Love, obsession and murder; when romance goes all wrong

He said he loved his wife, and would never have harmed her. Her family and lawyers said he was jealous and possessive, and developed an obsession that led to him murdering her.

In November 2004, Paul Gooden, a former sales supervisor, was sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife Ingrid Andrade-Gooden, and dumping her body in mangroves along the Palisadoes Road in Kingston a year before.

The Crown charged that between November 6 and 8, 2003, Gooden, then 39, killed his 36-year-old wife by smothering and strangling her and dumping her body, which was found with its face mutilated. They said he was motivated by jealousy, obsession and rejection.

Gooden, when he took the witness stand, portrayed himself as a loving, caring husband who was tolerant of his wife’s moods. But the trial unearthed an obsessive streak, including where Gooden sometimes spent time in the car park of his wife’s workplace. The prosecution said his motive for killing her was her rejection and apparent affair.

He was sentenced to life.

Obsession.

Psychologist Dr Charles Carr describes it as “a recurring thought or image that seems beyond control”. It’s a compulsion that starts as an addiction, similar to that experienced by an alcoholic when he drinks, or a food addict who experiences a mood change by bingeing or starving.

“These people also experience a ‘high’ from their addiction,” he said. “These highs give the person feelings of power, being untouchable, being able to do anything…”

It’s the addiction that fuels the obsession, that leads one person to want to control the life of another when they feel their happiness is dependent on the other person.

It becomes a problem when the feelings of the obsessive lover and his or her addiction, get out of control.

And when this happens, the obsessive person may even see death as a way out of their addiction.

In March last year, 41-year-old Troy Chambers was believed to have taken his three-year-old son outside to safety, before locking himself and the child’s mother inside their Kingston home and setting it ablaze. Firefighters discovered the partially burnt bodies of 31-year-old cosmetologist Lisa Ellis and Chambers on the floor of one of the bedrooms they shared in Marverly.

According to police, Chambers is said to have believed that Ellis was being unfaithful to him.

In another incident in March 2005, Nicholas Williams, 34, shot 15-year-old Ishieka Clarke four times before shooting himself in the head in what police said was a love affair gone sour.

The police said Williams entered premises in Tower Hill, Kingston, where Clarke lived with both her parents, and attacked the girl. During a struggle the teenager was shot and two of her female relatives were grazed on the leg. Williams then fired one shot in the side of his head. Both died on the spot.

Residents in the area said the two were having problems in their relationship. The last argument they said developed after Williams trailed Clarke to Three Miles and saw her meeting another man.

“We must remember that we all are obsessive to one extent or another,” Dr Carr said. “A person who has a love compulsion very probably did not start out with a compulsion. It very likely started as an addiction. Researchers have found that most addictions have many of the same bases.”

When the obsession starts

For a 30-year-old school secretary all woman interviewed, several incidents with her husband has led her to believe that he is obsessed with her.

“I don’t know if I can correctly describe his actions. But my husband doesn’t allow me to go out – even though he himself does not take me out. I am not allowed to have friends, not allowed to have any male callers. He tells me I am his life and if I leave him he would kill me and kill himself. If he sees me talking to a man, no matter how simple the conversation, he creates a scene, even hitting me down in front of the person. He would just sit staring at me for long periods of time to the point where it gets very uncomfortable,” she said. ” Time and time again he would tell me how much he loves me.”

In fact, she said, he recently bought a firearm with the intention of doing extra security work in the evenings to bring in more money.

“But I feel that I am the one who is going to get the first bullet,” she said. “I spoke to his best friend about it but he told me that I was paranoid, that he would not do such a thing, but deep down I just feel that way.” She said to top if off, he gets upset easily, if she asks a simple question, he will just flare up. She explains too that he is the type to move from one extreme to the other. One minute he will be “overbearingly loving” – not letting her out of his sight, constantly touching and hugging, coupled with silent stares. Then the next minute he is uncontrollably angry, even hitting her. She believes this reaction is a result of her resentment towards him.

“If he tells me he loves me and I don’t say I love him too, it drives him into a frenzy, I think that is why he gets so angry. He is always telling me he knows that I do not love him. But how can you continue loving someone who behaves like that and treats you like a possession?”

Added she: “He calls me every minute of the day, not to ask how I am doing but to find out where I am, what I am doing and who I am with. If I don’t answer my phone he leaves the house and comes searching for me. I believe that is obsession. From the moment he is going to kill me if I leave him, I believe it is obsession,” she said.

Dr Carr explained that an obsessed person will start to look for their well-being in how their partner looks at them. They tend to not want to have any other social relationships and do not want their partner to have any other social relationships either. As the relationship continues, paranoia will more than likely set in. The person will start to think that their partner is having an affair when they are late, or they are not told about something, or they are not included in a night out with friends. When these things happen, it is at a point of total obsession.

Obsessive love is generally associated with unrequited love or unequal love. In some cases, the “beloved” may not even be aware of the existence or extent of the feelings of the other person. The beloved is like an object of religious devotion or veneration. The obsession often starts with minor instances – a stalking incident here, an uncomfortable feeling there.

A public relations practitioner told of two instances where he had been stalked, once by a woman and then by a man, to the point where he had to get the police involved and his phone number changed. He explained that in both instances, he knew neither of the two persons, who would call him everyday for three and four months respectively, telling him without reservations of what they would like to do to him in the wildest, passionate of ways.

His phone would ring he said even at 2:00 am with the sound of heavy breathing on the other line. After months of being constantly harassed, and having been told by the police that the situation was out of their hands (since he had not been threatened or physically abused), he turned to the phone company. A check was done on the numbers, which resulted in the knowledge of who both perpetrators were.

“I felt violated, I don’t even know how they got my number in the first place. The girl was on campus with me a year before and the guy was at Shortwood Teachers College.” He explained that the incidences were months apart so he was really unravelled by the situations.

Another young woman tells of her husband’s constant insistence on knowing every detail of her activities, and who controls down to the very underwear she chooses.

“If I’m in something that he thinks is particularly sexy, he’ll get upset and say that I’m going to meet a man,” she said. “He calls my phone constantly, he follows me everywhere, and I’m not surprised anymore when I leave my office and I see his car trailing me.”

In Some Philosophizing About Love, life extensionist Ben Best noted that in an obsessive relationship, all thoughts lead to the beloved.

“The most trivial fact about the beloved is a matter of great importance. The beloved adds a huge amount of meaningfulness to life. The happiness or unhappiness of the afflicted is at the mercy of the beloved. The slightest gesture from the beloved can send the loving one into transports of ecstasy or to the depths of despair. Every word or action by the beloved is scoured for hopeful signs of reciprocity. The obsessive lover lives in hope and suffers constant uncertainty about the feelings of the beloved. The entire life of the obsessive may be focused on speculations about the meaning of words and actions of the beloved.

The loving one often lives in fear, terrified of doing anything that might anger the beloved as love can undermine rationality and will power.”

Dr Carr noted that when a man or woman becomes obsessed with their partner, there is a high probability that the person has an addictive personality and a low self-esteem. A person with these two characteristics, he said, would be susceptible to becoming an obsessive lover.

“This person also very likely has not had long-lasting relationships, has had problems with their relationships before and probably has blamed himself or herself for the inability to have an enduring relationship in the past,” he said. “This person, in a short period of time comes to believe that they cannot live without the other person.”

For Kevin, a Kingston gas station attendant, this statement rings true, though he doesn’t go as far as to list his behaviour as obsessive.

“In this day and age women have gotten so untrustworthy that you have to find a way to protect what’s yours,” he said. “Sometimes I drive by my girlfriend’s house at night just to see who is parked outside. Sometimes I send her texts using another chip I have to see how she would respond. I don’t know how she really feels about me because I’m afraid to ask. I wonder sometimes if she’s just with me for my money, because I’m not the kind of guy that a girl like her would go out with ordinarily. She told me this. So what am I to think? I can’t sleep at night sometimes when I wonder what she’s doing. So I drive by, and I text her, to see what she’s really up to.”

As Bent said in his book, “hearts are sometimes won through persistence and it is the ardent hope of the obsessive lover to achieve this victory”.

Signs to look out for

Wondering if your partner is bordering on the obsessive? Though this is by no means a complete list, it should give you a fair idea.

Ask yourself:

1. Does your partner have low self-esteem?

2. Does he/she have an addictive personality?

3. Do they make you feel as if they can only find happiness through you?

4. Have they only had short or bad relationships in the past?

5. Are they jealous of your social life and your friends?

If the answers to these are yes, then you need to seek help.

“Please remember that counselling can help in situations such as these. Addictions can be cured. People with addictions can become valuable assets to the community.

For more information on addictive personalities, I recommend the book, The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behaviour by Craig Nakken,” Dr Carr advised.

Loving them to death…

What would drive an ordinary man to kill? What happens in the brain of someone society sees as normal, that allows them to snap, and take their anger or obsession with their mates to the grave? According to psychologist Dr Charles Carr, “a normal man would not kill his wife”.

“There has to have been something deep seated, a psychological problem like schizophrenia, or an obsession,” he said. “He is telling himself that if he cannot have her, then no one else should, and if she doesn’t respond in the way he wants, he may kill her and sometimes kill himself.”

Some men choose to murder and then do themselves in afterwards; others hire hitmen to do the jobs; and a few are held, to face the justice system before or after the attacks. Here are a few stories.

*Dr George Proctor, an 86-year-old botanist has been charged with allegedly putting out an $80,000 hit on his 66-year-old wife last year.

Dr Proctor is charged along with a co-accused Glenmore Fellington. According to court documents, on February 6 last year, Fellington, while in Mandeville, is alleged to have approached a man for assistance in killing Dr Proctor’s wife. The murder was to have been committed between April 20 and 27, when Dr Proctor would have been off the island. The man approached went to the police however, and Fellington and Dr Proctor were subsequently arrested. The case is still before the courts.

*Michael Anthony Laoe was charged with murder after allegedly conspiring to have his wife Charmaine Laoe killed by having someone douse her with acid. On June 10, 2005, Mrs Laoe was doused as she walked towards the Tax Collectorate on Constant Spring Road where she worked. A mob chased her attacker, Jermaine Colstock and killed him. Shortly after, Laoe turned himself in to the Greater Portmore police, amidst allegations that he had conspired with Colstock to injure his wife.

Six weeks later Mrs Laoe, who had severe burns to more than 40 per cent of her body, died from her injuries.

Laoe’s charges were upgraded to murder after her death.

* In 2002, Neville Gray, who the police said killed his 30-year-old wife Christine at Goulbourne District, Lawrence Tavern, was later found hanging from a tree by a length of rope. The police reported that the couple had a dispute over extra-marital affairs, after which the wife reportedly left for her mother’s house.

Gray reportedly went to his mother-in-law’s house and used a knife to slash his wife across the throat. Shortly afterwards, residents found his body hanging from a tree in the community.

*Also in 2002,  police reported  that a 42-year-old man had been arrested following investigation into the death of his wife at Dry Harbour district in Clarendon. The man, Orrett Drummond allegedly killed his wife and left her nude body on a dirt track. The body of Venetta Christie-Drummond, 30, was found with the head bashed in.

*Rosemarie Grey was shot by her cop friend in November last year, outside the school where they had gone to drop off her son. The police say Sergeant Aldermon Doran and Grey had an argument while they were seated inside his car on the grounds of the Danny Williams School for the Deaf at Cranerry Place in Papine. Members of staff said they heard Grey crying for help. She was shot in the neck and chest while Doran shot himself in the neck.

*Special Constable Wayne Christian, 23, shot and killed his female companion and then turned the gun on himself in October last year in Horizon Park, Spanish Town.

Colleagues, said he was quiet but had a temper

He and Donna Messam, 31, a practical nurse, had spent the night together at the house he shared with two other policemen. According to the police, explosions were heard in Christian’s apartment after which the bodies were found with gunshot wounds.

* In November last year the body of 66-year-old Adassa Fisher was found inside her Frankfield, Clarendon home with her throat slashed, while her husband was found hanging from a tree. Residents said the couple’s relationship was rocky and a family member was trying to counsel them in an effort to get them to mend fences.

* Twenty-eight-year-old Caullian Beale was stabbed  several times and had her throat slashed by her common-law spouse, Michael White, a 37-year-old, taxi operator in October last year.

Police say Beale walked out of the relationship three weeks before her death. White is reported to have trailed a taxi Beale was in, and rammed the car, causing it to run off the road.  Beale ran from the vehicle, but White chased her down and stabbed her. Early the next morning White’s body was found floating in a water tank by his relatives.

* Three children were left without a mother in 2003, after their stepfather, Garfield Hinds, 29, shot his wife who was three months pregnant and then shot himself.

Police say the couple’s three-year marriage was on the rocks and Hinds was asked  by his wife, Althea Hinds, 30 to leave the matrimonial home at Balcombe Drive in Kingston.

When Hinds’ persistent effort to patch up the relationship was rebuffed, he returned to the home with a gun and killed his wife before taking his own life.

* Two weeks ago, the body of 25-year-old Debbie Warren, from Rock Hall,  St Andrew was found in her Toyota Hiace vehicle at the Sangster International Airport.  She was allegedly strangled by her husband who later handed himself over to the police.

… And when women attack

Not to be forgotten are the women who kill or attempt to kill their spouses. Here are a few as reported cases.

*In 2004, Donna Walters, 45, allegedly used her licensed firearm to kill her husband Neville then put the gun to her head and killed herself.

The police reported that Neville, a 66-year-old building contractor, had just returned to the couple’s home at Boscobel Heights in St Mary when he and his wife got involved in a heated argument.

During the dispute, Mrs Walters allegedly pulled her licensed firearm and shot her husband in the abdomen and the face before putting a single bullet through her own head.

Residents of the community said the couple had been having frequent quarrels.

*Angela Watson, a Kingston woman has been charged with murder after her common-law husband’s mutilated body was discovered in a pit latrine behind their house last year.

The police found the body of Charles Patterson, in the latrine on November 27. He had been missing for five days.

Police say the body was partially burnt and had stab wounds all over. The feet were also bound with a piece of rope.

*In 2002 police arrested a 26-year-old Kingston woman for stabbing her common-law husband to death after the two got into an argument over the television remote.

The woman, Delora Moodie, turned herself in soon after the incident.

According to the police report, the two were at home when a dispute developed over the choice of television shows they each wanted to watch. Moodie reportedly used a knife to stab her spouse, 34-year-old Donovan Lawrence, in the chest.

*Late last year a woman with a history of mental problems pleaded guilty to the stabbing death of the father of her children while he was on duty as a security guard at the Pearnel Charles Arcade in Kingston. Carlene Smellie of Boon Hall, Golden Spring, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Courtney Reid, following an argument over their children.

The court was told that Smellie, who was on four different medication left the arcade and came back with an ice pick which she used to stab Reid in the chest, while he reclined in a chair.