Pre-meditated or Spur of the Moment?

[angarella]

I still think this was hired out. The original plan was with a gun, but the killer found it way too easy and just did it with a knife. Still think that Raven was behind it, just, he did not know the final result.

JMO!

Ang

 

[Thinkoflaura]

Could you explain this sentence in your post above?

"The original plan was with a gun, but the killer found it way too easy and just did it with a knife."

IMO, a gun is the easiest and surest way to cause death to an individual possible.
How was it " easier" to kill someone with a knife?
I'm remembering my recent experience with a knife.. BIG machete type knife too.. I tried to kill a stupid snake in the back yard with a large knife recently.. I think I ended up clubbing it to death more than anything else, and snake blood was everywhere. It was a bloody creepy mess and I had to clean up everywhere.( only point of reference I have to killing or maiming anything with a knife).

If Jenet's muder was a paid hit kill, then it wasn't a thrill kill.
What you are saying sounds almost like the killer wanted the kill to be the thrill, not the money. I'm not buying that, this was a crime of passion, IMO.

Thanks.

 

[Thinkoflaura]

Sometimes our point of reference is a bit limited because we don't know what it's like to garotte, shoot, stab or club someone to death. I know I certainly don't.

I posted above about my stabbing/ clubbing a snake to death, and it took close to 20 minutes in a non-moving snake for the sucker to finally probably bleed to death. Blood everywhere from a long, sharp knife that is kept stored in a leather sheath.

With that in mind, how many of us have ever killed something with any amount of force and were you surprised at what it took to kill and how long, how messy, non messy, etc?
Women are often at a huge disadvantage because we usually haven't hiunted with gun or knife.

 

[lauriej]

Absolutely, a spouse could murder a family member nude. There was a blood smear on a wall leading to a door and they also did swabbings from the doorknob as I recall. The smear could have been his bloody body contacting the wall ( although I have thought it was hers until now..).

Although, with a knife being swung around, and with Janet being athletic.. he was taking a risk if naked, wasn't he? The Lorena Bobbitt case and all of that.

..i think it would be completely natural....he takes a shower prior to the soccer game....is walking around in his boxers....( ummmmmmmmm..i mean, designer underwear!)

...plus, she's found in the UPSTAIRS bedroom ( den ?) ...someone made it up there without her being concerned about it...( a family member ? someone she knew ?)

...raven's affairs...............could one of them been a mutual friend? someone raven got really close to while janet was in her later stages of pegnancy? someone who hated to see janet and raven working it out now ? i could see a scorned woman using a knife......

 

[Thinkoflaura]

..i think it would be completely natural....he takes a shower prior to the soccer game....is walking around in his boxers....( ummmmmmmmm..i mean, designer underwear!)

...plus, she's found in the UPSTAIRS bedroom ( den ?) ...someone made it up there without her being concerned about it...( a family member ? someone she knew ?)

...raven's affairs...............could one of them been a mutual friend? someone raven got really close to while janet was in her later stages of pegnancy? someone who hated to see janet and raven working it out now ? i could see a scorned woman using a knife......

I was with you until the scorned woman thing. As a woman who has had everything under the sun done to me when I have broken up with boyfriends in the past, no woman associated with the guy has ever come after me. Not that there were any, but I suspect that a few were two timing... ( Men don't take rejection well at all either).

I think, based upon the principles of psychology and also drawing from my personal experience with humans who felt " scorned or hurt" that a person will tend to seek revenge against the person who directly hurt them.
A mad woman would have slit Raven's throat or something of the mortal injury type instead of killing Janet if she was a sadistic psychopath.
Also, if we are talking sadistic psychopath here, what about the ultimate proof of Raven's unfaithful behavior from a lover's point of view? Kaiden would not have been spared, IMO.

Women rarely kill adults in an upper body stabbing. The reason is that unless Janet was already on the floor, women do NOT have very much upper body strength unless they are pro athletes. The average woman is weak in upper body and overhand strength. It's something I used to work on for hours a day back when I was into the tennis and golf stuff, and no matter what I did, I still lagged far behind the curve which was set for men. We can't build the muscle mass without steroids, which is a whole other ballgame. YUCK.

IMHO, this was a premeditated crime of passion perpetrated by a male known to Janet and with access to her home. Raven.
Just my opinion.

 

[lauriej]

...good point...

...in reality, another woman WOULD be in extreme danger going after another woman with a knife.....( esp. one as athletic and fit as janet...)

...i hate to see the choices dwindle down to raven.....her husband....he DOES appear to love that baby.....how could he leave him alone for hours while he went to the game? possibly crying as he ran out the door ?...heartless.....

 

[Jenifred]

...i hate to see the choices dwindle down to raven.....her husband....he DOES appear to love that baby.....how could he leave him alone for hours while he went to the game? possibly crying as he ran out the door ?...heartless.....

We still don't know the time of death here. Maybe the baby was already asleep (I try to have my kids in bed by 7). And we've already seen that their house is somewhat secluded and set off the road. Maybe Raven felt safe that if doors were locked behind him that the baby woud be fine sleeping in his bed. Maybe Raven knew the he had to get out and be seen so he could have an alibi. IMO By 6 months old, the baby should probably be sleeping 12 hours and through the night (or one wake up and then back to sleep after a bottle). Hasn't anyone else left a child sleeping while a quick errand needed to be run?

 

[golfmom]

Hasn't anyone else left a child sleeping while a quick errand needed to be run?

I never did with my kids, but you're right, it's certainly possible to leave a baby safely in their crib for a couple of hours ... especially if you know your little one is a sound sleeper.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

I'm really curious about this. How do police even know that the clothes that Raven had on when they got there were the clothes that he was wearing all day or night? IF Raven did do this, there was nothing to prevent him from changing his clothes, and in fact, I would think that he would have before calling LE. In any murder case, the clothes collected at the scene from a possible suspect don't mean much to me.

 

[golfmom]

I'm really curious about this. How do police even know that the clothes that Raven had on when they got there were the clothes that he was wearing all day or night? IF Raven did do this, there was nothing to prevent him from changing his clothes, and in fact, I would think that he would have before calling LE. In any murder case, the clothes collected at the scene from a possible suspect don't mean much to me.

If he played in the soccer game he absolutely did change. What was to prevent him from pulling over in some remote area and ditching / burying the clothes? And then arriving for the soccer game fresh as a daisy. Especially if this crime is premeditated, he would have allowed himself lots of opportunity to remove incriminating evidence.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

I looked at their page on benefits offered, and life insurance is there, but it doesn't go into details on how soon an employee is eligible for this benefit. Often, it's 90 days, and if she did start working there in January as one account indicated, she would have been covered at some point in April. Hmmm.

It's also listed in the timeline that in April, the landlord said that he had given the Abaroa's the two previous month's rent-free. That would indicate February & March. We've also heard, (and there's a link on this forum somewhere), that the church had collected another month's rent for them. This would have carried them through April. I wonder if the help was offered or if it was requested. I also wonder if the three months just happened that way or if someone had told the landlord and the pastor that they only needed two or three months help, just until Janet's benefits kicked in.

 

[golfmom]

I posted above about my stabbing/ clubbing a snake to death, and it took close to 20 minutes in a non-moving snake for the sucker to finally probably bleed to death. Blood everywhere from a long, sharp knife that is kept stored in a leather sheath.

With that in mind, how many of us have ever killed something with any amount of force and were you surprised at what it took to kill and how long, how messy, non messy, etc?
Women are often at a huge disadvantage because we usually haven't hiunted with gun or knife.

Just like you don't see many woman using a gun for suicide, I personally think that stabbing someone is more of a man's crime.

And that goes back to the hitman theory, way too messy and personal to use a knife. Finally, unless you're slitting someone's throat there is a pretty good chance of survival, I've heard of people with 20+ stab wounds surviving.

 

[golfmom]

It's also listed in the timeline that in April, the landlord said that he had given the Abaroa's the two previous month's rent-free. That would indicate February & March. We've also heard, (and there's a link on this forum somewhere), that the church had collected another month's rent for them. This would have carried them through April. I wonder if the help was offered or if it was requested. I also wonder if the three months just happened that way or if someone had told the landlord and the pastor that they only needed two or three months help, just until Janet's benefits kicked in.

My memory is that Raven was terminated in January, so that jells with the timeline. Perhaps they were carrying COBRA and waiting for Janet's benefit to kick in.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

...i hate to see the choices dwindle down to raven.....her husband....he DOES appear to love that baby.....how could he leave him alone for hours while he went to the game? possibly crying as he ran out the door ?...heartless.....

IF Raven did this, no matter how much he loves his baby, it isn't enough because anyone that loves their child with their whole heart would never steal their child's mother from him, (certain cases of drug use, abuse, etc. exluded). And IF he didn't mind stabbing his wife to death, I don't think that he would have cared much about leaving the baby behind in a locked house, especially if there was some perceived benefit that outweighed the potential risks. IF Raven is a killer, I don't know that he would even have the same perception of outside dangers as we would. Does someone who is capable of stabbing someone to death fear a killer entering their home? Do killers fear other killers, kidnappers, etc? I genuinely don't know. They're obviously working with a distorted sense of things.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

And that goes back to the hitman theory, way too messy and personal to use a knife. Finally, unless you're slitting someone's throat there is a pretty good chance of survival, I've heard of people with 20+ stab wounds surviving.

I agree that a hitman would never use a knife as long as a gun is available. And if one isn't, I would assume that the next preferred choice would be a heavy object of some kind. It still maintains some distance between the victim and the perp. But regardless of who used the knife, I think that the odds of survival issue would easily be solved by either waiting to see if the victim is dead or not or getting them in an area that is sure to kill.

Obviously, time of death is critical. I think that it would also be important to know if the baby was in his crib asleep when police got there. If time of death is established as 6:00 - 7:00 P.M. for instance, it's more unlikely that the baby would have been in bed asleep. Of course schedules vary for everyone but it could help in terms of other evidence and statements taken from friends & co-workers that may have known Janet's routine.

 

[Jenifred]

I wonder if the help was offered or if it was requested. I also wonder if the three months just happened that way or if someone had told the landlord and the pastor that they only needed two or three months help, just until Janet's benefits kicked in.

Usually, you have to ask for help. Every LDS member would know that. However, it seems interesting to note that Raven would have had to swallow his pride to go and ask. Or I guess that it's a possibility that maybe Janet had been talking to someone (like a bishop's wife, the president of the Relief Society--the women's org. at church--) and then they went and talked to the bishop too.

 

[Jenifred]

IF Raven did this, no matter how much he loves his baby, it isn't enough because anyone that loves their child with their whole heart would never steal their child's mother from him, (certain cases of drug use, abuse, etc. exluded).

This is why I think that it was heat of the moment. I think he did love Janet, or at least that's what I hope, but it enraged him so that she would think of leaving and taking the baby with her that he just cracked and went after her.

 

[OriginalJerseyGirl]

Usually, you have to ask for help. Every LDS member would know that. However, it seems interesting to note that Raven would have had to swallow his pride to go and ask. Or I guess that it's a possibility that maybe Janet had been talking to someone (like a bishop's wife, the president of the Relief Society--the women's org. at church--) and then they went and talked to the bishop too.

Thanks for helping me to understand that better. It is quite possible that it could have been Janet that asked for the help, and she herself could have said that they just needed help until her benefits kicked in in April.

 

[ewwwinteresting]

IF Raven did this, no matter how much he loves his baby, it isn't enough because anyone that loves their child with their whole heart would never steal their child's mother from him, (certain cases of drug use, abuse, etc. exluded). And IF he didn't mind stabbing his wife to death, I don't think that he would have cared much about leaving the baby behind in a locked house, especially if there was some perceived benefit that outweighed the potential risks. IF Raven is a killer, I don't know that he would even have the same perception of outside dangers as we would. Does someone who is capable of stabbing someone to death fear a killer entering their home? Do killers fear other killers, kidnappers, etc? I genuinely don't know. They're obviously working with a distorted sense of things.

Knowing the time of death would help tremendously in deciding whether I think it was premeditated! I was "told" that Raven left the house at 8:30 to go play soccer and returned shortly before 11:00. Another question that begs for an answer is where was the baby when the police arrived? Would Raven really leave it upstairs if there was a possibility that a stranger killed his wife? If the baby was upstairs, I would speculate he thought there was no longer a danger present in the house. Hmmmm.........

 

[Jenifred]

I'm really curious about this. How do police even know that the clothes that Raven had on when they got there were the clothes that he was wearing all day or night? IF Raven did do this, there was nothing to prevent him from changing his clothes, and in fact, I would think that he would have before calling LE. In any murder case, the clothes collected at the scene from a possible suspect don't mean much to me.

This is what I've been thinking all along. How easy would it for him to have taken anything and everything that he was wearing at the time, stuffed it in a bag and deposited everything in a dumpster on the way. Or even stop at various places and drop it piece by peice to make absolutely sure that it's not going to be found. This is why I also think that LE have dropped the ball. Did they even think to search the field that Raven was playing at that night for blood traces in the showers or clothes in the dumpster? Probably not.