Police aren’t releasing the name of the woman who shot and killed her husband in self-defense over the weekend. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Tony Webster)
The wife of a first-year law student at Tulane University shot and killed her husband earlier this week after she claims he tried to beat and strangle her. She told deputies that the abuse has been going on for years, and she has not been charged with a crime.
The woman, who has not been named, “was able to provide a significant amount of corroborating evidence to back her statements,” the Jefferson Parish, La., Sheriff’s Office told local media. She feared “that years of abuse would culminate in” her death.
The woman called 911 just before 9 p.m. on Friday saying she had shot her husband, 27-year-old Ian Mastin. Deputies found Mastin’s body with multiple gunshot wounds, and he died at the scene.
The woman was taken into custody and interrogated, but the Sheriff’s office says she cooperated with investigators and “provided a detailed and well-documented history of physical and psychological abuse” along with “multiple physical injuries that corroborated her account.”
She had not previously disclosed the abuse to law enforcement, friends or family.
Tulane University Law School confirmed that Mastin was a law student in his first year. In an email to students, Dean David Meyer expressed “profound sorrow” at Mastin’s death and stated, “while we do not yet know all of the circumstances, our hearts go out to those affected by this terrible tragedy.”
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The case has been moved to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office, which will decide whether to file criminal charges. Attorney Richard Ducote told 4WWL that the DA may decide to put the case before a grand jury for “additional assurance” that no crime was committed.
But if evidence proves she was acting in self-defense, she has the right in Louisiana to defend herself.
“There’s no question that if she was in fact being strangled and there is evidence to support that then the law recognizes her right to use deadly force to protect herself under those circumstances,” Ducote said.
Neighbors of Mastin and his wife told 4WWL that the couple mostly kept to themselves.
“I never saw them,” said a neighbor who told reporters her name was Sandra. “Just a few days walking the dog and that’s it.”
“It’s very sad to hear that this can happen and the abuse was going on and you don’t even know it,” she said.
Maybe, she should have left him, rather than execute him. What I find strange is that she had never reported the abuse to authorities before. This woman has a good line of bullshit, apparently…
“She told deputies the abuse has been going on for years…”, and yet she stayed??? Whaaat?
Women, when attacked by anyone or anything, you have the right AND the responsibility to defend yourself and others who may be affected. There should NEVER be a HISTORY of abuse!
Having said that, there is another side to this pancake. If you as a woman are abusing your husband, physically, emotionally and psychologically, you know darn well that he will never turn you in (he’ll just be ridiculed). Therefore, if he snaps and defends himself (his is an equal after all, right?) then you are not the abused, you are the abuser. Is that why you did nothing for many years?
So, men, you should NOT take abuse from your wife. Discuss it and get help, or you will be giving men a bad name when you finally lose your patience and defend yourself. The word needs to get out that all women are not guiltless in domestic violence!
DocLoch, getting the word out that all women are not guiltless has been tried and has been suppressed intentionally by feminists.
Erin Pizzey founded the first shelters for battered SPOUSES in the early 70’s, observing that men and women were equally likely to commit violence in the home, but feminists smelled money in the water and politicized the issue, making it all about women as victims only, and made a pariah of her in the process.
Ellen Pence was one of the co-founders of The Duluth Model (generating the Duluth Wheel of Power and Control). She documented in a recent textbook that as a group, they ignored all of the data that documented why domestic violence took place and intentionally framed everything as domestic violence being used by MEN to obtain power and control, even telling men in therapy sessions that the reason they weren’t admitting the “real” reasons they committed violence was because they were in denial. Again, it was politicized and made into a women’s issue by feminists.
Unfortunately, the horse is out of the barn now, and only a complete reset of society is going to cure the radical feminism, misandry and gynocentric court and legal systems.
Male or female, you are allowed to defend (protect) yourself from attacks.
They don’t identify the woman but they identify her husband. How hard is it to identify her from that information? Someone dropped the ball there.
I agree with Winslett! Good for her! Sounds like he got what he had coming to him!
Very interesting story but of course it is brief and the reader doesn’t know all the facts. I am somewhat surprised that since there were no previous police encounters on record that they were able to make a determination after speaking with her she was justified in using deadly force. Again limited information here but it is being referred to the DA and that is probably the best option for Police at this point. Good luck to her I hope it is determined that she acted properly in defense of her life.
Good for her. He will not beat her again.
I’m continually amazed at how the abused stay with and even defend their abusers.
Seems to me that in this case, with a pattern of abuse allegedly occurring for YEARS, leaving the abuser should have been the first form of self defense, and perhaps that she chose to not exercise that option may be reason to prosecute the “victim”. (Volunteer may be a better word than “victim”)
Ladies, for the sake of all, LEAVE abusive men!!!!
They don’t deserve you, and you sure as hell don’t deserve that treatment.