Abused women who have killed in self defense

This page is to note other cases where women who have killed in self defense.

  1. Stacey Hyde stabbed to death Vincent Francis the abusive boyfriend of her friend. See here, here and other news reports. The family of Francis denied that he was abusive. She was found not guilty in May 2015 after a retrial.
  2. Emma Humphreys stabbed to death Trevor Armitage, a drug addict twice her age who had picked her up off the streets and subjected her to months of beatings, rapes and verbal abuse. On the 7th of July 1995 Emma’s conviction for murder was quashed by the Court of Appeal and she walked free. See here.
  3. Liysa Northon shot and killed Chris Northon her abusive husband. See here. Again, his family deny that he was abusive. Ann Rule wrote a misleading book leaving out this fact.
  4. Jessica Silva stabbed to death her estranged partner James Polkinghorne, in Sydney Australia. A jury found her not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and a judge sentenced her to time already served. Her character was broken by years of domestic abuse. See here.
  5. Diana Butler stabbed and killed her violent and sexually abusive partner, she was convicted of murder, but appealed successfully, and was sentenced to three years’ probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter. See here.
  6. Cyntoia Brown was convicted of murder for shooting and killing Johnny Allen, a 43-year-old man. She was aged 16 at the time, and had a physically and sexually abusive boyfriend named “Cut-throat”, who brandished guns at her and forced her into prostitution. She stated that she had been repeatedly raped, was on drugs, and afraid that she would be shot when she shot Allen. See here and here.
  7. Cherelle Baldwin killed her abuser after he stalked and abused her and her child. See here and here. Cherelle was found Not Guilty after a retrial in March 2016.
  8. Turkish woman Çilem Doğan shot her husband, who she said tried to force her into prostitution. See here.
  9. Rachel Moore After Rachel’s husband beat her one evening, she grabbed a shotgun. She fired a warning shot into the air and gave him several verbal warnings to stay away from her. When he continued to approach her, she shot him.
  10. Twenty-four-year-old Cierra Finkley was arrested August 18, 2015, in Madison, Wisconsin, because she stabbed her ex-boyfriend and attacker, 31-year-old Terrence Woods, after he attempted to run over Finkley and her 5-year-old daughter with his car and later kicked down the door to her apartment to further brutalize them.
  11. Arleen fixed a celebratory dinner — but instead, her boyfriend started an argument, then threw her onto the couch and began to choke her. She grabbed his gun from under the couch and, breaking free, ran out of their apartment. Her boyfriend chased her. She said that, when she turned, the gun went off and she fatally shot him. Arleen has served 14 years of a 50-year sentence for murder. Now in her sixties, Arleen has applied for and been denied parole twice. (as of Feb 13, 2016). Source.
  12. Amber Hilberling.

ToDo : look at Justice for Women Campaigns for more UK cases.

See also