172 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
these incidents alone totaled two lawyers, three ex-wives, and
two relatives killed, and an additional three judges, three lawyers,
three sheriff’s deputies, and two court personnel wounded.
Reports from the Front
They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.
—Alexander Pope
The following case histories recount actual true-life legal cases that
I or the other attorneys in my law firm have handled. Each case
has been selected because it points up key legal and emotional
issues that can arise along the thorny pathway of divorce. Each
real case study is followed by a moral of the story (i.e., lessons
learned) that summarizes an important aspect of divorce law.
If the stories seem too wild to be true, remember these are
real cases taken from my office files (although I have, of course,
changed the parties’ names to ensure confidentiality).
A Murderous Divorce
The call came early one morning from the Alabama Sheriff’s
Department. A homicide investigator wanted to know the details
surrounding a divorce the previous year of our client Beverly
from her husband, Mark, a U.S. Army captain. I had no trouble
recollecting the case, since it had monopolized my attention for
the better part of the preceding year.
Beverly was an extremely sweet Midwestern girl who had mar-
ried Mark eleven years previously. At the time, he was a dashing
young second lieutenant on his way up. Little did Beverly know
then that someday she would be the one who got dashed.
They weren’t very far into the marriage before Mark began to
“scream, shout, and then slug” every time some trigger incident,
real or imagined, happened to set him off. Often these episodes
had little or nothing to do with anything Beverly had actually
done. Perhaps Mark had had a bad day at work, or perhaps he saw
her talking to another army wife at the commissary whom he con-
sidered to be a bad influence. The cause was far less predictable