Bear with me, please. (Sorry for the MEGO.) I want to try to explain, from my perspective only, why I think it is relevant and appropriate to discuss some things that some of you are interpreting as victim bashing.
So let's assume for the sake of this argument that SW was genuinely just as kind and sweet and good-hearted as she presents herself on SM, that she doesn't have a mean bone in her body, that she was the perfect wife and mother doing the best she could while suffering from a chronic health condition, and that she didn't have any sort of mental illness or anything like that. She is awesome, and there was no reason in the world for a rational person to dislike her, much less kill her or the children.
In short, nothing that happened was her fault. Okay?
Every trial lawyer worth their salt will have a "Theory of the Case" for every case they try. A Theory of the Case is a short, concise statement explaining
who did what and
why. The shorter the better, the simpler the better. This statement, if true, helps the jurors interpret the individual facts and put them in a larger context.
Think of it like this: each piece of evidence is like a piece to a puzzle. We've got all these pieces, but what kind of picture are we trying to make? Is it a barn? A horse? A lion in the zoo? The Theory of the Case is like the picture on the box: when we put all these puzzle pieces together, you should end up with a picture that's on the box. The prosecution will say, we think these puzzle pieces will fit together to form the image of a cow. The defense will say that the puzzle pieces make a picture of a chicken. The jury has to decide which theory is more consistent with the evidence that they are presented through the witness stand. And once the jurors start to see a particular picture emerge ("Hey, it does sort of look like a cow"), then they will start to interpret facts (puzzle pieces) in a way that is consistent with that image ("Oh, this is not a chicken foot, it's a cow's tail!").
As I said, the Theory of the Case contains three parts:
Who did
What, and
Why? "Who" is the defendant, "What" is the crime, and "Why" is motive. From a legal perspective, all that matters is the Who and the What. Motive is very rarely an element of a crime, and the prosecution is not required to prove why a crime was committed. But we all want to know motive because we want to make sense of why crimes happen. It is especially important in tragic cases such as this one, because most people (myself included) can't wrap their heads around Why a seemingly loving father would kill his perfect wife and beautiful children. So we badly want to try to understand some reason or motivation that explains the Why, and if we don't find that motivation, then we might start looking for other theories that would explain it better. ("It's not a cow, it's a unicorn! NOT GUILTY!")
So, the prosecution is going to need to come up with a Theory of the Case such as "He killed her because he was jealous that she was earning more money than he was." To break that down, "He (Who) killed her (What) because _____ (Why)."
To think about Why, we have to get inside the Defendant's mind and walk around. You and I know that the Wife was sincere and perfect. But Husband killed her. Why?
If the Why is that Husband was jealous because Wife was earning more than him, would that mean we were blaming Wife---("If she hadn't been so successful, he wouldn't have had to kill her. It's HER fault!"). No! That's absurd. Her being successful isn't her fault. His jealousy is his problem.
But when we try to suggest a reason why Husband hated Wife so bad and was so angry, it might sound on its face like we are blaming Wife. "He killed her because.....she wouldn't stop eating crackers in the bed!" A person might say, "Hey, you are blaming the victim here and that is against the TOS!" No, that's not what we are doing, we are providing the motive to complete the Theory of the Case.
I hope that makes sense. Sorry again for the length. I have a hard time getting my point across sometimes.
I'm wondering if CW is being held in solitary. He may not have access to a television or other means of watching.
