A heartbreaking tale of family pain
Edmonton Sun
By Mindelle Jacobs
The heartrending details are almost too ghastly to believe.
Fifty years of an abuse-filled marriage. An unstable, domineering husband, a cowering wife and an increasingly toxic atmosphere that culminated in death.
Prosecutor Jeff Morrison is right that the case of Anne Semenovich, who shot her husband in the head as he slept in April 2008, is “nothing short of a Greek tragedy.”
It makes you wonder how many other families are teetering on the brink of disaster because of abuse, mental illness, bitterness at life’s perceived injustices or any other combination of explosive factors.
At the hearing last month to determine whether she was mentally fit to stand trial, Semenovich was asked why she stayed with her husband, Alex, for so long. “Because I’m crazy,” she responded.
She wasn’t crazy — as in bonkers. A jury concluded she was competent enough to understand the trial process and instruct her lawyer.
But Semenovich, 74, was clearly abused for so many years that she finally snapped and killed her tormentor.
Should she have shot her husband and stuffed his body into an incinerator on their Spruce Grove acreage? Of course not.
Instead, she should have simply left him.
As anyone who’s studied the dynamics of domestic violence will tell you, however, not every woman has the resources and emotional fortitude to leave her abuser.
In the minds of so many victims, things will get better if they’re more compliant and loving.
It’s never the fault of the abuser with the hair-trigger temper, tangle of inadequacies and anger at the world.
So victims try harder and harder to appease the brutes in their lives — always on tenterhooks in case they set off their tormentors.
No doubt Semenovich’s age was a factor as well. The thought of breaking up her marriage probably never entered her head.
It seems that stoicism became her coping mechanism. Until, in recent years, her husband became more abusive — chasing her with a kitchen knife, throwing things at her in a rage and threatening to kill her.
There were guns all over the house. It got so bad she spent most of her time in her bedroom. He slept in a separate room.
Her grandson, Brian, testified that he tried a couple of times to get the RCMP to help but the police said they needed a statement.
Given the overall scenario, the RCMP should have investigated and Semenovich could have gotten help from social agencies.
But, as University of Alberta law prof Sanjeev Anand points out, the police are so busy dealing with people who have filed complaints that it’s easy for other things to fall through the cracks.
“It’s only hindsight that we know that the police should have done something,” Anand says.
One also has to wonder why Semenovich’s other family members didn’t do more to get her out of that toxic environment.
Instead, Brian gave her a shotgun and showed her how to use it.
Three months later, she shot her husband.
What if her grandson had spoken to a doctor or a social service agency?
Under the Alberta Mental Health Act, with a physician’s approval, someone considered a danger to themselves or others can be involuntarily committed for a psychiatric examination.
The system let down Semenovich, her husband and their extended family.
A frail abuse victim meted out rough justice to her monster of a husband and now she, herself, is going to jail for four years.
His life is gone and so is hers. I don’t condone her self-administered street justice. But I understand what drove her to it.
Subject: Another letter to Minday Jacobs-this one from Grant Brown PhD
----- Original Message -----
From: Grant Brown
To: mindy.jacobs@sunmedia.ca
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 9:48 PM
Subject: recent column
Mindy,
Never mind the politically correct clap-trap. Your column is full of factual inaccuracies.
Would you accept the self-serving word of a male perpetrator of intimate partner violence? Of course not! Yet you simply take the self-serving word of the perpetrator in this case that there was "Fifty years of an abuse-filled marriage." The grandson contradicted that picture in his testimony, as he contradicted much else in the perpetrator's self-serving version of events. He said the household was relatively calm before the victim retired in 1997. Expert testimony at the trial indicated that the victim was psychologically damaged himself. It was only after the retirement - no doubt because he was home all day - that arguments and threats escalated.
And remember that it was in the face of the grandson's credible testimony that she had to accept a plea bargain. She knew her version of events would not stand up to scrutiny. So how can you just accept what she said at face value? The gullibility boggles the mind.
Perhaps the most telling single fact in the whole story is that it was the VICTIM'S bedroom door that had a deadbolt on it - not the perpetrator's. Evidently he knew something that nobody else is willing to admit - that the perpetrator was dangerous. A "cowering wife"? Hardly! The FACT, as opposed to the MYTH, is that intimate partner violence is usually mutual. There is no doubt that the perpetrator was not easy to live with. either.
"As anyone who’s studied the dynamics of domestic violence will tell you, however, not every woman has the resources and emotional fortitude to leave her abuser." Why the gender-specific reference here? As anyone who has studied the dynamics of domestic violence will tell you, not every man has the resources and emotional fortitude to leave his abuser, either. As Dr. Donald Dutton (UBC) points out, these cases are characterized by mutual psychopathologies.
"In the minds of so many victims, things will get better if they’re more compliant and loving." ... "So victims try harder and harder to appease the brutes in their lives — always on tenterhooks in case they set off their tormentors." Wait a minute! That's hardly refelctive of the current situation! What evidence is there that the perpetrator had become increasingly "more compliant and loving" after the victim retired? That she tried to "appease" him or was on "tenderhooks" around him? On the contrary, according to the grandson's testimony, the arguments and hostilities were mutual. The perpetrator was already bitter and angry long before the murder. She didn't try to appease him; she tormented him as much as the reverse.
"Her grandson, Brian, testified that he tried a couple of times to get the RCMP to help but the police said they needed a statement." I call "Bullshit!" on that statement, too. The RCMP do NOT need a statement from the victim to lay charges. The grandson was an eye witness to everything; he could have provided the statement. It is preposterous to believe that the RCMP were told of the knife incidents and threats of killing and refused to act. This has all the marks of s standard embellishment by the grandson to try to mitigate the guilt of his beloved grandmother. Where are you analytical abilities in these cases?
"One also has to wonder why Semenovich’s other family members didn’t do more to get her out of that toxic environment." Well, might it be because the environment wasn't as "toxic" as the perpetrator's self-serving version would have you believe?
"I don’t condone her self-administered street justice. But I understand what drove her to it." Ah, yes, sympathy for the perpetrator. Everyone had sympathy for Elaine Campione, too. And Shirley Turner (
http://www.canadiancrc.com/Zachary_Turner.aspx). There is endless sympathy for female perpetrators. Just once I'd like to hear the same words from your mouth when a man, driven beyond his psychological limits by a tormenting wife or ex-wife - often over child custody - engages in similar "self-administered street justice." Where is your sympathy parked then?
You never seem to learn anything. Pity. You do a disservice to your readers, and fail to fulfill your social obligations as a journalist.
-gb.