? That way all his parts will always be together.

Yeah, I realize it's a broad generalization and there are cases that don't conform. The rise in these kind of incidents can be attributed to the fact that nowadays Mom is more willing to leave an abusive Dad than she was in the past. Fifty years ago, sicko-Dad didn't have to worry about his family leaving him.

Posted by Schweighsr | November 25, 2007 11:20 AM
16

Chris, I understand the point. My point is that this game will feel a lot less fun and relevant when a gay guy does it and becomes national news. No one is going to enjoy this game when we all know the name of the guy who did it because it is the only thing we hear out of Republican congressmen for months.

It is valuable to stockpile this information for later rebuttals, but fundamentally this is a sword that cuts both ways, and the gay community is going to be pretty upset when they are the ones getting cut.

Posted by Jim | November 25, 2007 7:48 PM
17

When a gay guy does this, it will be held up as proof that no gay men should be allowed to parent ever. When a straight guy does it, it's simply a tragedy and it's considered very rude indeed for a gay guy to post an item about it to his blog.

Posted by Dan Savage | November 25, 2007 9:15 PM
18

@15

OK ... so maybe this is a bad scenario to prove my point. Different circumstances entirely and i think your assessment is probobly more accurate. Still ... we can agree that something in his mind totally flipped and he was incapable processing the feelings that came to him. As my shrink told me, divorce is a very common form of temporary insanity, and as someone who lives on the edge understands ... love and hate are not opposites.

@17 ... Dan, have patience with this one. Be grateful for the family you have because you worked your ass off to acheive it, as opposed to any straight hillbilly couple who have a family forced on them. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Posted by OR Matt | November 26, 2007 9:09 AM
19

Dan, you are exactly right. The question is, will they be wrong when they do it?

If they will be wrong then, what does that make you now?

Posted by Jim | November 26, 2007 10:17 AM
20

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21

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