Karen Kinnaman Professor Faery Essay #4 Final Version Murderous Marriage I never really knew her. Nor will I ever get the chance to now. I have pictures to remember her by. They always adorned our family room as I grew up. Cindi’s luscious golden curls cradled her smile, emitting a radiance that lit up the shelf on which the picture sat. Even though I only saw her once every couple of years, I still looked up to her: to her beauty, her humor, her kindness. Although I have three younger cousins, she was my only older cousin. I always acted shy around her, perhaps because I wanted her acceptance. Growing up, I had two younger brothers and always secretly wished for an older sister. I wished that she would fulfill that role for me. As a child, I desperately wanted us to be close despite our fourteen-year difference in age and the 300 miles that separated our homes in Maine and New York. As I became a teenager, I saw Cindi less and less, and so did her own family. Her life remained unknown to us, burrowed deep beneath the ground. As I look back now, I can only wish that we as her extended family, had listened to our instincts and intervened. I wish we had pried into that hole of hers and pulled her up to safety before the walls of the hole caved in and collapsed on her. The story begins when Cindi married her first husband, Mike, in Portland, Maine. I remember the enthusiasm I had for the ceremony, as it was the first and only wedding I have ever attended. For three years, Mike and Cindi led a seemingly happy marriage. This all changed when Cindi met Thomas Power, the vice president of the insurance company she worked with. Separated from his wife with whom he had three children, Tom quickly seduced 1Cindi away from the life she had been leading. Swept up in a whirlwind of excitement and energy, the two left their jobs and moved to Sarasota, Florida. It wasn’t long until he proposed to Cindi in May of 2004. As they exchanged their vows on the shores of Hawaii and he promised her a life of love, commitment, and protection, he handed her a huge diamond ring and a $100,000 engagement gift. But the indulgence did not end there. Cindi was suddenly thrust from a modest lifestyle into one of cruises, vacations, and luxury homes; it was a big change for the girl from the backwoods of Maine, one that could lure in anyone eager enough to accept it. He seemed like the ideal man: handsome, courteous, smart, and wealthy. Everyone liked him, from Cindi’s parents to the customers at the small Internet café they started up. His 6’’1’ frame complemented her own petite build, as her beauty and his handsomeness made many regard them as a model couple. They worked together everyday, side by side, to make their business a success. Customers noted how easy going and personable each was. When they first got married, Tom was very helpful to my grandparents, Nana and Papa, who lived in nearby Tampa. Life for my grandparents has become increasingly difficult as Papa struggles with Parkinson’s disease, which has left him cut off from the active life he once led. Tom seemed willing to help them out in any that that he could, assisting with repairs around the house and taking the time to entertain Papa. To the naked eye, it appeared that Cindi and Tom were the perfect couple that had everything. But as is often the case, things were not what they seemed: this perfect couple was not ideal by any means, but had deep, dark secrets and flaws. ~ Every year in the United States, more than 2,000 women are murdered and 2-4 million women assaulted by their current or former male partners as reported by the consumer health website Emedicine. If those statistics alone don’t convince us of the magnitude of this problem, 2there is the fact that policemen in the United States spend one third of their time responding to domestic violence calls. Domestic violence is used to establish power and control over another person through fear, intimidation, and violence. The abuser often feels entitled to control the victim. Domestic violence is a term that encompasses abuse of children and elders, but is most commonly used to describe a relationship between spouses or partners. Although a relationship can exist in which the woman inflicts abuse upon the man, domestic violence is more commonly a situation where the man perform acts of psychological, economic, sexual, or physical abuse against the woman. It is not restricted to solely the poor and certain ethnic groups. Women of different races, socioeconomic status, ethnicities, and religions are all victims of abusive husbands. ~ In addition to her parents, Gary and Anita, Cindi had a twelve-year-old brother, Matt. Cindi had also once had another brother, Jeff, a year her junior, but he had died in 1988 in an auto accident. On Tuesday, April 25 of this year, Cindi had made plans to celebrate her father’s birthday on the upcoming Friday with him, her mother and her brother. Friday arrived and passed without any word from Cindi. Gary simply assumed that Cindi and Tom had changed their minds about meeting with him and had instead gone away to celebrate their first anniversary, which would have been on May 1. He found it a little odd, though, that Cindi had not called and notified him about a change in plans. He was especially concerned that something was wrong because Cindi had always called on Gary’s birthday. On Saturday, he called Cindi’s friends, none of whom had seen her. He visited the café, but learned that it had been closed since 3Thursday. They called the house several times only to get an answering machine. They drove to the house to find that it was locked up, so they checked all the windows to see if they could see anything wrong. Everything looked fine. On Sunday morning, they called one more time, leaving a message for Cindi to call and saying that if they didn’t hear back in a little while, they were going to call the police. When again they got no answer, Anita called the police who joined them at Tom and Cindi’s house. The house was empty upon arrival. Silent. Lifeless. The police and Gary scoured it room by room for clues as to where the couple had gone. A spontaneous vacation? An anniversary cruise? Where could they possibly be? Gary entered the garage. Lying on the ground was Tom’s body. The police quickly followed with a discovery of their