Dead 4 Months after No-Touch Courtship

[bsue]

I hope you do write that paper. It surprises me that more intellectuals don't realize how fascinating but harmful some far right Christian practices really are. It is like there is a huge subculture in the United States that gets ignored-except on this site- by the media and the population at large even though that subculture influences our culture through voting.

A long time ago I was in a PhD program in anthropology, but dropped out. I sometimes think that if I ever go back, I'd like to try and do an ethnography of one of these communities. Like Margaret Mead amongst the Mortons or something.

[JesusFightClub]

It's about looking like a good person rather than actually being a good person. They see divorce as a sin and they don't want the shame of being the bad guy. But a widower gets lots of sympathy. They think they're going to get away with it. I suspect in some cases at least, there's some sort of magical thinking going on and they are in denial, trying to convince themselves as well as other people that they didn't really kill someone.

Totally agree. There seems to be some sort of disconnect which lets murderers think they didn't kill someone. I don't quite understand this, but there you go.

It's sort of like the April Jones case. The murderer there won't say what he did with her or where her body is. I think if he doesn't tell he feels almost as if he didn't do it.

[nolongerIFBx]

There've been occasions where I've significantly misjudged someone, then mourned the "loss" of the person I thought they were. That's how I interpreted what her mother said, possibly with an overlay of "He must not be all bad, because he's a saved Christian." (Hello, cognitive dissonance!)

The Larch can correct me, but I believe that these families did know each other so it was like losing a son, even it turned out that son never truly existed. Christa and Couty did know each other prior to their "courtship" as both attended SMITE camp together. Unlike an ATI atmosphere (from what I read), boys and girls work together on the same teams. Doing some deeper digging, on Christa's brother Aaron's blog, he does talk about Baisc Seminar so there were some ATI ties there, but SMITE isn't ATI. It may one of few who had a foot both in the ATI camp and in IFBx camp.

Some think that she was gathering clothes to leave him. This would expose his cover. If his family found out about his double life, his relationship with them would be forever altered. I do't htink it was that he thought that murder was the lesser of all evils-- I don't htink he was that rational-- I think he just wanted to stop his life from forever changing-- and then the gun went off. A friend of the family put it this way, "I don't know if Couty would have been able to bear the shame of 'just leaving' Christa. I'm sure - with all the lies he told upon calling the police/911 - that he never dreamed he'd get caught. Instead, he would have been looked upon as the poor, grieving husband who was forced to move on with his life. No one would have known his secret and he would never have been shunned - he would have been embraced and loved. "

Does anyone know the name of the episode? I looked up the Investigative Discoveries site and didn't see any that sounded/looked like this murder.

This incidence was one of the many things that had an affect on me leaving eXtreme fundamentalism. We were told this could never happen to us. Things like this just would never have the opportunity to happen. "They" were wrong.

[The Larch]

The Larch can correct me, but I believe that these families did know each other so it was like losing a son, even it turned out that son never truly existed. Christa and Couty did know each other prior to their "courtship" as both attended SMITE camp together. Unlike an ATI atmosphere (from what I read), boys and girls work together on the same teams. Doing some deeper digging, on Christa's brother Aaron's blog, he does talk about Baisc Seminar so there were some ATI ties there, but SMITE isn't ATI. It may one of few who had a foot both in the ATI camp and in IFBx camp.

They did know each other, and the SMITE social circle tends to get very close. (You are correct about boys and girls on the same teams, too. I know at least four married couples who met that way.) I think she was also mourning for the idea of her son-in-law, on top of him as a person himself. I didn't know Couty, but from what others have said about it, he was extremely good at fooling everyone right up until this happened. Finding out someone you thought you knew isn't that person at all, is still a loss of that person, in a way.

That said...Christa's parents are kind of creepy in an...ultra-sincere sort of way? It didn't surprise me whatsoever when they were professing their love and forgiveness for their daughter's killer immediately afterward. It was the good Christian thing to do, they saw it as a chance to witness. I understood where they were coming from at the time and still thought it was creepy.

Someone else asked if they seemed obsessed with purity in real life--yes, by normal standards, but really they fit right in to their church/social group. They are fundies, but not any more, extra-special crazy than any of the other fundies I know. If that helps. I didn't see the show so I have no idea how they were portrayed.

I found the episode on IMDB--it's called "Led Into Temptation."

[fundiefan]

Delaying physical intimacy is not the same as failing to actually get to know someone.

Courtship is nothing but failure. It removes any chance of a woman - or man - actually knowing the person they're supposedly going to spend their lives with.

Look what happened with Autumn. Look how quickly Kristina got married - a mere 7 months after the courtship began; they were engaged like two months after it began. Not that her marriage has ended badly, but she married a real winner and someone who I think has more issues than not. The failures seem to outnumber the successes. Christopher Maxwell, Joseph Maxwell, Sara Nicole - once, Christopher's intended then another failed courtship after that; the Bates boy...

[nolongerIFBx]

I found the episode on IMDB--it's called "Led Into Temptation."

Thanks!

[Kira]

Investigation Discovery is re-airing the episode now.

[Mama Mia]

I think, in his mind, he was caught between a rock and a hard place. They were married 4 months and she was 3 months pregnant. He was looking at pregnancy after pregnancy, baby after baby to support, for the next 2 decades on the one hand, or a divorce that would destroy him in the community and his family on the other. Killing the poor woman really was the only way out without him sacrificing something, as long as he didn't get caught.

White, middle class American women of child bearing age are most likely to die during pregnancy. Not because of the medical risks of pregnancy, but due to being murdered by their partner. Pregnancy stresses relationships and provokes the absolute worst behavior from some types of men. It's scary shit.

Where did you get that statistic ? According to the CDC homicide is 4th for white women 20-24, 5th for women 25-34 and even further down the list for women 35-44 . Top were accidents for younger women and cancer for older women. I would link the source but haven't figured out how to do that on the iPad yet.

[PennySycamore]

Investigation Discovery is re-airing the episode now.

A repeat is airing at 1 in the morning.

ETA: The programs that come right before and after "Led into Temptation" sound interesting as well as they involve preachers and murder.

[Burris]

Totally agree. There seems to be some sort of disconnect which lets murderers think they didn't kill someone. I don't quite understand this, but there you go.

They destroyed somebody’s life, cutting off all the potential good he would have done in the process, and they damaged that person’s family in ways that are hard to express. Offering an apology would be like saying there’s something that can be salvaged from the situation when there really isn’t. Any of them that has ever thought about it knows whatever they say will sound hollow in the face of that.

[notsocommon]

A repeat is airing at 1 in the morning.

ETA: The programs that come right before and after "Led into Temptation" sound interesting as well as they involve preachers and murder.

I 'knew' that 'preacher'. Not really a preacher per see, but he had a mime ministry. I was floored when I heard of his crime.

[salex]

I 'knew' that 'preacher'. Not really a preacher per see, but he had a mime ministry. I was floored when I heard of his crime.

Does anyone have stats on if murder is higher among ministers/religious leaders than either flock or secular people? Or do we just hear more about those cases?

[notsocommon]

Does anyone have stats on if murder is higher among ministers/religious leaders than either flock or secular people? Or do we just hear more about those cases?

I am sure we just hear about it more because ministers are 'trustworthy' they are placed on a pedistol and looked up to and such. When one commits a crime like this, it is 'shocking' it violates everything most people believe in, thus sensational coverage.