Sheriff: Michigan man shot wife, sons before self

[depakid]

COLUMBUS TOWNSHIP, Mich. — If Phillip Parsons was having financial or other troubles, he didn't let on to his friend, Russ Whittaker, as they cut trees or talked about high school sports.

"Great people. Great people," Whittaker said Monday, shaking his head at the news that Parsons and his family had been found dead just a stone's throw across the road.

St. Clair County Sheriff Tim Donnellon said Monday the deaths are being investigated as three murders and a suicide. Parsons, 35, an out-of-work truck driver, was found dead on his bedroom floor with a single gunshot to his head. His wife, Gina Parsons, 34, was shot multiple times and found in the couple's bed. Parson's son, Sean, and his wife's son, Andrew Davis, were each shot once and found in their bedrooms.

The boys, both 14-year-old high school freshmen, were stepbrothers from the couple's previous marriages.

A relative concerned about the family called 911 about 8 p.m. Sunday, Donnellon said. Investigators believe the shootings took place late Saturday night or early the next morning in the rural community of Columbus Township, about 40 miles northeast of Detroit.

Whittaker said he and Phillip Parsons often shared tools and last spoke about two weeks ago. "The two boys were outside playing baseball Saturday," Whittaker said. "They played sports, football in school. Phil always talked about how good they were."

Matthew Davis described his son, Andrew, as a "great kid" who persevered through his parents' divorce about four years ago and recently made his school's hockey team.

More: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hrwc3qDFGqOGlvJ09eZXOw1SdPUgD9C0UP784

[eqfan592]

1. Terrible story.

Too bad he didn't stab them instead, right depakid? Because we all know that stabbing makes people less dead than shooting. As does beating them with a object, along with all the other ways a person can kill somebody.

[depakid]

2. Terrible story that likely wouldn't have happened without the proliferation of guns

One that also won't get much play outside the local paper. Sadly, they've become acceptable- and mundane.

[TheWraith]

4. Yes, because the gun put the idea in his head.

Nobody ever kills without a gun. That's the magic of guns. :eyes:

[depakid]

6. Actually there were two preventable tragedies in the area

6 die within hours in separate murder-suicides

Police say husbands shot family members, themselves in Milford Twp., St. Clair County.

Two separate murder-suicides discovered within hours of each other Sunday claimed six lives in southeastern Michigan, including a Milford Township couple in their 60s and a young family of four in rural St. Clair County.

In both cases, police say the husband was the shooter before turning the gun on himself. Authorities did not release a motive in either incident.

"It does appear that, with the tough economic times, people are desperate and resorting to things such as this," said Macomb County Sheriff Mark A. Hackel. "It's an act of desperation. Sometimes they take others with them. It's a tragedy. How do you rationalize an irrational thought?"

More: http://www.detnews.com/article/20091117/METRO02/911170326/1411/METRO02/6-die-within-hours-in-separate-murder-suicides

[taurus145]

11. True colors showing, eh?

I'm one of your "gun nuts" and I find nothing mundane about the loss of human life.

Spittle on hot pavement is deeper than you regard for human life that doesn't jibe with your views.

[rl6214]

15. You mean this actually made your local paper

Or do you google all of our papers so you can dance in the blood of those that have died?

Worry about what happens in your country and leave ours alone. We don't need your meddling.

[rd_kent]

24. Why do you insist on this game? All of your talking points have been throughly debunked

yet you still try again and again. What is your deal?

[eqfan592]

27. Either he is the most thick-headed individual around the forums right now.

Or he's a troll. I'm honestly starting to think he just does this for kicks, because I can't imagine somebody really being so off base as to think that a gun actually places the thought of murder into somebodies head all by itself.

[rd_kent]

29. Perhaps he should be reported to the mods.

It seems he goes on and on and when his talking points are thoroughly debunked, he moves on to the next thread or sub-thread and starts over. An obvious troll.......Methinks it is tombstone time......

[Art_from_Ark]

3. How many people stab all their live-in family members

and then stab themselves? Not unheard of, I suppose, but I would imagine it would be much rarer than just blowing everyone, including oneself, away with a gun.

At any rate, what is it with all these assholes who think that if they're going to bump themselves off, then everyone else has to go too?

[eqfan592]

17. You can "imagine" whatever you like.

The reality is that people find other ways to kill each other and themselves if they have to. People do use knifes on a regular basis to kill, even in situations like the above. And the person doesn't have to use the same implement on themselves as they used on the others. He could hang himself, drive off a cliff, etc, if he doesn't like the idea of bleeding out himself.

I do agree though, I can't imagine what it has to take for a person to get to the point where they want to try and take everyone down with them.

[AtheistCrusader]

20. I blame religion.

The idea that there's a 'better place' to go on to, and that you might want your family with you.

[Euromutt]

26. If you're prepared to look outside the US, you'll find it

In the Japanese language, there is a distinction between muri-shinju and ikka-shinju. Ikka-shinju is when both parents kill the entire family, and then commit suicide (with traditionally the implication that the children consented to be killed due to the shame borne by the entire family); muri-shinju is when one parent murders part of all of the household and then commits suicide.

In the Japanese local and national press you can usually find at least one or two cases of "muri-shinju" reported every single day. Even in the English language press there are about two cases reported each week.

Source: http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20040107_trends_s65/index.html
Note that this passage describes only instances of muri-shinju, not ikka-shinju.

The piece goes on to speculate with regards to motive:

From reports in the media, it seems that financial worries are the major motive behind many of these murder-suicides. Desperate parents in a suicidal state seem to reason that it is somehow better that their children die with them than face what they believe would be the hardships of Japan's undeveloped welfare system.

Hmmm... financial worries, un(der)developed welfare system, what does that remind me of? Could it be the United States in the throes of an economic recession?

[eqfan592]

28. You can't be serious!

Do you mean to imply that there are OTHER factors behind horrible tragedies like this besides the existence of firearms??? That guns by themselves don't cause people to have a desire to do these horrible things, with no other outside factors at work?

Insanity of course! Any rational person can see that guns are magical super creations with the ability for mind control and that they must be stopped! The numbers prove this!

[krispos42]

5. Unemployed, of course.

Of course. :-(


For what it's worth, less than a hundred people are killed total in triple-homicides annually.

Here's a historic graph...




And a link to the raw data: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/multivictab.htm

[depakid]

7. There are those who contend we can do better with that, too.

with responsible policy.

[krispos42]

8. Responsible economic policy would be nice

So would responsible drug policy.


But we're not going to get that. The transnationals won't let their golden goose get killed, and the puritans will never tolerate casual drug use that doesn't come with with a proof number.

So we'll continue to flog guns instead.


I feel like the original Cassandra sometimes. :-(

[depakid]

9. Gun policy is just one more area where we can do better

Understood re: the Cassandra deal sometimes.

Remember though- Cassandra was cursed to get it right- yet have no one listen as Troy fell.

[krispos42]

10. Oh yeah, we could

Although I think you and I have somewhat different views of what would work and what wouldn't.


But the fact is that gun crime is by and large committed as a means to an end. In the case of a lousy economy murder/suicide is a way to escape the degradation, pain, and shame of unemployment, poverty, etc.

We have to get this economy fundamentally changed. And I don't see it happening yet, sadly.

[OttavaKarhu]

12. You need to revisit your Apollodorus, Hyginus and Aeschylus

Let's set aside the neo-Jungian (Klein/Bolen/their ilk) and New Age distortions for a moment.

Cassandra was not cursed.

Cassandra was gifted by Apollo, the sun-god and lawgiver. But because she chose to lie to herself and to him in order to get that divine gift (prophecy), he took back part of the gift, leaving it if anything even more strongly divine.

She promised to have sex with him (a human gift he wanted) if he gave her prophecy (a divine gift she wanted). Then when she got the divine gift, she reneged on the payback. He asked her for one kiss, which she coyly offered, and he spat in her mouth. This didn't remove the gift (as happened when Glaucus spat into the mouth of Polyeidus, after the latter saved him from getting lost in Minos' labyrinth), only modified it.

This isn't a curse. It is a divine gift to which Apollo appended divine limits (only the gods could hear the truth of her words; humans could not, and I'm sure that included even herself). If anything, he made her more divine: before the gift she was already a prophetess, but it wasn't enough for her. So he took even that away from her. You want to mess with the divine, baby? You got it.

One might even argue (if one knew the primary texts instead of facile tertiary ones) that Cassandra additionally got what she deserved considering she was also an adulterer...with a man who was a rapist, a multiple infanticide, a murderer (including of Clytemnestra's first husband), and an all around bum. Agamemnon. Who by the way slaughtered tens of thousands of people before the advent of guns, but let's not digress there, even mythopoetically.

Cassandra was also arrogant before the gods. They themselves had cursed the House of Atreus, for damn good reason. If people didn't listen to her prophetic wankings, it's most likely that it was because they understood better than she how the gods work. She thought the gods could be nookie-teased and manipulated into compliance with her view of the cosmos.

Apollo taught her otherwise, reiterating that there are laws of justice and moira, and punishment for hubris.

The moral for the Gungeon?

This should be instructive to liberal Democrats who want magical gifts (like peace and fluffy bunnies) and promise anything to the state/lawmakers in order to get it...but then are surprised when others can't believe their prophesies of doom.

The gods know better, and so do sensible people. They know that free women and men have never stayed that way by manipulation, appeasement, and cowardice.

As for Cassandra as Aeschylus wrote her, her ravings had less to do with Troy or any other human tragedy to which the gods are indifferent, and more to do with her realizing what a scumbag her squeeze, Agamemnon, was, and what she did in agreeing to couple with him, there in the "house that stinks of murder."

Perhaps we should be listening to the Chorus instead:

To rest unsatisfied amid great wealth
is in the nature of all human beings.
No one can point and order it away
from princely homes by uttering the words
"Dissatisfaction, enter here no more!"
Take Agamemnon. The powers in heaven
permitted him to capture Priam's town,
to return home honoured by the gods.
But now, if he must pay the penalty
for blood which other men before him shed
and die in retribution for the dead
he killed himself, what mortal human being
who hears all this can boast he lives
a life unscarred by fate?

It might also do well to pay a little more attention to Clytemnestra.

[rl6214]

16. What's this WE bullshit?

Your country has already enacted draconian gun laws, be happy with that and leave ours alone. You don't need to push your socialist agenda on us.

[eqfan592]

18. Hey now, not all socialist's are anti-2a!

I'm pretty far down to the lower left on the political compass (if you are unfamiliar with this, I'd recommend googleing it and doing the test as it's very interesting and worthwhile IMHO!) and I'm VERY strongly pro-2a, as well as concealed and open carry. So don't lump us all into the blinded-to-reality group such as depakid. :P

[rl6214]

21. Sorry, didn't mean to be insulting to you.

[eqfan592]

25. No worries man, I wasn't really insulted. :) (nt)

[JonQ]

19. That doesn't really seem to be correlated

to unemployment rates at all.

[proteus_lives]

13. That is a tragedy.

Now please explain why this tragedy means I (and millions of other Americans) should give up/lose/be stripped of their 2nd Amendment rights.

If you would.

[rl6214]

14. Is there a comment that is supposed to go along with this

that I missed somewhere OR ARE YOU JUST TROLLING?

[spin]

22. Replied to wrong post. (n/t)

[juno jones]

23. Guns or lack of them aside

this phenomena puts me in mind of the historical revenants of the 'great depression' of the late 1800's, prominently featured in "Wisconsin Death Trip" and other sources.

Thank the gods we no longer kill our selves and our families with sulfur matchheads or 'Paris Green'. That's all I can say