Divorce Can Be Deadly

In 1967 psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe examined the medical records of over 5,000 patients in their research to determine whether stress causes illness. A positive correlation was found resulting in the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, also called the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. The Scale identifies life events and ranks them based on the the level of anxiety they instill. The death of a spouse rates highest at 100 units, with divorce right behind.

Holmes and Rahe later adapted their testing to children, finding that the death of a parent ranked highest, followed closely by parental divorce. It shouldn’t surprise us then that divorce is a catalyst for stress, anxiety, acting out and in rare cases, murder.

That brings me to the case of Michael Petersen in Nebraska who experienced an ugly divorce that stretched from 2002 to 2005. All of the triggers for hostility and resentment were present including a custody fight, a never-ending battle over financial issues, multiple appeals, and finally, disgruntlement with his lawyer. Petersen’s rage, however, was out of proportion to the issues he faced, anger that caused him to retaliate against his lawyer and his ex-wife….He killed them both.

Earlier this year Petersen plead no contest to the murder of his ex Nancy Petersen, who he shot outside of her home on November 13, 2013. He was sentenced to life in prison. Petersen’s blatantly insensitive criminal lawyer, Jeff Pickens, was quoted in the local newspaper:

“This man had worked hard for 40 years. Much of his hard work over 40 years was gone. He’d had enough of being screwed over by people.”

He’s got to be kidding! Mr. Pickens described a situation where Nancy Petersen was awarded one-half of the parties’ $600,000 estate. So how did this “screw” Mr. Petersen?

As far as the murder of his own lawyer, after killing his ex he drove to his lawyer, Todd Elsbernd’s law office, saw him outside and shot him in the back with a high-velocity rifle. Petersen had accused Mr. Elsbernd, age 52, of legal malpractice and there was an ongoing dispute over unpaid legal fees. Before killing him, Petersen filed a lawsuit against him that was thrown out.

After being sentenced to a second life term for murder, Mr. Pickens offered that between Petersen’s divorce payout and his loss of $150,000 after falling prey to a Nigerian scam, ( a second news report called it a dating website scam) he was penniless. And that’s an excuse for murder?

Michael Petersen was defiant until the end. He told the judge that the justice system was not fair, as he launched into a speech about pre-marital versus marital assets and insisted that his deceased attorney was professionally negligent. He said nothing about his cowardly slaughter of two innocent human beings. There will be a special place in Hell for Petersen.

Lawdiva aka Georgialee Lang .