Lately, I've been revisiting my childhood fascination with all things true crime and/or tragedy outcome-related. As I mentioned in a recent post, I was involved in one local murder case many years ago where I stated that this couple were as bad as each other---and to each other---which led his murder and her LWOP sentence. Just earlier today, I found an online article about how the judge who presided over her case at the time asked that she be released (as of 2018) as he believed she had been systematically physically and verbally abused throughout her marriage. In spite of myself believing that this was certainly true of their relationship dynamic, it still didn't justify axing her husband to death and from behind. I mean, there is such a thing as D-I-V-O-R-C-E as the late Tammy Wynette used to sing. Yet, as I just stated, they were both as bad as each other and to each other as any on-blast highly dysfunctional married couple can be in any given moment. Whether she should be pardoned or not after spending well over a decade in prison is not my call. All I know is that there were other options available to her and to them as a couple in solving their problems back before she bought that axe at a local home improvement store. In their case, their surviving children paid the ultimate price in every way imaginable.
Then there is Dr. Ken Stahl and his wife Carolyn Oppy-Stahl. No kids between them, but they were both killed along a stretch of remote highway in southern California several years ago. At first, no one could figure out why two doctors would be murdered like that so randomly and with no apparent purpose attached (all of her "good" jewelry was left on her body, etc.). As it turned out, Ken Stahl was a very sick man physically (recurrent heart issues)...and a very busy man romantically. His wife knew this, complained about this, and fought with him about this. Whereas he turned to incessant working out and chasing women to feel better fast, she turned to food and shopping. He complained to others about her weight; at the time of her murder, she was 5'8" and 220 lbs. Her driver's license presented her weight as 75 lbs. lighter. He was 6' tall and under 200 lbs. At his autopsy, in spite of having had a quintuple bypass years before---he was a heart attack waiting to happen "at any time" according to the medical examiner. I guess all that working out and running around after women did NOT save him from another new blockage ticking away like a time bomb in his chest.
When all was said and done, it turns out that Dr. Stahl had asked his electrician (a former gang member who became a Christian) to help him "get rid of my problem" (namely, Carolyn Oppy-Stahl) some time before the murder actually occurred. And God bless this electrician for doing the right thing and going to the police after he found out what happened to the Stahls. But why was Dr. Ken Stahl murdered too? Was it a twisted murder-suicide scheme Dr. Stahl hired a hitman to perform? It didn't take long for law enforcement to uncover the real story. Of course it involved an "other woman" and her male friend. Stahl paid $30,000 to have his wife killed; little did he know he was getting the pop too because he wasn't as good a boyfriend to this particular other woman like he believed he was!
And then there is Dr. Al Canty. I didn't even know about this case until a friend told me about it the other night. A psychologist with a nice wife, a nice life, and a nice practice inside Detroit's historical Fisher Building (where I worked for a time I don't mind telling you!). And yet.....and yet he found a strung-out 19 year old hooker along Cass Corridor one fine day...and the rest was the beginning of the end for Dr. Canty. Turns out I had two connections to this case, who will remain unnamed. Let's just say that the one helped to ruin her life at a young age; the other, to save it after her conviction.
Murder isn't just literal in nature. It is also figurative. When we have a hand in ruining someone's life and spirit, where is the prison perpetrators can be sent to for this crime against humanity?
If you haven't yet watched Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love (on Prime), this would be an excellent documentary to bring all of what I am saying here today together for you. There are always tremendous prices to pay when pursuing power, pleasure (aka hedonism!), and avoidance of personal responsibility serves as our own life's reasons for living. In Cohen's case, the documentary chronicles the footprints one man (Cohen) left on anyone who had more than a "fan"-based relationship with him. The family who hosted him initially on the island of Hydra (in Greece!) upon his arrival in 1960...his "muse" he met through this family...the muse's neglected and broken only child....Cohen's dalliances with everyone from Janis Joplin to Joni Mitchell while involved with his muse/not involved with his muse. All I know is nobody can make this stuff up! When we don't care or don't want to care about how we are truly and genuinely impacting the lives of others...especially including our own children or the children of others...what do we expect will happen? I tell you, I couldn't keep track of all the people presented in this documentary who either killed themselves---or ended up dead from the inside out.
History repeats itself when it comes to dysfunctional and destructive relationships. It always has. Until we learn to STOP! and then THINK! before we ACT!...this pattern won't end. How could it? It is far too easy to ACT! first and THINK! last...if at all! I found it interesting after watching the documentary how "Marianne" (Cohen's former muse) blamed her only child's institutionalization on the LSD his father gave him at age 15. Really? What about the time you and Leonard shipped him off to boarding school at age 8 only to receive countless missives to visit him....take him home...and LOVE him?!? Was Leonard Cohen worth that price your son ultimately paid with his own life? Just askin...
Until next post...
Then there is Dr. Ken Stahl and his wife Carolyn Oppy-Stahl. No kids between them, but they were both killed along a stretch of remote highway in southern California several years ago. At first, no one could figure out why two doctors would be murdered like that so randomly and with no apparent purpose attached (all of her "good" jewelry was left on her body, etc.). As it turned out, Ken Stahl was a very sick man physically (recurrent heart issues)...and a very busy man romantically. His wife knew this, complained about this, and fought with him about this. Whereas he turned to incessant working out and chasing women to feel better fast, she turned to food and shopping. He complained to others about her weight; at the time of her murder, she was 5'8" and 220 lbs. Her driver's license presented her weight as 75 lbs. lighter. He was 6' tall and under 200 lbs. At his autopsy, in spite of having had a quintuple bypass years before---he was a heart attack waiting to happen "at any time" according to the medical examiner. I guess all that working out and running around after women did NOT save him from another new blockage ticking away like a time bomb in his chest.
When all was said and done, it turns out that Dr. Stahl had asked his electrician (a former gang member who became a Christian) to help him "get rid of my problem" (namely, Carolyn Oppy-Stahl) some time before the murder actually occurred. And God bless this electrician for doing the right thing and going to the police after he found out what happened to the Stahls. But why was Dr. Ken Stahl murdered too? Was it a twisted murder-suicide scheme Dr. Stahl hired a hitman to perform? It didn't take long for law enforcement to uncover the real story. Of course it involved an "other woman" and her male friend. Stahl paid $30,000 to have his wife killed; little did he know he was getting the pop too because he wasn't as good a boyfriend to this particular other woman like he believed he was!
And then there is Dr. Al Canty. I didn't even know about this case until a friend told me about it the other night. A psychologist with a nice wife, a nice life, and a nice practice inside Detroit's historical Fisher Building (where I worked for a time I don't mind telling you!). And yet.....and yet he found a strung-out 19 year old hooker along Cass Corridor one fine day...and the rest was the beginning of the end for Dr. Canty. Turns out I had two connections to this case, who will remain unnamed. Let's just say that the one helped to ruin her life at a young age; the other, to save it after her conviction.
Murder isn't just literal in nature. It is also figurative. When we have a hand in ruining someone's life and spirit, where is the prison perpetrators can be sent to for this crime against humanity?
If you haven't yet watched Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love (on Prime), this would be an excellent documentary to bring all of what I am saying here today together for you. There are always tremendous prices to pay when pursuing power, pleasure (aka hedonism!), and avoidance of personal responsibility serves as our own life's reasons for living. In Cohen's case, the documentary chronicles the footprints one man (Cohen) left on anyone who had more than a "fan"-based relationship with him. The family who hosted him initially on the island of Hydra (in Greece!) upon his arrival in 1960...his "muse" he met through this family...the muse's neglected and broken only child....Cohen's dalliances with everyone from Janis Joplin to Joni Mitchell while involved with his muse/not involved with his muse. All I know is nobody can make this stuff up! When we don't care or don't want to care about how we are truly and genuinely impacting the lives of others...especially including our own children or the children of others...what do we expect will happen? I tell you, I couldn't keep track of all the people presented in this documentary who either killed themselves---or ended up dead from the inside out.
History repeats itself when it comes to dysfunctional and destructive relationships. It always has. Until we learn to STOP! and then THINK! before we ACT!...this pattern won't end. How could it? It is far too easy to ACT! first and THINK! last...if at all! I found it interesting after watching the documentary how "Marianne" (Cohen's former muse) blamed her only child's institutionalization on the LSD his father gave him at age 15. Really? What about the time you and Leonard shipped him off to boarding school at age 8 only to receive countless missives to visit him....take him home...and LOVE him?!? Was Leonard Cohen worth that price your son ultimately paid with his own life? Just askin...
Until next post...