A 60 year old man bludgeoned his wife, Antoinette, to death, doused his daughter, Natalie, in petrol and set her on fire, and killed her five year old son, Orlando, in the resulting fire.
In the article, Natalie is quoted as saying, “My mum and son aren’t nameless victims.” Some family of people who have been killed do not want their names made public. Natalie does, which is why I have included Antoinette and Orlando’s names in the corrected headline.
They were not claimed by a house fire. They were killed by a man who was supposed to love them.
The man did not face trial as the judge accepted “that the accused did not know the nature and quality of his acts and did not know they were wrong because of both a mental health impairment and a cognitive impairment”. He was sent to a mental health unit.
Natalie Sands is fighting to have him tried for his crimes, which is what the entire article is about – his crimes and her fight to bring him to trial. Which makes it all the more incomprehensible that whoever wrote this headline decided to erase him and attribute the killings to an anonymous “house fire”.
Want to know more about the myths that contribute to this?
BOOKS
Jane Gilmore’s books, Fixed it: Violence and the Representation of Women in the Media, Teaching Consent, and Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children are available now with free shipping inside Australia if you purchase from: www.JaneGilmore.com/books
PODCAST
Also available now is the Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children Podcast in which Jane invites expert guest on the show to explore agism, women’s unpaid work, consent, power and silence, and coercive control. Find out more here.
FixedIt is an ongoing project to push back against the media’s constant erasure of violent men and blaming of innocent victims. If you would like to help fund it – even $5 a month makes a big difference – please consider becoming a Patron
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