A chilling story out of Michigan this month has many residents here in Texas rethinking how they view the divorce process now. Often considered to be the bane of the marriage world, divorce carries with it a negative stigma of being drawn out and riddled with difficulties. But ss this story demonstrates, perhaps there are far worse things than having to go through a lengthy divorce.
According to news sources, a 21-year-old Michigan woman is currently in police custody after she tried to hire someone to kill her husband. Unfortunately for the woman, the person responding to her request was an undercover police officer who taped the two meetings between the two of them. In the end, the woman explained that she had come to the decision of having her husband killed because she thought it would be easier than getting a divorce.
Aside from the obvious criminal litigation, the woman could face even more difficult family law issues such as child custody. Because the couple has two child, a court judge may question how safe the children would be if they were allowed to be in their mother’s custody. Because there is no conviction at this time, a judge’s child custody decision could change depending on how the criminal case is decided, creating more headaches surrounding the mother’s visitation rights and future child support issues.
In the end, the thought of his wife wanting to kill him could lead the husband to file for divorce anyway–something the woman had tried so desperately to avoid in the first place. If the husband does file for divorce, the couple will need to then go through the process of property division.
Although the woman told the officer that she made the lethal decision because she didn’t want to face the judgement of her family because of the divorce, as our readers can see, she may have done something far worse and likely created a serious legal matter for herself and her family down the road.
Source: The New York Daily News, “VIDEO: Ex-Jersey girl giggles as she hires ‘hitman’ to kill husband rather than deal with divorce,” Larry McShane, July 9, 2013