When a Son Kills
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[0 Comment]The phone rang in the middle of the night. Carol Kent rolled over as her husband, Gene, reached for the receiver. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table: 12:35 a.m.
Who would be calling in the middle of the night? Carol wondered. By Gene's tone she knew it wasn't good news.
Gene turned toward Carol and choked out, "J.P. has been arrested for first-degree murder."
Not J.P. she thought as nausea swept over her.
After all, their only child, J.P., was a strong Christian and family man. He was a respected Navy officer.
But his wife, April, was on the phone confirming their worst nightmare.
The victim, Douglas Miller Jr., April's ex-husband, had multiple allegations of abuse against him involving his wife and two young daughters. He'd petitioned the court for unsupervised visitation rights with his girls. When it appeared the court would approve the request, J.P. had become outraged, telling his wife he didn't know how to protect the girls.
J.P. and April took paperwork on the abuse issues to an attorney, and were told on a scale of 1 to 10, they had about an "8" in provable abuse, which might not be enough to keep supervised visits intact. J.P. began to unravel with obsessive fear, and on October 24, 1999, while witnesses looked on, he stood in the parking lot of Sweet Tomatoes restaurant and shot Douglas four times, killing him.
Truth and consequences
For the remainder of that first dark night and for years after, the Kents's marriage was stretched and tested as they tried to come to grips with the new reality of their life. They endured two and a half years and seven postponements before the trial took place. In the end J.P. was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Gene and Carol went into a tail spin. They were devastated not only for themselves, but for the family of the deceased.
They'd always believed they had a strong marriage, a normal marriage. "We'd bicker like other couples over regular issues, such as my running late and Gene early," Carol says. "It's always been a give-and-take marriage—a strong love relationship built on a lot of years. But the stress of this crisis caused us to lose our tempers with each other, to become angry at God, to weep uncontrollably any time and any place, and to grieve the loss of ever seeing our child walk in freedom again."
"We'd just look at each other and cry," says Gene. "That was the first connection we realized we had as a committed couple. We knew when we were in pain. We allowed ourselves to cry. We'd hold each other until we could get through that emotion."
Somewhere deep within them, they recognized that if their marriage was going to survive, they needed to lean into each other. They'd connect eyes across a room and instantly know the other was experiencing a painful moment. Or they'd hear one of J.P.'s favorite songs on the radio and would reach for each other for comfort.
Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2008, Spring, Page 56
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