By David Palmer

It was close to midnight on April 10, 2002 when Erin, an attractive 22-year-old, left a tavern in West Little Rock, hopped into her bright red Saturn, buckled her seatbelt and headed west on Highway 10. During the evening, Erin had three glasses of wine, not much by her standards, but the night before she had partied hard on drugs and alcohol.

Six miles down the highway, Erin lost control of her car, careened into a ditch, rolled the car two or three times and landed upside down. The car roof was crushed and so was her  spine. She was conscious and in a lot of pain, but from the waist down she felt nothing. She was paralyzed. She could have been dead, but the one thing she did right was fasten her seatbelt.

The first paramedic to reach the scene said, “Don’t worry, Erin. We’ll get you out.” And they did, but it took two hours of cutting, while she drifted in and out of consciousness.

Later they found that Erin had a blood alcohol content of .216, more than twice the legal limit, and she was later convicted of Driving under the Influence and heavily fined. Because of the alcohol in her system, doctors were afraid to add painkillers to the mix when she got to the hospital which meant she would have to suffer excruciating pain without sedation.

By David Palmer

On a winter night in 1976, Mary T. decided she would kill her alcoholic husband, when he came home from work.

Frustrated by her inability to control his drinking, Mary finally said to herself, “It’s not the drinking, it’s him. He’s the problem, and I need to get rid of him.” Attracted to the image of herself as a widow, she had rejected the divorce option and went straight to murder.

As to the means, she eliminated both an ice pick in the neck and running over him in the family car. Instead she chose drowning him in the bathtub when he came home drunk, making it look like an accident.

With her mind made up, the first night he showed up drunk, she hit him. When he fell, he hit his head on the coffee table, and it knocked him out. She filled the tub, took off his clothes and pushed him in, and he slipped beneath the surface.