GUILTY Canada - Melissa Richmond, 28, stabbed to death, Winchester, Ont, 24 July 2013

[humandoing]

As was suggested earlier in the thread:
"Soldier in throes of PTSD killed wife, defence admits at murder trial"

 

[Wondergirl]

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/0930-richmond

So....I can almost go there with the whole PTSD defense - until you get to the part about him hiding the evidence and her making plans to end her marriage.

Yes - he may have PTSD.

But I believe he is ALSO a murderer. He killed the only thing good in his life because she was leaving him.

Jmo

 

[Wondergirl]

 

[bakergurl]

So....I can almost go there with the whole PTSD defense - until you get to the part about him hiding the evidence and her making plans to end her marriage.

Yes - he may have PTSD.

But I believe he is ALSO a murderer. He killed the only thing good in his life because she was leaving him.

Jmo

I totally agree with everything you wrote Wondergirl.

I am so pissed off that he is going to sit there and try to play the victim. I don't mean to sound crass but she knew he was killing her.
Also he let the city look for her when he knew right where he put her.

I know a journalist with severe PTSD, I never saw a violent bone in his body but he would get quiet and go into his "shell".

I understand it is a harsh mental illness but if Howard loved her that much then show her now, give her the decency she deserves.

 

[rogue ant]

I'm skeptical about his PTSD being the cause of his murderous actions as well.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

[matou]

Plus he had money troubles.

 

[matou]

Laurie Fagan ‏@faganl [video=twitter;649240477548576768]https://twitter.com/faganl/status/649240477548576768[/video]
Melissa Richmond's mom testifies she told her that she was thinking about leaving Howard cuz unhappy marriage

 

[bakergurl]

Thanks for posting the twitter account matou.
From what I've been reading the defence is asking her mom why she never asked Howard about his PTSD.
I think they are going to push that defence hard. I feel bad for the family.

 

[matou]

The victim was having an affair with a married man, according to this article. Possible that the accused found out about it.

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/10/01/cheating-wife-feared-soldier-husband-court-hears

 

[matou]

What MR's mother thinks:

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/09/3...eave-ptsd-stricken-husband-mother-tells-court

 

[matou]

Inside the home, and during one of the many conversations they had with Richmond that day, a police officer said he liked the staircase.

“Thanks. Melissa liked it too,” Richmond replied.

“I thought it was strange that he was speaking about his wife in the past tense,” OPP Det. Const. Michael Hyndman testified.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/1002-richmond

 

[bakergurl]

The newspaper had the headline that she was a cheating wife.
They are going to drag her name through the mud.

 

[Wondergirl]

Richmond told police that his wife went missing after she took a late-night drive to clear her mind after they had had a “heated discussion,” court heard.The court has heard that Melissa Richmond didn’t even like driving and had just got her licence a year before.

Still, as the jury heard, she went to get gas and then drove to the parking lot of the Ottawa mall for a final rendezvous with her husband.

Richmond told police that he also gassed up his Ford Ranger pick-up truck, but said he then went straight home.

But security video from the gas station shows Howard Richmond driving away and headed north toward Ottawa. And security video from the shopping centre, also played in court, shows him pulling into the parking lot about nine minutes after his wife did, shortly before midnight on July 25, 2013.

Her body was found days later after a police search. She had suffered wounds to her left arm, head and a fatal one to the neck.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/1002-richmond

 

[Wondergirl]

Two days before Melissa Richmond was stabbed to death by her husband, she showed up at her mother’s home in tears, saying she was “scared to death” to end her troubled marriage for fear of making ends meet on her own.

Her mother, Millie Evans, testified at Howard Richmond’s first-degree murder trial on Wednesday, recounting her daughter’s unannounced visit in July 2013.

“She was really upset. She told me how bad their relationship really was,” Evans told court. “She was scared to death to leave because she didn’t think she had the finances … She wasn’t herself, very unhappy and sad … It wasn’t a marriage anymore. They were living as roommates.”

The jury heard on Wednesday morning that money was already tight when she started planning to leave her husband. Though she had two college diplomas, she worked at a series of low-paying jobs — ranging from receptionist, dental hygienist and as a baker at a grocery store.

Richmond, who stands statue-still in the prisoner’s box when his jury files in and out of court, met his much-younger wife about two years before they married in 2005.


The jury heard on Wednesday that his PTSD was so crippling that he slept up to 16 hours a day — sometimes in a closet — and that his wife considered his diagnosis an excuse to be lazy.


The couple had bought a second house with the hopes that the soldier, on medical leave, would fix it up and flip it on the market, but nothing was getting done, court heard.


“That place was a mess … and she’d try to coax him into doing it,” the slain woman’s mother told court Wednesday morning. “There was always an excuse and Melissa was fed up with it.”

http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/2015...husband-days-before-he-killed-her-court-hears

 

[matou]

Ottawa CitizenVerified account ‏@OttawaCitizen [video=twitter;650003822149009408]https://twitter.com/OttawaCitizen/status/650003822149009408[/video]
Howard Richmond, on trial for killing wife, Melissa, offered man who found her car a piece of her jewelry. http://ow.ly/SWMQK

 

[matou]

Laurie Fagan ‏@faganl [video=twitter;650074458192015360]https://twitter.com/faganl/status/650074458192015360[/video]Ottawa, Ontario
Jury watched 2 hour police video-taped intvw with Howard Richmond day he reported Melissa missing July 25/2013 #cbcott #ottnews

 

[matou]

Melissa Richmond and her secret lover both feared what her husband would do to them if he ever found out about their affair.


OPP Const. Jeremy Geurts testified at Howard Richmond’s first-degree murder trial on Thursday, recounting a conversation he had had with Melissa’s lover on July 25, 2013.


That was the day she was reported missing by her husband Howard, and the officer was at the couple’s Winchester home looking for clues.


Jeff Thornton, who had been having an affair with Melissa, told the officer about their fears shortly after he arrived at the Richmond home.


“He was very scared of Mr. Richmond,” the officer testified. “He was concerned he’d come after him, and he said Melissa was scared that she wouldn’t be around anymore if he found out.”

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...ould-find-out-about-affair-murder-trial-hears

 

[matou]

What I don't understand yet is whether Melissa intended on meeting up with her husband at the mall parking lot or not. He showed up 9 minutes after she got there. Did she call him? Did he follow her?

 

[matou]

I also like how the officer noticed when he referred to his missing wife using the past tense. This kind of stuff IS meaningful IMO. I have noticed this type of language in the case of another missing Canadian woman, Thelma Krull, and I believe this will become relevant in her case too. JMO

 

[matou]

But if police seemed somewhat suspicious of the man — and officers have testified they were — Richmond had a ready answer.


“I have PTSD,” he told Redmond about two minutes into the interview, adding his brain was a bit “scrambled.”


He mentioned his condition about half a dozen times in the first 15 minutes of the interview.

http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/10/02/soldier-offers-up-dead-wifes-jewelry