Monster Dad Mulitated

[Thalia]

The woman who killed her abusive father after strangling and castrating him in 2007 was acquitted of murder yesterday. However, Brigitte Harris was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, a verdict she immediately said she was happy with. The 28-year-old had told jurors that, after years of rape and physical abuse at her father's hands, she was just trying to prevent him from abusing his two young granddaughters (her nieces), but not kill him. With the conviction, Harris will now face a maximum sentence of 5 to 15 years. Her lawyer said after the verdict, "The best offer the DA made was 12 years...We got a great verdict...Any time the top count is murder two and you walk out with manslaughter two, you have to feel relieved" Queens DA Richard Brown said he hopes Harris "will receive the counseling she so obviously needs." Defense psychology expert, Dr. Dawn Hughes, offered Harris free counseling for life.
Harris was also convicted criminal possession of a scalpel, the instrument she used to castrate her father after she had researched Lorena Bobbit's attack online. She admitted to cooking the evidence on a stove because she had learned, via the online research, that a penis can be reattached. Friends and family say they are now hoping the judge will deliver the minimum sentence for Harris, who once dubbed herself "XXLadyVengeanceXX” on MySpace. Her lawyer said, "The horrors she lived through, no one should ever have to go through."


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By Billy Parker in News on October 1, 2009 2:23 PM

More recently, Brigitte Harris had an interview on FOX 5 News about the brutal attack and mutilation of her father. There she claimed that her father physically and mentally abused her during her life here in the NYC, Queens. She claimed to have lived in fear of her father because of all the abuse and feared him primarily because he threatened to send her back to his homeland in Africa so she can be sold into slavery and such.(Yes, slavery still exists in the modern world, please look up the term 'sex slaves' and see how many websites you find about that hot topic.)

He should have been her protector, but instead her father was her tormentor, sexually abusing 26-year-old Brigitte Harris since she was 3 years old, the woman's lawyer told the Daily News yesterday. "This guy was a monster," said Arthur Aidala, who represents Harris, the woman cops say cuffed, asphyxiated and sexually mutilated her father, Eric Goodridge, after luring him to her Rockaways apartment on Saturday.

JOE GOULD, ERNIE NASPRETTO and ALISON GENDAR, DAILY NEWS WRITERS

While I am unsure if this issue has been ever touched here on this forum, there are a few people within New York who feel as if Brigitte should have to serve the 15 year sentence given by the courts here and feel as if she should be given counseling over jail time for her crimes. Her father did die from the attack so be mindful of that but I am interested to hear what all of you think of Brigitte Harris' story.

Is she a product of her father's evil or is she a sick and sadistic killer who must remain behind bars?

I'll start this off with my own personal opinion. I feel as if Brigitte Harris did take a life and because of that, she must be punished. While I do realize she was abused by her father for years on end, I think she should serve sometime for mutilating a man and cooking his penis upon a stove. She went into a psychotic rage and all sense of logic was lost to her. Instead of seeking help from school counselors and such regarding her father, Brigitte became a product of that man's hatred and became a killer.

While I am not at all unsympathetic towards her plight, I do believe she could have opted not to commit this crime when she knew of the consquences for it.

 

[Big Casino]

I pretty much agree with what youv said Thalia. What happened to this girl growing up is tragic and something that no child should have to go through. What shes done though hasnt done her any favours. She gunna spend a good portion of her life in a jail cell all because of him. Time in which im sure she'd rather spend living free on the outiside.
She killed a paedophile. If it were my way all people like that would meet an end but the world we live in says that if you break the law you must be punished. Thats the way it is and i dont believe exceptions should be made =/
The way in which she killed him was rather brutal. Something which no doubt made the case against her alot worse. But then again considering what she suffered it makes sense that she would wanna do it like that.
I do kinda feel for the girl because of what happened to her but she made the wrong choice in killing him. She should have noted the authrorities and tried to build up her life anew. But thats the way it goes =/

 

[Thalia]

Agreed!

I feel as if the law must be upheld because of the severity of her crime. She did take a human life and that is considered a sin. Her reasons for this heinous crime are sound but taking a life shouldn't be an option for anyone.

She is not above the law and she must serve her time.

 

[Linnaete]

You two have pretty much got it right. While I sympathise with Ms Harris over her traumatic childhood experience, and despise her father for doing such a depraving thing, what she did in response is still inexcusable. She took a life, which is possibly the worst thing you could do to someone (in my view that is, some believe rape and paedophilia are worse).

Yes, her father deserved justice. Yes, she had all the right to despise him. Yes, she had the right to want him dead. But she had no right to take his life and do something disgusting at the end of it. OK yes, it may not have been intentional, but she must have been unstable enough at that point to go anywhere near killing him.

While I think she should be in prison for her sentence, she should also get help as well. Learn that there are other ways to hold him to justice. Legally.

 

[L]

It's difficult to say where I stand with this, but I don't think that it's something she should do time in jail for. However, do not mistakenly assume I am saying she should walk free.

I think that perhaps she should be checked into a rehabilitative center where she is confined in a space where she will live and receive therapy until a therapist deems her suitable to take leave.

Yes, her father deserved justice. Yes, she had all the right to despise him. Yes, she had the right to want him dead. But she had no right to take his life and do something disgusting at the end of it.

People work to meet their ends in everyday life, and there's no better quote to make a case and point than "You've got to do it yourself if you want it done right". Vengeance is not served in a court of law... Justice and Blasphemy are.

If I was her, I wouldn't have even considered giving the court of law a chance to look through this. While they're doing that, he could be doing tons of different things.

You have to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak.

It's a waste of time to start an investigation when you can serve both Vengeance and Justice with your own hands, in an environment that is not corrupted by outside sources.

You can come so far, only to fail at the hands of corruption. It's not worth all that time to let a bunch of fumbling retards do nothing but just dick around, chasing the meat hanging off of the end of the treadmill.

Perhaps you didn't live a very painful life, but I've seen the cops come in and out of my homes countless numbers of times when I was a kid, and not one of those times was anyone imprisoned or removed from our home.

The only time I got my stepfather out of our house is when I chased him out.

This is our authority that lets shitbags like him run free and continue to cause even more irreparable damage. Why let them handle anything when you can do it just as good as they ever could on your own?

Asking people who have been in that kind of environment to depend on the law is like deliberately asking someone to do something stupid just because it'll be funny when they get injured.

 

[Marquis of Granby]

The guy was a paedophile who abused his own daughter for years; is it fair that she should have to live with the experience of being tortured by her own father AND the knowledge that he could potentially do it to someone else? Would it be easier to accept if she just killed him outright?

From a legal point of view "justice" in this case would roughly equate to chucking the guy in a jail cell and keeping him alive for X amount of years before letting him out, scribbling his name on a sex offenders list and protecting him from the "nasty" people who don't quite agree with what he did to his own daughter. And the icing on the cake is that the American tax payer would foot the bill for that. That's not justice. There's a thin line between justice and revenge but in my opinion what she did was far closer to justice than what the legal system would've done.

It seems as though she's happy to do the time for it, and she's done what the legal system can't REALLY do: the man can't abuse anyone else ever and it doesn't cost the tax payer a penny. She HAS done wrong, but (imo) good has come of it and she seems willing to accept the punishment for it so now the good, honest, moral tax payer has a slightly disturbed (as a result of years of abuse from her father) woman as a pet instead of a grotesque scumbag.

I think justice has been done.

 

[Thalia]

The guy was a paedophile who abused his own daughter for years; is it fair that she should have to live with the experience of being tortured by her own father AND the knowledge that he could potentially do it to someone else? Would it be easier to accept if she just killed him outright?

Perhaps this crime would be easier to accept if she just killed him outright. The very idea that she was capable of such a heinous act upon her abuser means, or at least means to me, that she is capable of other horrible acts. She may be a product of her father's evil ways but that doesn't mean that she should get a clean slate for the crime she committed. The way she killed her father was perhaps in the most brutal manner I can think of as of right now. Perhaps in the same way most serial killers would maim and mutilate their victims. The severity of her crime is absolute but I do think that the way she executed the crime has plays a role in her sentencing, which I agree on.

 

[Marquis of Granby]

Perhaps this crime would be easier to accept if she just killed him outright. The very idea that she was capable of such a heinous act upon her abuser means, or at least means to me, that she is capable of other horrible acts.

Everyone is capable of horrible acts. It's all good and well to SAY you'd never do something like that but without the...experience of having been abused for years who knows what you might do. As sick as it sounds I THINK if it were me I'd be thinking "you made me suffer, I'll make you suffer".

Having said that, she still killed someone, so I agree that she deserves to be punished; that's the price of her justice.

 

[Thalia]

Granted, she wanted revenge but the idea of 'death' being used as justice for the crimes her father committed against her is wrong in every sense. Death should not be condoned as justice for death itself is just a fact of life. Just because we fear death doesn't make it the ultimate justice and it is a sin to kill our fellow man, so stated in nearly every holy text written by mortal hands.

My conflict with your idea of the death of her father being justice worthy is what goes against the logic I know. If she would have reported him, shown authorities of the scars and such she suffered because of that man, then justice may have been served. However, with her killing her abusive father; the justice she TRULY wanted will never come to be because now she has to suffer for the crime she committed.

I doubt this young woman wanted to go to jail.

 

[Marquis of Granby]

I'm not gonna cover anything else because I'd just be repeating myself, we're on opposite ends of the scale on this one; I just don't feel that someone who could do that to kids, let alone his own daughter, deserves to be treated like a human.

I doubt this young woman wanted to go to jail.

We can't really know what she was thinking, but I think it's entirely possible that she just felt she had nothing to lose by killing him.

At least now he can't do it again, and she's probably saved the American tax payer a tiny sum of money. Mission complete (imo).

 

[Valkyrur]

My take on this is- this would have been avoided if the father himself hadn't done what he did.

Obviously, the girl's deeds are incorrect in itself, however, I feel more sympathetic to the girl than to the father. Certainly, the girl could have avoided this whole crime if she had more control over own actions. It is partly her fault that she went psychotic, and killed her father.

However, in spite of all these, I find that the father's treatment of her was the ultimate cause, and thus, I would pin most of the blame on him.

Nevertheless, it is a given that the crime itself is wrong. She could have sought help, learn to, or find a way to control herself... It would be best, of course, that someone else take her under their custody- for the better life that she should have led from the beginning.

So, in response to the original question posed in this thread. Is she a sadistic killer who should be put behind bars, or a product of her father's misdeeds?

I'd say, she is a product of her father's misdeed.

To further support my stand, I'd like to cite the apparent fact that she had been abused since the age of 3.

In short, throughout her growing years, she is subjected to such horrendously disgusting treatment. Do remember that it is during this years, a child develops his/her own personality, and learn more about the world. It is his/her growing years after all!

Yet for this girl here to have to go through this. Shouldn't the father be properly educating his daughter, giving her the proper love? Granted, maybe his deeds were his ideology of 'love'.

But I'd say it's warped. Sell her into slavery? What a creative way to show his love.

 

[Vice Nebulosa]

One more for Jimmeh's camp, and, to a lesser extent, L's.

From a rational perspective (which, granted, may not have been the one the woman was using when she castrated her father <_<), Brigitte was in a situation that the justice system was ill-equipped to handle. Jimmeh?

From a legal point of view "justice" in this case would roughly equate to chucking the guy in a jail cell and keeping him alive for X amount of years before letting him out, scribbling his name on a sex offenders list and protecting him from the "nasty" people who don't quite agree with what he did to his own daughter.

Agreed. For the abused woman, it is obvious that there was no strong, legal recourse to be taken against her father. Indeed, the father was in a nearly invulnerable position: he could continue to abuse his daughter, and though the risk existed that he might one day be apprehended, in all likelihood it would not be a permanent incarceration.

He could literally emerge X years later and enjoy life, smirking at his traumatized daughter from the other side of the restraining order. In this way, she would never be permitted to either A) correct the imbalance of suffering she has grown up with (i.e. by directly punishing her father), or B) rebuild her life from scratch, knowing that she is safe from his further perversion.

Neither avenue was open to her legally; she could not rip him apart, as her -- as any -- instincts would reasonably demand. Forget that; she could not even touch him. No punishment the justice system was prepared to dispense was even close to being proportional to her suffering (which, granted, is difficult to quantify, but I think most people would agree with this assessment, and "majority rules" is one of the core principles of the justice system to begin with). She did what was necessary to remove him from her life, and it was probably a calculated risk that she might be punished in turn. If her appetite for revenge has been sated, and she has not descended into psychopathy, I'm good with it.

Is she a product of her father's evil or is she a sick and sadistic killer who must remain behind bars?

Well, she is a product of her father's actions, but what is being suggested here? That she, too, is "evil"? If so, I do have a problem with that kind of comfortable moralizing from afar. Her misfortune was beyond our comprehension; it was on an entirely different level of perversity than anything the average juror is qualified to comment on. That its punishment should be brought down to our standardized prison system -- something else that is comfortably off our social radar as far as the inhumanity of the environment goes -- is questionable.

She will be processed through the legal system, it seems. We do not have a better way to handle the issue. But to judge her morally, based on her reaction to a situation we are both fortunate enough to be ignorant of?

I feel as if the law must be upheld because of the severity of her crime. She did take a human life and that is considered a sin.

You're talking about our justice system, right? ~_^ In my opinion, courts are not about determining the morality of a situation and punishing "sin". They are about diffusing injustices through a set of standardized channels, in an effort to make offenders "normal" again, or put them somewhere out of sight. They do not deal in justice or revenge, but only with breaking down injustices into quantifiable demands: money or time. Who must you pay for the privilege of rejoining society, and how much? What length of time removed from society will make you think twice about reoffending?

You can come so far, only to fail at the hands of corruption. It's not worth all that time to let a bunch of fumbling retards do nothing but just dick around, chasing the meat hanging off of the end of the treadmill.

There it is. Society functions, in part, by our belief in the authority of the courts. Everyone knows that the system is imperfect, and most people know why (see above quote). Everyone also knows that said system does not give a damn about you individually, and, just or not, it will swallow your existence if it needs to.

To keep our social mechanisms in place and functioning, I think it is reasonable that she be given limited jail-time, and, at least to placate the public, some form of counseling (the latter is troubling, however, as I do not trust that the psychiatric discipline is any more impartial than that of justice). It pleased me somewhat that Brigitte was "happy with the verdict"; she knows that the courts were utterly impotent to correct her individual situation, so she did it herself, and will accept society's lashes for acting alone.

And you know what; had she gone through the regular legal channels to settle the matter, I think the chances of her becoming a raging psychopath would be greater. Watch your abuser manipulate the legal system, serve his time, and emerge X years later to become a destructive force in your life once again, and you will begin to hate humanity.