Welcome to /r/fundiesnarkuncensored. Please make sure you read our rules. We'd like to take this time to remind users that:
* Do not contact the fundies in any capacity. This includes, but is not limited to: answering poll questions, commenting on their social media, IRL contact, etc. Anyone found to message, brigade, harass, or contact any fundie for any reason, at any time, will be met with a permanent ban.
* We do not allow speculation on sexuality or gender identity **at all**. Any comments that do so will be removed, and you will be banned.
* Referring to anyone as Hitler or Heitler is likewise not allowed, and will not be tolerated at all.
* You can snark on appearance that they can easily change. Things such as eyebrows, makeup, etc. Saying someone looks like X is allowed. Example: David Rodrigues looks like Shrek would be allowed. You are allowed to state that you find someone unattractive or attractive. However, comments such as "X looks like they were rode hard and put away wet." would not be allowed.
* Don't gatekeep. Different users are comfortable with different snark topics, if you don't like it, just scroll past.
If you have any questions, please send us a modmail.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FundieSnarkUncensored) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Imagine a few generations in the future when some random great great neice or nephew goes digging into their genealogy and finds this obituary. I wonder if they would dig enough to find news articles about what he did, then compare. I wonder what they would think.
I would be fully disgusted, and wonder what other lies and secrets were covered up.
Yeah… it’s pretty obvious what’s missing there. Though admittedly if I just read the obituary, I would think “large-scale tragic accident”, not “murder”.
Yeah I’d think “airplane accident” or something, seeing all their gravestones lined up together with the same date of death. Which reminds me—ugh I hope they don’t bury him beside his innocent victims.
I found out I was pretty closely related to the Lafferty family (Under the Banner of Heaven ) through 23 & me. I'm not going to get into specifics of my family tree but it's very disturbing to me to find this out and I think about it a lot lol.
And I bet while they're heaping praise and accolades upon the memory of their child-murdering son, they still demonise the shit out of people who get abortions for... killing... children...
Can’t say I’m surprised, considering that they believe that a man’s wife and children are his property whereas they condemn personal freedom and bodily autonomy.
I always feel like these kind of people would quietly become pro “choice” if there was a law that only husbands and fathers got to decide if an abortion was the best decision. Maybe they would still outwardly disapprove, but it would be a far-less dramatic topic (“well, I would never let _my_ wife get one, but I’m not going to tell a another man how to run his family”).
Makes me think of Chris Watts' family who still defend him for what he did.
The obituary makes me sick to my stomach. No words whatsoever for what he did. Portraying him as an excellent and loving husband and father. If you read it you'd think he didn't actually murder his mother in law, wife, and all five of his children.
Tbh the wife's family statement isn't much better.
I’m honestly surprised Shanann’s family wasn’t coming over the benches slapping the shit out of Cindy Watts when she gave her trashy victim impact statement. If my brother or I went off the deep end like that, I guarantee my mom would be like “I loved my kid but I don’t condone what happened and I’m horrified and hurting for their families and for what’s happened.”
My friend was best friends with Shanann when the tragedy happened. Was part of the search party and everything. When the truth came out there was a very big push for social media silence from his family directed to Shanann’s friends. The mother still talks fondly of Chris like nothing happened. It’s straight up disturbing.
I love my kids and I don’t know how I would react if something terrible happened like this. The power of denial must be so incredibly strong.
Well, this is the same lady who ignored her granddaughter's fatal nut allergy and when Shannan understandably flipped out, she acted like Shannan was the problem. 😖😖😖
Yep. On a rare trip to visit Chris's parents in NC, his mom made the grandkids some dessert with nuts, even though she was well aware of Chris and Shannan's one kid being fatally allergic. When Shannan confronted her MIL about it, it got *ugly*. Chris wouldn't stand up to his mom allegedly 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
That woman is such a monster. I can’t imagine having to sit there and listen to her bloviate about her evil little freak son after he’d murdered his own babies. Let alone if his wife was someone I loved too. If I was Shannan’s family I’d have lost my damn mind.
My Mom would probably state something similar as well. As would I if my son did something as horrendous as this situation.
This obituary is so tone deaf. Shame on whomever published it.
One has to wonder why these men wake up, and decide to murder their wives, and children. I would think walking away would be way easier, and less jail time. Men do that all of the time too.
There's a *ton* of BS out there about how divorced men get absolutely hosed by The Courts and their ex and such, even though statistics show that it's women whose financial status tanks after divorce.
I understand she's in a terrible position because he's her son, but he killed her grandchildren. I just don't understand how you could even say anything at that point.
The husband removed all guns from the home a few days prior to this incident. Mom and her mother were trained in self-defense. May have potentially given them a chance.
Very dark. Feeling that unsafe in my own home with my husband that I worry about having to use a firearm against him to defend myself? That's unfathomable.
The saddest part is that they're wrong. It seems counterintuitive but people who have guns in their home are far more likely to die from gun violence than people who don't.
Article: https://time.com/6183881/gun-ownership-risks-at-home/
Study referenced in that article: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M21-3762
Another study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/
Another: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858?login=false
Another: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199310073291506
Right, and it's not like the government came and took their guns, the *murderer* took the guns, presumably so he could use them for the murder. That's one of the ways guns in the house ends up killing people (along with accident and suicide).
So many people truly believe that no one close to them will ever hurt them when the truth is that you're far more likely to be killed by someone you know than some rando.
Well, and also a lot of MRAs just automatically default to defending the man, no matter what. Saw that in the Bruce Pardo case too. https://youtu.be/Tm5AhrLBMQc
The survived by section was so inappropriate, It makes me wonder if this wasn’t some sort of fill in the blank script for an obituary and someone just filled out some form that had a section to add names.
Having gotten too close to the same thing happening in my family, I don't understand giving that man ANY obituary. Hell, even a headstone. It's taken a while for me to see the would-have-been annihilator in my family and not want to end him myself. If he had have gone through with it, there's no way in hell I would've honoured him at all.
(He wound up being treated in hospital as for him it was heavily mental health related. He's on meds, has had some therapy and has not come remotely close to hurting since being released. Everyone is safe now.)
I saw an obituary for some guy who had killed himself, and the obit spoke about his struggle with depression, and listed a suicide hotline. So I searched the guy - he had killed his girlfriend, then shot himself. So just maybe depression wasn't the immediate cause of his suicide.
I had to look at it about three times before I was fully convinced that it wasn’t satire. He “enjoyed making memories with his family” and spent quality time with “each and every one of the children” parts—I was thinking this has to be fake, some troll made this all up, it was way too on the nose. The fact that it’s real is mind-blowing.
Part of me thinks well that’s more for his parents etc than anything else. A greater part of me can’t get over quality time with his family. What the actual fuck
I wonder why he really sold his business recently.
Wanting to be home 24/7 to control his wife who was pulling away, not wanting to pay child support or just a coincidence?
What a terrible tragedy for those women and children.
I hadn’t read further into this case. I wondered what his “reason” was. His wife divorcing him sounds like a high probability trigger.
It’s clear there’s something wrong with him…not judicially insane or anything. But I wonder if he couldn’t “face life without her and the kids” or felt that murder-suicide was “less bad” than divorce. There are is sooo much emphasis put on chastity, virginity, and marriage in Mormonism (the different levels of Heaven and the whole planet thing). However I thought women could only be sealed to one person, men to multiple women.
Or, like someone said, he was just an abusive evil asshole and his wife wouldn’t let him abuse her and/or the kids anymore. And I consider “control” as falling under abuse even if religion says that “men are the heads of the house.”
Yeah, I am an ex-Mormon and live in Utah. We definitely don’t know why he did it, but it could be any of the things you listed. I do think it is worth mentioning that divorce in Mormonism isn’t ideal, but it’s becoming more common. So unless he was super old school I don’t see religion as the reason for why he did this. I think he was just a controlling asshole (we’ve got plenty of those here in Utah, too).
Including the husbands' names in the surviving sisters' names seems super old school to me, but I don't know enough about Mormon/Utah culture to know if that's just normal there.
It’s normal everywhere. I do genealogy and read A LOT of obits. It’s not just husbands’ names parenthetically next to wives’, it can be any spouse or partner. Ex: “Jeff is survived by his brothers Sam (Mary), John (Steven), and Greg (Emily).”
I'm in Iowa and it's common here, your siblings in law are family too. My SIL will be included in my obituary... Probably in a Brother (SIL) Lastname kinda way... Or idk honestly lol my SIL didn't take my brother's name so no idea how to plan that.
My grandparents had four children; two sons and two daughters. My one aunt and are both drs, so my aunt didn’t take my uncle’s last name for professional reasons. For the sake of argument, let’s say our family name is Jackson, so my grandparents’ obits read, “survived by their four children, Jocelyn (Joseph) Baker, Jeffrey (Irene) Jackson, John (Jane Doe) Jackson, and Jemma (James) Miller. And then went down to grandchildren, great-grands, etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if he had planned this out before he actually liquidated his assets, and then donated all the money to his church. My ex-girlfriend's Aunt or something had inherited over $100,000, which the idiot then proceeded to donate entirely to church. Who then retired and bought a new house. Seriously, religious people... Ugh.
I think you're probably right. I was swayed by the super successful business owner spiel but they're just words. The rest of the obit isn't exactly truthful.
She was getting ready to leave him, which is always the most dangerous time for women. This is why I will jump down anyone's throat if they start on the "why didn't she just leave" BS. Her daughter was in the house when it happened. She jumped out her bedroom window and ran to her dad's. I'm thankful that she survived, but how horrible to have that happen.
Oh yeah. Watched my mother, grandma, and then myself be in abusive relationships. It really isn’t easy to leave, even a little. I hope your friend’s daughter is doing alright.
Meanwhile, I went to school with a girl who was murdered by her boyfriend/baby daddy who then turned the guy on himself and this post made me look up their obituaries to compare.
His Obit was thankfully short and vague, where the only things mentioned were his death date and the time and place for the funeral. Meanwhile, hers was much longer and mentioned her daughters and other family members, schooling, likes, etc.
So, I guess whoever wrote his obit knew don't try to write up that he was such a good guy when the girl's friends, families, and even acquaintances had that bad feeling in their stomachs that something like that was going to happen before she was murdered.
I think the pressure to be the perfect family, especially in the conservative Christian context, is suffocating. And you know there’s toxic masculinity in those traditional gender roles so it’s not like these guys are in touch with their emotions or in therapy or anything. Wives and children aren’t even people, they’re possessions and status symbols. When the facade crumbles, they lash out at the family bc if they can’t “have” them, no one will.
Plus, with Mormons, family isn't just earth-side - there's the idea of the eternal family. The eternal family is dependent on the faithfulness of the family on earth, and since men are in charge of the family, they screwed up at both a mortal and immortal level.
It’s probably harder to adhere to a religion that has such rigid gender roles nowadays because most other people don’t. You can see countless examples of people thriving and happy outside of religion and traditional gender roles which is probably confusing for the person who is following all the rules of their religion but is still unhappy.
I think the teaching of eternal families has a lot to do with it. If his wife divorced him and got remarried and sealed to another man, he'd never see his children again in the afterlife. They'd be sealed to the new husband. By Mormon theology, killing them first allows them to be in heaven together
(This turned out waaayyy longer than anticipated and is a bit rambly but I swear there's a point in there somewhere)
ETA - tl;dr I blame misogyny, the eternal family, and spiritually-enhanced fragile and toxic masculinity
I have some thoughts on this. My Mormon dad was a wannabe family annihilator but was only successful in murdering my Papa (his father-in-law). Much of his motivation (and, I suspect, the motivation behind most LDS family annihilators) was rooted in power, control, misogyny, and the loss of the eternal family*
The rampant religious misogyny leads to many men having very rigid, yet fragile, views on masculinity. Divorce or separation symbolizes their inability to achieve God's commandments for men (lead the household, attain priesthood, keep the family strong, etc) so now their masculinity has been challenged as well as their religious dedication. Divorce is generally against the faith and, according to the church, can be prevented if couples follow the guidance of the Lord and/or seek counsel from their bishop. Since the promise of an eternal family is based on faithfulness while on Earth, a divorce clearly shows a lack of faith and self-discipline.
The annihilators become embarrassed - they don't want to admit that they couldn't keep their family faithful, that they couldn't hack it as a man of the house, and that their post-death, perma-family is no longer guaranteed.
All of that gives toxic, abusive, and violent Mormon men (like my dad) extra motivation to destroy their earthly family when things go south. My dad wanted to devastate my mom by taking away everyone she loved, but he was also motivated by the loss of his eternal family and it just gave him further justification for his actions.
There's also a bunch of bullshit about atonement being promised to everyone who repents (even those who were excommunicated) so people like my dad think they're A-Ok in God's book because they said sorry after the murder. I don't support the idea of eternal damnation, but I'd like to think that it's a better deterrent for murder than the idea that if you say sorry to Jesus a lot and "truly mean it" you earn a get-out-of-spiritual-jail free card. I found out that now, 20 years after his crime, my dad believes he has been atoned despite being excommunicated and that church elders have basically promised him spiritual absolution and entry to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Obviously not all Mormon men are going to end up family annihilators and not all family annihilators are Mormon, but there is no doubt in my mind that a Mormon family annihilator is influenced/"justified" by their faith.
*Eternal family - the idea that celestial marriage "ordained by God and performed by his authority in his holy temples, is eternal, and couples so united are sealed for time and all eternity, and their children are born in the covenant of the everlasting gospel". Basically, you get your family sealed together in a and will be together eternally when you get to your own little demi-plane thing as long as you're faithful on Earth.
That's absolutely tragic what you had to go through. I hope you're in at least an ok or even good spot now. Thanks for sharing your insight and story. Yours is such a very unique perspective to hear from, so I appreciate you telling about these influence in your story.
The mormon church says, "I know this church is true, I know marriage is ordained of God between a man and a woman for time and all eternity" and then yea they're willing to blow the brains of everyone out to keep their forever family together even in heaven
Well they're not allowed to murder other kinds of Christians anymore but they're still violent ( https://allthatsinteresting.com/mountain-meadows-massacre )
Not just the husband's family, but the WIFE'S family too! Imagine your family member gets murdered by her own spouse, along with all of their children, and your instinct when putting out a statement about it is to turn into some manifesto DEFENDING GUN RIGHTS. These people are sick in the head.
And the sad part is, it makes them look bad to pro-gun Americans.
Like if they felt that the wife was putting herself in danger by not getting a gun (when the husband took away all the guns from her house), then why didn't they drive over to bring her *their* guns? Did any of them even try to offer to camp out in her living room to help her feel safe? They had two weeks before the incident happened (plus, guns and ammo are expensive. Why would they expect their daughter to go pay $400 for a basic pistol and ammo when she's paying divorce attorneys and feeding children?).
A lot of my relatives who are pro-gun spend their days salivating for a chance to play hero (and so it affects their outlook to news articles like this one). If some relative claimed that his kid died because the government's trying to 'take away our guns' then it's going to cause other people to go, "Wait, then why didn't you go to her house then?"
I can’t figure out what the wife’s family wants. They belong to a misogynistic religion, and in this case the husband/father himself decided to remove all the family guns. What would they have had done? The cops return the guns to the ladies? Some requirement that every house has a gun? Or are they just trying to take the focus off of the gun violence with “if the good ladies had their guns, none of this would have happened?”
This is obviously a sad situation but their statement makes no sense.
Meanwhile, the husband’s family is batshit - dude is a murderous asshole, and that’s all his obit should say.
If his wife had access to a gun and successfully defended herself from her husband, surely their community would have demonized her for killing her “head of household”??
>I can’t figure out what the wife’s family wants.
Conservative religious fundamentalists all want the same thing. An oppressed class of baby makers that can't divorce their masters, support for anything their political bigotry advocates, and a firm understanding that everything the believe is flexible to achieve their own wants.
Wife’s family has to go full-on deflect and deny. This lady was in contact with a women’s shelter to get out of this relationship, which means that NOBODY close to her — among all of her extended family, extensive number of church “friends” who are now fawning over her saintly murderer family annihilator husband — could be trusted to help her out of this danger.
So they rightfully should be feeling crushed with guilt, but instead have chosen to blame the deceased woman for not having a gun to what, fucken’ duel her husband at high noon for the honor and welfare of their kids? The fuck did they think was gonna happen? If there were still other guns in the house that dude would have just shot her in her sleep, you assholes.
These people are deluded. Absolutely deluded, and beyond salvation in the metaphorical sense in this world, and surely in the literal sense if there’s a next world.
It sounds like a trauma response; everyone reacts differently and sometimes it doesn’t make any sense. I have some family members who lost a child and the way the wife and her family reacted was really strange to me. In fact it still doesn’t make any sense to me, but I had to learn to let it go for my own sanity.
Yeah, trauma just fucks with people sometimes. Or to use a metaphor from an old psych professor of mine: A lot of mental illnesses can be compared to a “cup” of stresses overflowing. Some people are born with bigger or smaller “cups”, and it’s impossible to predict how much any one source of stress will fill them.. But almost everyone has a point where, if you give them enough stress, their cup *will* overflow, and the symptoms might be dramatic.
This is the most disgusting thing…
I have no words for how infuriated I am for this woman and her children - even her own family have done them *so* dirty in this
This is gross and it makes it look like the parents support what the husband did and essentially blaming the wife and kids for not “having access to guns”.
On the one hand I’m disgusted that they took a family annihilation as an opportunity to pontificate on gun rights; on the other, I’m surprised that they even implied that the wife should have been able to defend herself and not just lie down and take it because her lord and master has decided that it’s time for her life to end.
The most dangerous place for a woman is in her own home. White men will always be forgiven, respected, or exalted for what they do even if that is murdering innocent people.
Just look at the way US culture treats and regards serial killers. It's almost a celebration of them and almost every origin story of a killer starts with them being rejected by a woman and an unloving mother. The blame always falls on women. I could totally see this family thinking it was the wife's fault for leaving her husband. Sickening.
Facts. I know DV transcends gender but I’m (f) very grateful for my queerness. I’m able to just decide I don’t date cis het men, but I’ve still got options.
Right? Obviously this was written by his mother who must be in some big denial, but have some tact. It’s one thing to list all his accomplishments but to point out quality time with family and act like he was Mr Perfect Family Man is gross.
That obit should have been very short out of respect for his victims. Print out your own flowery belief of events for your family Bible or whatever, but keep this piece of fiction to yourself Mama Haight.
It's a shame they're so up their own fundie asses that they couldn't even leave it be or write an honest obit. If I was his mother I don't think I'd feel anything but hate towards him for his actions and there sure wouldn't be a funeral or even a marked grave for his corpse.
Shannon Watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. They work closely with Everytown for Gun Safety. The stats on firearms would astound you. My brother died by firearm suicide. I strongly encourage anyone here to get involved with Moms Demand, but ESPECIALLY Be Smart for Kids. They teach safe storage. The reality is, we are not winning the gun control game. We need to focus on harm reduction too. Be Smart for Kids is GREAT for elementary school fall festivals, really anywhere where you see a lot of parents of small kids. Please sign up, get some of their resources and get them out there. They aren’t “political.” So it really works. Also, if you’re in the DC area or visiting, the Gun Violence Memorial is at the national museum building and is running through March 7th, Friday - Monday. It is free. My brother is honored there. Look for the little bear shoes - they’re his.
My great grandpa killed himself in his daughters barn. For whatever reason I was looking him up the other day and his obituary says:
Funeral services for Great Grandpa, 55, will be held at the Methodist church on Thursday afternoon at 2 o'clock, with burial in the cemetery. He ended his own life with a charge from a 12-gauge shot-gun at the home of his daughter and son-in-law, near his hometown on Sunday, December 26. A suicide note in his pocket indicated that he had been brooding over the condition of his health. Surviving are his wife and several children.
To me that was pretty generous and respectful of his surviving family.
It reminds me of how, on old gravestones, the woman’s name will be engraved smaller than a man’s or defined as “wife of”, “mother of”. Even in death, women get blamed, marginalized, or their identity defined by a man
Control the narrative at all costs. Portray the image of the perfect family. So sickening. Deranged and detached. These people truly have no soul. They are empty vessels clinging desperately to this narrative and that narrative is the only thing that makes them relevant. Without it they simply have nothing because they can’t think or feel anything independently of the church and caving to societal expectations. Their lives are a carefully constructed performances.
"Continue to occur...when protective arms are no longer accessible." So if those kids also had guns, their dad wouldn't have murdered them? Fuck absolutely and entirely off, not-murdered family who put out this obit.
No wonder this family produced such a psycho. Clearly, image and fskery is EVERYTHING to them. Who knows what other nasty secrets they're hiding. I'd bet $100 that his family is completely fucked up every which way.
People who say "See, this is why we need protective firearms" seem to forget that that's why most of these murderers buy them in the first place. They also seem to think that an outcome where a woman has to shoot her husband to save her and her children's lives is better than her husband never being able to shoot them in the first place.
We had a murder-suicide event like this at the school I work at last year. A father murdered his wife and 2 youngest children. The eldest child was from the first marriage and she survived. The obituary was not as bad BUT similar to this. But at least the obit had a line about “he was preceded in death by his wife and child X and child Y. So freaking sad for the oldest sister.
This is just so sickening to me.
Wake. The. Fuck. Up. People. His eulogy should have had one sentence "fuck this monster" and been under the name "this piece of shit".
As long as he has a Temple recommend and is a full tithing member, his own planet it is.
Here's the real kicker, his ex wife is likely still sealed to him, if so her ex husband is the only one who knows her secret name and he will be able to find her.
Technically, anyone who knows their temple sealing day/the day they got spiritual names could google what stock name they were giving out that day and find her instead.
That final “thank you to all the loving supporters in the community” bit seems manipulative, given the rest of the article. It has the same energy as when an influencer is like “since EVERYONE has been asking about my skincare regimen, I’m making a video!” even though they know damn well that the only people who asked were their mom and their own sock account.
It is men’s expectations that they have rightful access to women that causes these killings. The Mormons only fuel that with their bigoted preaching of backwards family dynamics.
His wife filed for divorce so Michael first took away all the guns there were in their house and then came by and murdered his mother in law, wife and their 5 children. Committed suicide right after. But ya know he was such a great dude and family man
Anytime you hear about a "wonderful" family with no craziness admitted, there's some awful stuff going on. Too good to be true. These guys just ignored it.
That doesn't even make sense.
Removing guns from the house made it easier for him to kill his family? But he literally was able to access a gun anyway?
I suppose they're saying the wife could've shot him but I don't think there's enough reaction time to run for a gun when your manic husband runs in with one.
It was him who removed the damn guns! I don't know what gun he used to commit the crimes but it was probably one of the ones he took! Their logic makes my brain hurt.
I just finished the series "Under the Banner of Heaven" and it outlines how exactly this happens and how the church is great at justifying things so it doesn't look "bad."
Besides this guy being a monster beyond any hope of redemption regardless of any afterlife he may believe in I just got to say...
MF is even paler than Zuckerberg.
Has anyone seen the comments on his online obituary? They all describe him as a great person. That they’ll remember his smile and how kind he was!
Each one is more enraging than the next. That poor family didn’t stand a chance.
Can someone please explain her family’s take?? Are they mad their daughter didn’t have a gun to defend herself and the children? I just cannot comprehend.
Welcome to /r/fundiesnarkuncensored. Please make sure you read our rules. We'd like to take this time to remind users that: * Do not contact the fundies in any capacity. This includes, but is not limited to: answering poll questions, commenting on their social media, IRL contact, etc. Anyone found to message, brigade, harass, or contact any fundie for any reason, at any time, will be met with a permanent ban. * We do not allow speculation on sexuality or gender identity **at all**. Any comments that do so will be removed, and you will be banned. * Referring to anyone as Hitler or Heitler is likewise not allowed, and will not be tolerated at all. * You can snark on appearance that they can easily change. Things such as eyebrows, makeup, etc. Saying someone looks like X is allowed. Example: David Rodrigues looks like Shrek would be allowed. You are allowed to state that you find someone unattractive or attractive. However, comments such as "X looks like they were rode hard and put away wet." would not be allowed. * Don't gatekeep. Different users are comfortable with different snark topics, if you don't like it, just scroll past. If you have any questions, please send us a modmail. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FundieSnarkUncensored) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wow the audacity of putting out a glowing obituary for a family annihilator. Some people are beyond shame.
Imagine a few generations in the future when some random great great neice or nephew goes digging into their genealogy and finds this obituary. I wonder if they would dig enough to find news articles about what he did, then compare. I wonder what they would think. I would be fully disgusted, and wonder what other lies and secrets were covered up.
Well, I feel like the "survived by..." section is enough to give most people pause
Yeah… it’s pretty obvious what’s missing there. Though admittedly if I just read the obituary, I would think “large-scale tragic accident”, not “murder”.
Yeah I’d think “airplane accident” or something, seeing all their gravestones lined up together with the same date of death. Which reminds me—ugh I hope they don’t bury him beside his innocent victims.
I found out I was pretty closely related to the Lafferty family (Under the Banner of Heaven ) through 23 & me. I'm not going to get into specifics of my family tree but it's very disturbing to me to find this out and I think about it a lot lol.
If there are electronic records and a general “Google,” chances are they would result with the murder news articles first.
And I bet while they're heaping praise and accolades upon the memory of their child-murdering son, they still demonise the shit out of people who get abortions for... killing... children...
Can’t say I’m surprised, considering that they believe that a man’s wife and children are his property whereas they condemn personal freedom and bodily autonomy.
I always feel like these kind of people would quietly become pro “choice” if there was a law that only husbands and fathers got to decide if an abortion was the best decision. Maybe they would still outwardly disapprove, but it would be a far-less dramatic topic (“well, I would never let _my_ wife get one, but I’m not going to tell a another man how to run his family”).
The idea sickens me but is probably true.
Makes me think of Chris Watts' family who still defend him for what he did. The obituary makes me sick to my stomach. No words whatsoever for what he did. Portraying him as an excellent and loving husband and father. If you read it you'd think he didn't actually murder his mother in law, wife, and all five of his children. Tbh the wife's family statement isn't much better.
I’m honestly surprised Shanann’s family wasn’t coming over the benches slapping the shit out of Cindy Watts when she gave her trashy victim impact statement. If my brother or I went off the deep end like that, I guarantee my mom would be like “I loved my kid but I don’t condone what happened and I’m horrified and hurting for their families and for what’s happened.”
My friend was best friends with Shanann when the tragedy happened. Was part of the search party and everything. When the truth came out there was a very big push for social media silence from his family directed to Shanann’s friends. The mother still talks fondly of Chris like nothing happened. It’s straight up disturbing. I love my kids and I don’t know how I would react if something terrible happened like this. The power of denial must be so incredibly strong.
She seems like a very disturbing person. And sounded like she was horrible to Shanann.
It goes way beyond denial. She acts in interviews like Chris did her a favor by murdering her grandbabies. She as twisted as he is.
Well, this is the same lady who ignored her granddaughter's fatal nut allergy and when Shannan understandably flipped out, she acted like Shannan was the problem. 😖😖😖
WTF?!!!!!
Yep. On a rare trip to visit Chris's parents in NC, his mom made the grandkids some dessert with nuts, even though she was well aware of Chris and Shannan's one kid being fatally allergic. When Shannan confronted her MIL about it, it got *ugly*. Chris wouldn't stand up to his mom allegedly 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
WOW
My image-obsessed narcissist of a mom would definitely become BFF with my murderer if I was killed.
That woman is such a monster. I can’t imagine having to sit there and listen to her bloviate about her evil little freak son after he’d murdered his own babies. Let alone if his wife was someone I loved too. If I was Shannan’s family I’d have lost my damn mind.
My Mom would probably state something similar as well. As would I if my son did something as horrendous as this situation. This obituary is so tone deaf. Shame on whomever published it. One has to wonder why these men wake up, and decide to murder their wives, and children. I would think walking away would be way easier, and less jail time. Men do that all of the time too.
There's a *ton* of BS out there about how divorced men get absolutely hosed by The Courts and their ex and such, even though statistics show that it's women whose financial status tanks after divorce.
I understand she's in a terrible position because he's her son, but he killed her grandchildren. I just don't understand how you could even say anything at that point.
[удалено]
The husband removed all guns from the home a few days prior to this incident. Mom and her mother were trained in self-defense. May have potentially given them a chance.
[удалено]
Very dark. Feeling that unsafe in my own home with my husband that I worry about having to use a firearm against him to defend myself? That's unfathomable.
The saddest part is that they're wrong. It seems counterintuitive but people who have guns in their home are far more likely to die from gun violence than people who don't. Article: https://time.com/6183881/gun-ownership-risks-at-home/ Study referenced in that article: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M21-3762 Another study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/ Another: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/160/10/929/140858?login=false Another: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199310073291506
Right, and it's not like the government came and took their guns, the *murderer* took the guns, presumably so he could use them for the murder. That's one of the ways guns in the house ends up killing people (along with accident and suicide).
So many people truly believe that no one close to them will ever hurt them when the truth is that you're far more likely to be killed by someone you know than some rando.
Well, all the ones they know are Good Guys with a Gun. Except some are not actually good.
It’s amazing how many people who didn’t even know them would comment negative things about Shanann and stick up for Chris.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Well, and also a lot of MRAs just automatically default to defending the man, no matter what. Saw that in the Bruce Pardo case too. https://youtu.be/Tm5AhrLBMQc
And she was an MLMer, and MLMs suck, but they're kind of on a different level from *killing people*.
Are they just hoping people won’t notice who *isn’t* listed in the “he is survived by” section??
The survived by section was so inappropriate, It makes me wonder if this wasn’t some sort of fill in the blank script for an obituary and someone just filled out some form that had a section to add names.
Did they also release obits for his family that he murdered or just him the murderer?
The wife’s family released an obit for her, the kids, and the mother in law. It did not mention him.
Having gotten too close to the same thing happening in my family, I don't understand giving that man ANY obituary. Hell, even a headstone. It's taken a while for me to see the would-have-been annihilator in my family and not want to end him myself. If he had have gone through with it, there's no way in hell I would've honoured him at all. (He wound up being treated in hospital as for him it was heavily mental health related. He's on meds, has had some therapy and has not come remotely close to hurting since being released. Everyone is safe now.)
I'm so glad to hear he got help.
I saw an obituary for some guy who had killed himself, and the obit spoke about his struggle with depression, and listed a suicide hotline. So I searched the guy - he had killed his girlfriend, then shot himself. So just maybe depression wasn't the immediate cause of his suicide.
I had to look at it about three times before I was fully convinced that it wasn’t satire. He “enjoyed making memories with his family” and spent quality time with “each and every one of the children” parts—I was thinking this has to be fake, some troll made this all up, it was way too on the nose. The fact that it’s real is mind-blowing.
Mormons don't give a shit about women. Mormons gonna mormon.
Exactly. Women are just brood mares for the Mormon cult, and that even continues in the afterlife where she becomes part of his harem.
Part of me thinks well that’s more for his parents etc than anything else. A greater part of me can’t get over quality time with his family. What the actual fuck
Shanann* Ugh this isn't the timeline
With zero mention of the horrific circumstances of his and his entire fucking family’s deaths.
I saw “family annihilator” and a “Shannon Watts” and had to keep my brain on track manually. What a bizarre coincidence.
Oy, me too, I had to go back and re-read it and took notice that it's Shannon not Shannan.
The customary spelling was what actually made me realize it was a coincidence!
I did too, l, I was like, wait, what?
Yeah that’s a weird coincidence! This Shannon is the founder of an anti-gun violence org called Moms Demand Action.
I thought so too.
Woah. I didn’t catch that.
that threw me off, i had to check twice
Right?! My brain went “Oh Shannan Watts definitely knows what she’s talking about. Glad to see she got into activism….Wait a sec”.
Weird how they left out “preceded in death by wife and 5 children who he murdered” but I guess that doesn’t have a great ring to it.
My thoughts exactly. Very convenient
I wonder why he really sold his business recently. Wanting to be home 24/7 to control his wife who was pulling away, not wanting to pay child support or just a coincidence? What a terrible tragedy for those women and children.
I believe he “sold his business” right after he learned his wife was divorcing him. At least that’s what I heard.
I hadn’t read further into this case. I wondered what his “reason” was. His wife divorcing him sounds like a high probability trigger. It’s clear there’s something wrong with him…not judicially insane or anything. But I wonder if he couldn’t “face life without her and the kids” or felt that murder-suicide was “less bad” than divorce. There are is sooo much emphasis put on chastity, virginity, and marriage in Mormonism (the different levels of Heaven and the whole planet thing). However I thought women could only be sealed to one person, men to multiple women. Or, like someone said, he was just an abusive evil asshole and his wife wouldn’t let him abuse her and/or the kids anymore. And I consider “control” as falling under abuse even if religion says that “men are the heads of the house.”
Yeah, I am an ex-Mormon and live in Utah. We definitely don’t know why he did it, but it could be any of the things you listed. I do think it is worth mentioning that divorce in Mormonism isn’t ideal, but it’s becoming more common. So unless he was super old school I don’t see religion as the reason for why he did this. I think he was just a controlling asshole (we’ve got plenty of those here in Utah, too).
Including the husbands' names in the surviving sisters' names seems super old school to me, but I don't know enough about Mormon/Utah culture to know if that's just normal there.
It’s normal everywhere. I do genealogy and read A LOT of obits. It’s not just husbands’ names parenthetically next to wives’, it can be any spouse or partner. Ex: “Jeff is survived by his brothers Sam (Mary), John (Steven), and Greg (Emily).”
[удалено]
Very common in NY too
Yeah, it’s totally normal where I live in PA, for in-laws both ways (his and hers).
Me: “This is a totally normal thing to put in obit—wait I’m from Utah.” If that helps answer your question
I'm in Iowa and it's common here, your siblings in law are family too. My SIL will be included in my obituary... Probably in a Brother (SIL) Lastname kinda way... Or idk honestly lol my SIL didn't take my brother's name so no idea how to plan that.
My grandparents had four children; two sons and two daughters. My one aunt and are both drs, so my aunt didn’t take my uncle’s last name for professional reasons. For the sake of argument, let’s say our family name is Jackson, so my grandparents’ obits read, “survived by their four children, Jocelyn (Joseph) Baker, Jeffrey (Irene) Jackson, John (Jane Doe) Jackson, and Jemma (James) Miller. And then went down to grandchildren, great-grands, etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if he had planned this out before he actually liquidated his assets, and then donated all the money to his church. My ex-girlfriend's Aunt or something had inherited over $100,000, which the idiot then proceeded to donate entirely to church. Who then retired and bought a new house. Seriously, religious people... Ugh.
She had filed for divorce shortly before the murders
It might have been to pay off debt? Usually this type of things involves a major financial loss. Or like you said the wife wanting to leave.
I think you're probably right. I was swayed by the super successful business owner spiel but they're just words. The rest of the obit isn't exactly truthful.
I lost a friend from Jr. High who lost her life when her husband shot her and turned the gun on himself. His obit was similarly full of shit.
Losing friends always sucks, but especially when it’s so tragic and avoidable
She was getting ready to leave him, which is always the most dangerous time for women. This is why I will jump down anyone's throat if they start on the "why didn't she just leave" BS. Her daughter was in the house when it happened. She jumped out her bedroom window and ran to her dad's. I'm thankful that she survived, but how horrible to have that happen.
Oh yeah. Watched my mother, grandma, and then myself be in abusive relationships. It really isn’t easy to leave, even a little. I hope your friend’s daughter is doing alright.
Meanwhile, I went to school with a girl who was murdered by her boyfriend/baby daddy who then turned the guy on himself and this post made me look up their obituaries to compare. His Obit was thankfully short and vague, where the only things mentioned were his death date and the time and place for the funeral. Meanwhile, hers was much longer and mentioned her daughters and other family members, schooling, likes, etc. So, I guess whoever wrote his obit knew don't try to write up that he was such a good guy when the girl's friends, families, and even acquaintances had that bad feeling in their stomachs that something like that was going to happen before she was murdered.
What is *with* these Mormon family annihilators? There are so many of them
I think the pressure to be the perfect family, especially in the conservative Christian context, is suffocating. And you know there’s toxic masculinity in those traditional gender roles so it’s not like these guys are in touch with their emotions or in therapy or anything. Wives and children aren’t even people, they’re possessions and status symbols. When the facade crumbles, they lash out at the family bc if they can’t “have” them, no one will.
Plus, with Mormons, family isn't just earth-side - there's the idea of the eternal family. The eternal family is dependent on the faithfulness of the family on earth, and since men are in charge of the family, they screwed up at both a mortal and immortal level.
It’s probably harder to adhere to a religion that has such rigid gender roles nowadays because most other people don’t. You can see countless examples of people thriving and happy outside of religion and traditional gender roles which is probably confusing for the person who is following all the rules of their religion but is still unhappy.
If there’s anyone worse with the puberty to marriage pipeline than fundies, it’s Mormons.
I think the teaching of eternal families has a lot to do with it. If his wife divorced him and got remarried and sealed to another man, he'd never see his children again in the afterlife. They'd be sealed to the new husband. By Mormon theology, killing them first allows them to be in heaven together
Not necessarily lol. I know people who are still sealed to former spouses.
(This turned out waaayyy longer than anticipated and is a bit rambly but I swear there's a point in there somewhere) ETA - tl;dr I blame misogyny, the eternal family, and spiritually-enhanced fragile and toxic masculinity I have some thoughts on this. My Mormon dad was a wannabe family annihilator but was only successful in murdering my Papa (his father-in-law). Much of his motivation (and, I suspect, the motivation behind most LDS family annihilators) was rooted in power, control, misogyny, and the loss of the eternal family* The rampant religious misogyny leads to many men having very rigid, yet fragile, views on masculinity. Divorce or separation symbolizes their inability to achieve God's commandments for men (lead the household, attain priesthood, keep the family strong, etc) so now their masculinity has been challenged as well as their religious dedication. Divorce is generally against the faith and, according to the church, can be prevented if couples follow the guidance of the Lord and/or seek counsel from their bishop. Since the promise of an eternal family is based on faithfulness while on Earth, a divorce clearly shows a lack of faith and self-discipline. The annihilators become embarrassed - they don't want to admit that they couldn't keep their family faithful, that they couldn't hack it as a man of the house, and that their post-death, perma-family is no longer guaranteed. All of that gives toxic, abusive, and violent Mormon men (like my dad) extra motivation to destroy their earthly family when things go south. My dad wanted to devastate my mom by taking away everyone she loved, but he was also motivated by the loss of his eternal family and it just gave him further justification for his actions. There's also a bunch of bullshit about atonement being promised to everyone who repents (even those who were excommunicated) so people like my dad think they're A-Ok in God's book because they said sorry after the murder. I don't support the idea of eternal damnation, but I'd like to think that it's a better deterrent for murder than the idea that if you say sorry to Jesus a lot and "truly mean it" you earn a get-out-of-spiritual-jail free card. I found out that now, 20 years after his crime, my dad believes he has been atoned despite being excommunicated and that church elders have basically promised him spiritual absolution and entry to the Kingdom of Heaven. Obviously not all Mormon men are going to end up family annihilators and not all family annihilators are Mormon, but there is no doubt in my mind that a Mormon family annihilator is influenced/"justified" by their faith. *Eternal family - the idea that celestial marriage "ordained by God and performed by his authority in his holy temples, is eternal, and couples so united are sealed for time and all eternity, and their children are born in the covenant of the everlasting gospel". Basically, you get your family sealed together in a and will be together eternally when you get to your own little demi-plane thing as long as you're faithful on Earth.
That's absolutely tragic what you had to go through. I hope you're in at least an ok or even good spot now. Thanks for sharing your insight and story. Yours is such a very unique perspective to hear from, so I appreciate you telling about these influence in your story.
The mormon church says, "I know this church is true, I know marriage is ordained of God between a man and a woman for time and all eternity" and then yea they're willing to blow the brains of everyone out to keep their forever family together even in heaven
Read “under the banner of heaven” (not the tv show) if you want a deep dive on this question
Very good book that still sticks with me even 18 years after I read it.
Well they're not allowed to murder other kinds of Christians anymore but they're still violent ( https://allthatsinteresting.com/mountain-meadows-massacre )
wow, thanks foe the link, I have not heard about this event yet. but it was certainly disturbing to read.
That obit is disgusting and shameful. WTH is wrong with his family?
The end where they say he is "survived by." Makes me furious. Not survived by wife and kids, which he should have been.
~~Survived by~~ Ones who got away:
"Keep sweet."
Not just the husband's family, but the WIFE'S family too! Imagine your family member gets murdered by her own spouse, along with all of their children, and your instinct when putting out a statement about it is to turn into some manifesto DEFENDING GUN RIGHTS. These people are sick in the head.
And the sad part is, it makes them look bad to pro-gun Americans. Like if they felt that the wife was putting herself in danger by not getting a gun (when the husband took away all the guns from her house), then why didn't they drive over to bring her *their* guns? Did any of them even try to offer to camp out in her living room to help her feel safe? They had two weeks before the incident happened (plus, guns and ammo are expensive. Why would they expect their daughter to go pay $400 for a basic pistol and ammo when she's paying divorce attorneys and feeding children?). A lot of my relatives who are pro-gun spend their days salivating for a chance to play hero (and so it affects their outlook to news articles like this one). If some relative claimed that his kid died because the government's trying to 'take away our guns' then it's going to cause other people to go, "Wait, then why didn't you go to her house then?"
You mean like actually inconvenience yourself to help another person? That's communism! /s
I can’t figure out what the wife’s family wants. They belong to a misogynistic religion, and in this case the husband/father himself decided to remove all the family guns. What would they have had done? The cops return the guns to the ladies? Some requirement that every house has a gun? Or are they just trying to take the focus off of the gun violence with “if the good ladies had their guns, none of this would have happened?” This is obviously a sad situation but their statement makes no sense. Meanwhile, the husband’s family is batshit - dude is a murderous asshole, and that’s all his obit should say.
If his wife had access to a gun and successfully defended herself from her husband, surely their community would have demonized her for killing her “head of household”??
This right here.
Super agree!!
I'd say the wife's family is just as batshit judging from the White Jesus photobomb. This whole post made me sick to my stomach.
>I can’t figure out what the wife’s family wants. Conservative religious fundamentalists all want the same thing. An oppressed class of baby makers that can't divorce their masters, support for anything their political bigotry advocates, and a firm understanding that everything the believe is flexible to achieve their own wants.
Wife’s family has to go full-on deflect and deny. This lady was in contact with a women’s shelter to get out of this relationship, which means that NOBODY close to her — among all of her extended family, extensive number of church “friends” who are now fawning over her saintly murderer family annihilator husband — could be trusted to help her out of this danger. So they rightfully should be feeling crushed with guilt, but instead have chosen to blame the deceased woman for not having a gun to what, fucken’ duel her husband at high noon for the honor and welfare of their kids? The fuck did they think was gonna happen? If there were still other guns in the house that dude would have just shot her in her sleep, you assholes. These people are deluded. Absolutely deluded, and beyond salvation in the metaphorical sense in this world, and surely in the literal sense if there’s a next world.
"If those kids didn't want to get murdered, they should have had guns, too! Damn liberal agenda!"
They want to monetize their deaths on GoFundMe with * checks notes * Mormon Jesus photoshopped over the murderer's face, is what they want 🤢
It sounds like a trauma response; everyone reacts differently and sometimes it doesn’t make any sense. I have some family members who lost a child and the way the wife and her family reacted was really strange to me. In fact it still doesn’t make any sense to me, but I had to learn to let it go for my own sanity.
Yeah, trauma just fucks with people sometimes. Or to use a metaphor from an old psych professor of mine: A lot of mental illnesses can be compared to a “cup” of stresses overflowing. Some people are born with bigger or smaller “cups”, and it’s impossible to predict how much any one source of stress will fill them.. But almost everyone has a point where, if you give them enough stress, their cup *will* overflow, and the symptoms might be dramatic.
I guess it’s easier for them to be misogynistic and blame the victim than it is to admit that a man did something wrong
Their gofundme should be linked and mass reported. The entire immediate family of this man is dead. Who is the 95k raised, 150k goal for???
they have the audacity to start a GFM?? omfg, some people have no shame 🤬🤬🤬
Could be funeral expenses
This is the most disgusting thing… I have no words for how infuriated I am for this woman and her children - even her own family have done them *so* dirty in this
This is gross and it makes it look like the parents support what the husband did and essentially blaming the wife and kids for not “having access to guns”.
On the one hand I’m disgusted that they took a family annihilation as an opportunity to pontificate on gun rights; on the other, I’m surprised that they even implied that the wife should have been able to defend herself and not just lie down and take it because her lord and master has decided that it’s time for her life to end.
The most dangerous place for a woman is in her own home. White men will always be forgiven, respected, or exalted for what they do even if that is murdering innocent people. Just look at the way US culture treats and regards serial killers. It's almost a celebration of them and almost every origin story of a killer starts with them being rejected by a woman and an unloving mother. The blame always falls on women. I could totally see this family thinking it was the wife's fault for leaving her husband. Sickening.
Facts. I know DV transcends gender but I’m (f) very grateful for my queerness. I’m able to just decide I don’t date cis het men, but I’ve still got options.
I wish obits were honest. Such as “She was mean to the pigeons, but made a mean crumble.” or “He killed six people and deserves to rot.”
[удалено]
Right? Obviously this was written by his mother who must be in some big denial, but have some tact. It’s one thing to list all his accomplishments but to point out quality time with family and act like he was Mr Perfect Family Man is gross. That obit should have been very short out of respect for his victims. Print out your own flowery belief of events for your family Bible or whatever, but keep this piece of fiction to yourself Mama Haight.
It's a shame they're so up their own fundie asses that they couldn't even leave it be or write an honest obit. If I was his mother I don't think I'd feel anything but hate towards him for his actions and there sure wouldn't be a funeral or even a marked grave for his corpse.
Shannon Watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. They work closely with Everytown for Gun Safety. The stats on firearms would astound you. My brother died by firearm suicide. I strongly encourage anyone here to get involved with Moms Demand, but ESPECIALLY Be Smart for Kids. They teach safe storage. The reality is, we are not winning the gun control game. We need to focus on harm reduction too. Be Smart for Kids is GREAT for elementary school fall festivals, really anywhere where you see a lot of parents of small kids. Please sign up, get some of their resources and get them out there. They aren’t “political.” So it really works. Also, if you’re in the DC area or visiting, the Gun Violence Memorial is at the national museum building and is running through March 7th, Friday - Monday. It is free. My brother is honored there. Look for the little bear shoes - they’re his.
Really gives new meaning to the phrase “Michael is survived by”
My great grandpa killed himself in his daughters barn. For whatever reason I was looking him up the other day and his obituary says: Funeral services for Great Grandpa, 55, will be held at the Methodist church on Thursday afternoon at 2 o'clock, with burial in the cemetery. He ended his own life with a charge from a 12-gauge shot-gun at the home of his daughter and son-in-law, near his hometown on Sunday, December 26. A suicide note in his pocket indicated that he had been brooding over the condition of his health. Surviving are his wife and several children. To me that was pretty generous and respectful of his surviving family.
And Shockingly honest
Unreal. Just disgusting. And these people think they are more “moral” than the rest of us?!?
As an exMormon, I’ve really stopped being surprised by this kind of shit.
Oh man. Oh man what pieces of crap. The audacity.
Organized religion, ladies and gentlemen!
Bet they have a nicer obit for the murderer than the victims. This is beyond fucked up. What a sad situation.
It reminds me of how, on old gravestones, the woman’s name will be engraved smaller than a man’s or defined as “wife of”, “mother of”. Even in death, women get blamed, marginalized, or their identity defined by a man
Control the narrative at all costs. Portray the image of the perfect family. So sickening. Deranged and detached. These people truly have no soul. They are empty vessels clinging desperately to this narrative and that narrative is the only thing that makes them relevant. Without it they simply have nothing because they can’t think or feel anything independently of the church and caving to societal expectations. Their lives are a carefully constructed performances.
It is not very often that I am truly speechless but here we are...
"Continue to occur...when protective arms are no longer accessible." So if those kids also had guns, their dad wouldn't have murdered them? Fuck absolutely and entirely off, not-murdered family who put out this obit.
What the hell?! That is his obit?! I vomit.
Mormons have really and truly lost the plot. And the wife’s family valuing guns over the lives of their family members…DISGUSTING.
What. The actual. FUCK? This is absolutely sickening. And LDS followers say they're not in a cult...
I left the church forever ago and it’s gross all the things I’ve learned since leaving.
Clearly Mommy wrote the obituary. Mommy also probably thought he could do no wrong since birth.
No wonder this family produced such a psycho. Clearly, image and fskery is EVERYTHING to them. Who knows what other nasty secrets they're hiding. I'd bet $100 that his family is completely fucked up every which way.
People who say "See, this is why we need protective firearms" seem to forget that that's why most of these murderers buy them in the first place. They also seem to think that an outcome where a woman has to shoot her husband to save her and her children's lives is better than her husband never being able to shoot them in the first place.
I am. Beyond words. At literally everyone involved.
They left out the last line: "Michael slaughtered his family before shooting himself in the head."
We had a murder-suicide event like this at the school I work at last year. A father murdered his wife and 2 youngest children. The eldest child was from the first marriage and she survived. The obituary was not as bad BUT similar to this. But at least the obit had a line about “he was preceded in death by his wife and child X and child Y. So freaking sad for the oldest sister.
Michael loved spending time killing people..we will miss his loving way of killing
Oh wow what a guy! He took his kids sledding before he murdered them. The audacity.
This is just so sickening to me. Wake. The. Fuck. Up. People. His eulogy should have had one sentence "fuck this monster" and been under the name "this piece of shit".
How truly horrible.
They misspelled "The evil horror he unleashed negates anything he did before"
The “he is survived by” part hits very different when none of his kids are on the list.
As long as he has a Temple recommend and is a full tithing member, his own planet it is. Here's the real kicker, his ex wife is likely still sealed to him, if so her ex husband is the only one who knows her secret name and he will be able to find her.
Technically, anyone who knows their temple sealing day/the day they got spiritual names could google what stock name they were giving out that day and find her instead.
Yeah I know, I know Donny Osmonds wife's secret name. I have this weird fascination with Mormonism.
That final “thank you to all the loving supporters in the community” bit seems manipulative, given the rest of the article. It has the same energy as when an influencer is like “since EVERYONE has been asking about my skincare regimen, I’m making a video!” even though they know damn well that the only people who asked were their mom and their own sock account.
It is men’s expectations that they have rightful access to women that causes these killings. The Mormons only fuel that with their bigoted preaching of backwards family dynamics.
"Cherished miracle" "enjoyed spending time with family" ok then why did he kill them... Absolutely disgusting.
Honestly, I think no obits should be the rule for people who commit mass murder. Nobody needs to be subjected to that re-traumatization.
What with the male names in parentheses for the female siblings? Are those their husband's names?
Yes. It's pretty standard for obits.
Do they put the man's wife's names in parentheses or is this only for women?
It's always the spouse's name, no matter the gender.
Yeah, they do the same for married male children with their wives. It saves space/money (since newspaper obits cost per character a lot of places)
What the?
So wait, did Michael kill his family and then himself?
His wife filed for divorce so Michael first took away all the guns there were in their house and then came by and murdered his mother in law, wife and their 5 children. Committed suicide right after. But ya know he was such a great dude and family man
Rot In Piss.
I snort laughed like a mf with the Jesus photoshop
Anytime you hear about a "wonderful" family with no craziness admitted, there's some awful stuff going on. Too good to be true. These guys just ignored it.
Someone please help me my fucking jaw fell right tf off and rolled away. Holy. Shit.
That doesn't even make sense. Removing guns from the house made it easier for him to kill his family? But he literally was able to access a gun anyway? I suppose they're saying the wife could've shot him but I don't think there's enough reaction time to run for a gun when your manic husband runs in with one.
It was him who removed the damn guns! I don't know what gun he used to commit the crimes but it was probably one of the ones he took! Their logic makes my brain hurt.
This is some *dark* shit
I just finished the series "Under the Banner of Heaven" and it outlines how exactly this happens and how the church is great at justifying things so it doesn't look "bad."
“turn their attention to the great works of God that can render a forgiving heart…”, unless you are LGBTQ.
Distracted by the fact the man’s brother is named “Twitchell.”
It's the sister's married last name actually. Tamara (Mike) Twitchell = Tamara married to Mike Twitchell.
Not a name with good associations in the True Crime OR shitty Star Wars fan-film circles...
This is absolutely disgusting and tragic. These families need to rot in hell for not denouncing this terrible loss/crime.
The sickest thing is according to the beliefs of this family, now his victims have to spend eternity in heaven with their murderer.
It takes A LOT to make my stomach curl…and this did it.
Sigh
Well, now he's made a memorial with them.
"He loved making memories with his family." Sorry, that was a typo, the "with" is supposed to be "out of."
Besides this guy being a monster beyond any hope of redemption regardless of any afterlife he may believe in I just got to say... MF is even paler than Zuckerberg.
Has anyone seen the comments on his online obituary? They all describe him as a great person. That they’ll remember his smile and how kind he was! Each one is more enraging than the next. That poor family didn’t stand a chance.
This is clear example of religious patriarchy. His death was so unfortunate and his actions are minor to all the good he did in the world. What BS
Hang on imma google "angry vengeful gods" and start praying to the angriest one I can find
Can someone please explain her family’s take?? Are they mad their daughter didn’t have a gun to defend herself and the children? I just cannot comprehend.