GUILTY MO - Criste Reimer, 47, thrown from balcony, Kansas City, 14 Aug 2007

[Peter Hamilton]

Assisted suicide only applies when the dying person asks someone to kill them, NOT when they take it upon themselves because the sick person is costing them too much money. This is murder just as if he had shot her.

--agree--This is a horrendous case--calls out for the Death Penalty I believe--She was helpless,down to 75 pounds and partly blind--and how sad that this poor woman, only 47 years old,was suffering so much anyway--too young--Anyway, this guy needs to rot in prison forever,if they won't go for the DP

 

[AmandaBrown23]

How horrible! I am so sad for this poor lady. Her husband will get whats coming to him.

 

[txsvicki]

Did the woman have terminal cancer? I didn't see it mentioned in the linked articles. If the woman had SSI then she should have had Medicaid. Sounds like she recently left him and that's why he killed her.

 

[Bobbisangel]

I wonder why he went to her mothers and got her and didn't take her back?
Did she have a life insurance policy that someone was paying that he wanted?
His financial alibi won't float because it sounded like she was doing alright at her mothers. Maybe he wanted her SSI or SSD and that is why he brought her back home. He had a choice...he could have left her at her moms. She had only been home a couple months before he threw her over the balcony.
He deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life. In the picture he doesn't seem to show any emotion. Maybe he is psycho. The family distrusted her with him for some reason.

 

[MysteryAddict]

Though I didn't want to get into an argument with anyone, I didn't agree with those at the beginning of this thread. I couldn't believe how some had sympathy for this guy and thought he looked "distraught".

I thought he looked like a mean sob and could never accept any financial excuse for a husband throwing his wife over a balcony!!!

You just don't do this to someone you love! Even if you do believe in "mercy killing" or putting a loved one out of their agony- you just don't pick that person up and throw them over a balcony! What a vicious hateful act!

What an awful way for this poor woman to die.

May the monster pay big time for what he did to her!

 

[Txmom]

Communities need to better educated the people living in them. I am under the impression that this man lost his job and med insurance because he had to spend so much time taking care of her. Several things come to mind...1) if you get on a hospice program, sitters can come in and sit while you work, free of charge. 2) medical is provided free of charge (not physicians, but drugs, diapers, boost, etc. 3) why didnt the sisters come in and get a schedule going on who would be with her on what days, make dinner, do the laundry, etc. 4) there is always people who volunteer free of charge to help out, you have to find the right organization to help you, 5) meals on wheels will provide lunch if you call them, 6) if he had inquired at the hospital thru the social workers, they would have told him all of this so that he would not have lost his job and the med insurance, 7) I also think that a drug overdose would have been a better way to die since it would have looked like she did it and not him shoving her off the balacony.

 

[Txmom]

Communities need to better educated the people living in them. I am under the impression that this man lost his job and med insurance because he had to spend so much time taking care of her. Several things come to mind...1) if you get on a hospice program, sitters can come in and sit while you work, free of charge. 2) medical is provided free of charge (not physicians, but drugs, diapers, boost, etc. 3) why didnt the sisters come in and get a schedule going on who would be with her on what days, make dinner, do the laundry, etc. 4) there is always people who volunteer free of charge to help out, you have to find the right organization to help you, 5) meals on wheels will provide lunch if you call them, 6) if he had inquired at the hospital thru the social workers, they would have told him all of this so that he would not have lost his job and the med insurance, 7) I also think that a drug overdose would have been a better way to die since it would have looked like she did it and not him shoving her off the balacony, which he did.

 

[txsvicki]

I wonder why he went to her mothers and got her and didn't take her back?
Did she have a life insurance policy that someone was paying that he wanted?
His financial alibi won't float because it sounded like she was doing alright at her mothers. Maybe he wanted her SSI or SSD and that is why he brought her back home. He had a choice...he could have left her at her moms. She had only been home a couple months before he threw her over the balcony.
He deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life. In the picture he doesn't seem to show any emotion. Maybe he is psycho. The family distrusted her with him for some reason.

I wonder how long the woman had been on SSI, and if she had moved to the mother's apartment in the first place in order to qualify for it to begin with. Maybe she had even gotten up to a year of backpay from when she first applied and that's what the man was after. I don't see how they lived in a country club apartment if the bills were that bad.

 

[kaybee]

I am one of the early posters in this thread who felt sympathy for the man and felt he did look distraught in the police photo. And even though there has been some additional information about this case since I posted, I still don't think he is in the same category as someone who commits cold blooded murder and tries to get away with it. He threw her off his own balcony, for god's sake, then immediately tells police that she didn't jump. Then he admits he did throw her and tells the police why. If he was some calculating vicious creep (and perhaps wanted to benefit financially from his wife's demise), don't you think he would have made it look like an accident? Or maybe just make her 'disappear', never to be found again.
I admit that the way she died was just heinous, and I feel profoundly sad for this woman. Not only for the way she died, but also because of the health burdens she carried from a very young age.
If she did not want to die, it was wrong for her husband to make that choice for her. However, I do not put this man in the same boat as other wife murderers like Scott Peterson and the like. I think he snapped and just wanted an end to all the suffering (for his wife, and yes, selfishly, for himself). I'm not saying he should not be punished, I'm saying that I don't think he's an unrepetant monster. And I feel terrible for this woman and her family.

 

[montana_16]

I don't care what his reasons were. What he did was an atrocious, hideous act. Period!

I don't feel sorry for him at all. I could not do that to someone I love.! I could not do such a horrible thing to anyone!

He's so distraught? I notice he sure didn't throw his own ass off.

 

[GlitchWizard]

*someone said*
I think he snapped and just wanted an end to all the suffering (for his wife, and yes, selfishly, for himself).


I agree, except I don't know that it's all that selfish if you give and give to the fullest extent of your ability - then beyond it. At that point the snap isn't selfish, it's kind of like the pot boiling over after too much heat is applied. The pan tries it's best to hold it all in, too.

 

[MagicRose99]

For those that support this monster: I am so glad that I am not a member of your family. I would hate to think that if something happened to me and I became a "burden" to you that you'd "snap" and kill me to relieve yourself of me and end your "suffering".

 

[kaybee]

First off, I think maybe some of you are confusing what I said. I do NOT support this man's decision to throw his unwilling sick wife off the balcony. I do think there are circumstances that were involved that explain why maybe he felt like there was no other alternative. I am NOT writing him a pass for his behavior, nor do I support what he did. And I am HUGELY sad for his wife, especially for her last moments in this world.
Secondly, perhaps I have a bit of a different view on this since I was diagnosed with an illness that will most likely terminate my life within the next ten years (and I am presently only 38 years old). I have had many discussions with my husband about assisted suicide for myself--mainly because when the time comes, I may not be able to make that choice myself since I will most likely be mentally incapacitated. Not to get personal, but when I imagine my husband and my daughter having to watch me neurologically disintegrate in front of them, possibly draining our life's savings only so they can watch this horrible illness turn me into something I do not want to be. I don' want to go through that, and I don't want my family to have to watch that. I'd rather have them remember me for who I really am. I understand that this wife also had the right to make her choice as well, and I respect that. He should go to jail. Doesn't mean I think he's the worst person in the world though.
I greatly resent the implication that someone here made that they are glad they are not part of the families of those who feel sympathy for this man. You have no idea, really. You don't know me from Adam, and I think you've really overstepped by saying that.
Not to get in anyone's face, but these last few posts really hit a nerve with me.
Sorry for the rant.
Thank you.

 

[GlitchWizard]

For those that support this monster: I am so glad that I am not a member of your family. I would hate to think that if something happened to me and I became a "burden" to you that you'd "snap" and kill me to relieve yourself of me and end your "suffering".

I think you're mistaking the term snap for just getting tired of handling someone's needs. If you kill someone just because you don't want to handle the care for them, it's 100% opposite of snapping because you've reached the limit to which you CAN care for them. (Not want to, but ability to.) You don't snap based on a cognitive rational thought - you snap when you overload your being.

If you were a member of my family, and I cared about you, I promise I'd only kill you if I wasted away to a mere nothing financially and physically first and would have to be in a hospital for the criminally insane afterwards because I took care of your needs to the detriment of my own.

If I didn't like you, I'd let you live in agony and collect your social security checks.

Actually, the only person I'd give my life over to 100% is my daughter. Everyone else can go to a nursing home, where they don't snap because they don't care.

 

[kaybee]

I think you're mistaking the term snap for just getting tired of handling someone's needs. If you kill someone just because you don't want to handle the care for them, it's 100% opposite of snapping because you've reached the limit to which you CAN care for them. (Not want to, but ability to.) You don't snap based on a cognitive rational thought - you snap when you overload your being.

If you were a member of my family, and I cared about you, I promise I'd only kill you if I wasted away to a mere nothing financially and physically first and would have to be in a hospital for the criminally insane afterwards because I took care of your needs to the detriment of my own.

If I didn't like you, I'd let you live in agony and collect your social security checks.

Actually, the only person I'd give my life over to 100% is my daughter. Everyone else can go to a nursing home, where they don't snap because they don't care.

Thanks GlitchWizard. I think people want to believe that if they were the ones taking care of a sick spouse that they would be perfect and always put their loved ones needs first, over everything else without fail. The reality is that no one is perfect--it is hugely draining to be the primary caregiver to a terminally ill person. I know that most caregivers do all they can for their ill family member and do not resort to what this man did, but I'm sure there are days when they just don't know how much longer they can deal with it. My mom cared for her terminally ill sister for three months (we even moved into her home), and my mom just about had a nervous breakdown. I just refuse to accept that this man is some monster. It's too bad he didn't ask for help before it came to it's tragic outcome.

In spite of being pretty hurt/offended at some other people's posts, your joke about collecting SS checks made me smile. I guess this topic just hits a little too close to home for me, so maybe I should stop while I still have a smile on my face.

 

[Peter Hamilton]

For those that support this monster: I am so glad that I am not a member of your family. I would hate to think that if something happened to me and I became a "burden" to you that you'd "snap" and kill me to relieve yourself of me and end your "suffering".

--nice post MagicRose--this guy is a monster indeed--I wish I could throw HIM off the balcony myself, but I'll let the courts decide his fate--hopefully they'll throw the book at this criminal and lock him up for a long time

 

[MagicRose99]

--nice post MagicRose--this guy is a monster indeed--I wish I could throw HIM off the balcony myself, but I'll let the courts decide his fate--hopefully they'll throw the book at this criminal and lock him up for a long time

Thanks Peter! I just don't understand some people... this IS a monster. There simply isn't any excuse for what he did... period... he committed murder for his own purposes. He doesn't deserve any sympathy from anyone.

 

[txsvicki]

Just because the man is reported to have said that the wife didn't jump, doesn't exactly mean that he wasn't going to try and say that she fell somehow accidentally. After hours of questioning, LE finally got the story. If there possibly could have been some sort of life insurance she may not have had it long enough to pay out for a suicide or a regular non-accident type of death. It was probably a long way down for the poor woman.

 

[GlitchWizard]

Thanks GlitchWizard. I think people want to believe that if they were the ones taking care of a sick spouse that they would be perfect and always put their loved ones needs first, over everything else without fail. The reality is that no one is perfect--it is hugely draining to be the primary caregiver to a terminally ill person. I know that most caregivers do all they can for their ill family member and do not resort to what this man did, but I'm sure there are days when they just don't know how much longer they can deal with it. My mom cared for her terminally ill sister for three months (we even moved into her home), and my mom just about had a nervous breakdown. I just refuse to accept that this man is some monster. It's too bad he didn't ask for help before it came to it's tragic outcome.

In spite of being pretty hurt/offended at some other people's posts, your joke about collecting SS checks made me smile. I guess this topic just hits a little too close to home for me, so maybe I should stop while I still have a smile on my face.

My mother came up from Florida and my aunt came over from California - putting their careers in jepordy and their marraiges as well, to care for my dying grandfather for the months before he died of cancer. My Grandmother was a complete jerkface and my other local aunt was, too, so it came down to two people who couldn't take the time out of their lives - but did anyway. The fights that ensued were horrendous, the stress and strain was incredible. My family is rich, so it wasn't a question of money (thank God) but emotional resources can totally run dry.

Maybe he did ask for help - but who are you going to ask that will help without demanding money to do it? For some things, there IS no help.

On a smaller scale, my Mom screwed her back up and was bedridden for two weeks while I was in college. I came home to care for her alongside my stepfather, but after just a week of dealing with her physical inability to go to the bathroom in a toilet - I high tailed it back to college and dumped my own mother on my stepfather to care for. Now that I am older, I THINK I could handle it somewhat better - and I did handle it better with my grandfather - but sometimes, it's a definite overload. That was such a small scale - what if Mom were like that permenantly and I didn't have help? How could I work to get money to eat? To pay for someone to watch her while I worked? What would the solution have been? I don't know.

 

[southcitymom]

... Everyone else can go to a nursing home, where they don't snap because they don't care.

Ouch, because it's true.