The Demented Lover

How much can you love someone? The human capacity for love has always intrigued me because many horrible crimes in human history were committed because of love.                                                     

The second story here happened in a country which is known for its security and law-abiding citizens. As a gesture of respect to the poor victim of this tragedy, I shall not disclose their real names.

The twisted love story leading up to the brutal killing of Karen by Dustin - began like many love stories.

                                                          


Dustin was 37 years when he met Karen, 24, on a social network in April 2011. Then, he worked as a security guard, and Karen was an administrative officer. The strangeness of their demented relationship began when she took the bold step of moving in with Dustin just two months after meeting him online. Things went downhill for the couple shortly after they moved in together.

After they moved in together to their new home in December 2011, he began to believe that their new home was haunted and Karen, who later became his fiancé, was possessed by spirits.

To get rid of the spirit, Dustin took his fiancé to a church to exorcise the spirit. Another eerie detail from people who knew about the situation was that he forced Karen to walk around with a huge Bible even at work by carrying it inside a waist pouch, all in the name of getting rid of the spirit. He believed that she was the devil and called her Karen “Lucifer”.

Things only became even more gloomy for Karen from this point. The couples' housemates gave accounts of the moments leading up to the murder of Karen in her home on that fateful night.

On a dark evening of March 30, 2012, Dustin bathed his fiancé at 6 pm in the kitchen bathroom. One of the housemates in the flats said he could hear loud groaning noises and conversations between the couple while they were in the bathroom. According to the housemate, Dustin and his fiancé remained in the bathroom for a long time. A house helper upstairs said she could even hear Dustin screaming, "Go back! Go back to the sky!" A few hours later, the couple finally emerged from the bathroom with Karen looking pale while Dustin carried her to their room.

After the couple returned to their room, they continued with the loud groaning noise until 11: 10 pm. The primary tenant had no choice but to call the police. Two police officers responded to the call at 11:15 pm, and they demanded Dustin to let them into the room when they arrived at the flat. Dustin's excuse to the two police officers for the noises was that he and his fiancé were having an argument.

According to both officers, Karen had no apparent physical injuries at the time when they entered the room, but she appeared weak and was lying on a mattress on the floor. She told the police that she was weak because she just had an abortion. Half an hour later, the officers left the flat after advising the couple to keep things quiet. However, the noise didn't stop. It continued through the night. Dustin was adamant that his fiancé was possessed and the exorcism continued. He resorted to what can only be described as torture which persisted through the night.

At 6:30 am of the next day, one of the housemates noticed that blood was seeping through the door of the couple's room and he informed the main tenant, who immediately called the police. When the authorities arrived at the scene, the things they found at the scene were straight out of a horror movie. The first person to arrive at the scene was a paramedic, who arrived 10 minutes after the call. According to the paramedic, Dustin was lying naked on the mattress, and his fiancé was lying topless on top of him, with blood all over her body.

Fearing for his own safety, the paramedic had no choice but to wait outside the couple's room till the arrival of the police. While the paramedic was waiting, neighbors saw stuff were being thrown out of the window of the couple’s room. Their attention was quickly diverted back to the crime scene when the police finally arrived at the gory scene at 6:55 am. Inside the room, the police found Dustin kneeling next to his dead fiancé, chanting and groaning with a yellow object resembling a cross in his hands. The police found several tools Dustin had used for his torture, which included a can opener, two pairs of scissors, a broken hammer, and a pair of pruning shears. The neighbors then informed the police that Dustin had thrown some stuff out of the window. When they combed the ground, what they found were clumps of Karen’s hair and her eyeballs.

Authorities approved an autopsy that produced even more soul-shuddering discoveries. They found over 40 injuries on her limbs, neck, and head, as well as a 12-cm wide wound on her neck that severed her spinal cord. This only meant that Dustin had tried to behead his fiancé. There was also a huge wound on her right ankle from an attempted amputation.

Dustin was charged with murder, but the court reduced the charge based on a psychiatric report that stated he had gone through a short psychotic disorder. He was later sentenced to just ten years of imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to the charge of culpable homicide.

Many people have contested the verdict, wondering if the sentence was fair. Though it may seemed like a sentence of just ten years for such a gruesome killing does not fit the magnitude of the crime. Yet, it could also be argued that only a mentally sicko would commit such an appalling crime.

The question that I have always found disturbing is why didn't Karen tell the police what was going on when they entered the room? Given that she was still lucid and consciously aware of what Dustin would be doing to her, she could have saved herself from this grisly torture and escaped from hell. Was it because she really believed she was possessed and that Dustin was trying to help her? Or maybe it was just blind love, knowing he was wrong but didn't want him arrested? During an interview inside his cell, Dustin might have answered the question - when he said he believed that the only person ever to love him was Karen.

What happened to Karen was no doubt a tragedy. However, the question that really bogged my mind was : who was the real demented lover? There is no doubt that Dustin was definitely demented. It takes a demented human to murder his fiancé or anyone in such a gruesome manner. But the same could be said for Karen. She must surely be demented to continue living with a man who considers her the devil and put her through so much pain.