On November 2 2003, a sensational
murder story
involving vast wealth, the ex-patriate
community,
and shocking allegations of
cocaine use and anal rape
Nancy Kissel, a corporate wife and
mother of three,
was accused a few days later of murder
of her successful husband, Rob
Kissell,
a Merrill Lynch banker. The
husband was worth a stunning $18,000,000 proving that money does not buy happiness, and suggesting to me, that there
is a deeper spiritual reason for the international interest in this classic story
of a marriage gone drastically wrong.
I do not take sides, and believe that
much more legal
and medical evidence is necessary
from the proceeding trial in the High Court of Hong Kong
before we rush to conclusions.
That is why we have legal trials, is it not?
It is apparent from the vivid Internet
discussions that
there are two extreme views,
one viewing the wife
as almost wholly innocent, driven
to violence and madness by the as yet unproven misdeeds of the husband.
The other side sounds like an old-fashioned
String 'Em Up Lynch Mob,
believing the wife
was coldly planning to take the great
fortune
and run off with her electrician lover,
hidden away in Vermont, America.
I tend to see all the shadings,
and come from a tragic family myself, though I
have never been personally involved in a violent affair
nor a bitterly declining marriage.
I believe my own family background,
where even violence was enacted against a backdrop
of vastly successful careers and even wealth,
hidden from the world due to
both concern for careers and children's feelings,
qualifies me to write this story,
as well as
the evident fact I am here in Hong Kong daily,
placed a 15 minute walk from the Hong Kong High
Court.
What do I believe?
I believe we do not ever know the secrets of
others' marriages.
I believe that both men and women are driven to
violence
in either marriage or family life that would not
otherwise ever do physical harm.
I believe that murder is the worst of crimes.
I believe that either party threatening
to take away the children
whether it was the wife to the husband,
or the husband to the wife,
is a powerful trigger to potential violence.
These things have not yet been proven,
give the competence of both legal sides,
and sagacity of the judge
time to prevail.
August 19, 2005.
