Article: Murder: The Ticking Time Bomb in Domestic Violence Cases

Murder: The Ticking Time Bomb in Domestic Violence Cases
Susan Murphy-Milano, Contributor
It was a Sunday evening when Christopher Shimek asked his son, age 13, and stepson, 19, to leave the house for awhile and get something to eat. He said he wanted to speak to their mother alone. I know too well, from personal experience, that it was a sign of the tragedy to come.

The majority of Lynn Shimek and Christopher Shimek’s 15-year marriage had been rocky, but Lynn had tried as best she could to keep their family together. Christopher was a sergeant and a 16-year veteran with the San Jose (California) Police Department. When violent events occurred at home, she did not call the police; Lynn did not want to get her husband into trouble and jeopardize his job.

But recently, she’d had enough of Christopher’s controlling and abusive behavior. Lynn Shimek, like so many others who finally muster the courage to leave, told her husband, “I’ve had enough. I want a divorce.” That was her fatal mistake; she had announced to him that it was over, without a plan of action in place. Like too many victims of intimate partner violence, they naively believe that their abusive partners will be enraged – but not to the point where they will be killed. Therein lies the problem.

Christopher’s pattern of conduct is an important example of such cases leading to homicide. His controlling behavior – checking her phone messages and text communications, getting print outs of numbers called, using tracking devices on phones and cars – indicated his maintaining consistent control over her daily activities.

A victim in Lynn’s position, married to a police officer, rarely, if at all, will admit to threats or physical attacks because it can be too embarrassing. Often a victim will not disclose the situation, even to their most trusted circle of friends. Calling police or filing for a court order of protection is rarely an option in cases involving law enforcement officers.

Gilroy police went to the Shimeks’ home in 2007 because Christopher had hit his stepson “in a fit of rage,” according to news reports. Lynn Shimek did not want to take further action. The event was noted on a field interview card and in the computer-aided dispatch system. It was an indication of another red flag of what was happening behind closed doors.

That Sunday, November 27, before the Shimek boys arrived home after their father sent them away so he could speak with their mother, Christopher texted a message to a friend of Lynn’s: “I’m sorry. I went too far. Please don’t let my kids in the house.”

Christopher had strangled his 43-year-old wife. Then, after he murdered her with his bare hands, he took his own life.

We rarely gain an insider’s view into cases involving officer-related murder-suicides. As the daughter of a Chicago violent crimes detective and specialist in the area of intimate partner violence and homicide, reading statements from police – such as Chief Chris Moore’s “What makes this all the more difficult to understand is that he was so even-keeled. No one expected this” – makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

My father was an amazing law enforcement officer. He was truly loved and respected by all who ever knew him, but for as long as I can remember, he kept tabs on my mother’s every move for fear she would leave him. Behind the front door of our modest Chicago home, my father was an angry, abusive man whom I feared. There were no outward signs that my father was capable of any type of violence.

After 28 years of marriage, my parents divorced. A few short months later, my mother would be lured to my childhood home by my father. He told her she had to sign a document pertaining to the sale of their house.

Like many victims of intimate partner violence, my mother let her guard down. She had tasted the success of freedom and no longer feared my father. On January 19, 1989, I discovered their bodies. My mother, Roberta Murphy, 47, was shot at close range in the head, and Phillip Murphy, 54, my father, committed suicide in the bedroom.