To the editor:

I imagine that many other readers of the Journal-World experienced dismay similar to mine upon reading the comment made by Judge Wheeler of Emporia, quoted in the June 18 article, “Killers receive life sentences.” Wheeler reportedly told Wallace Dixon’s girlfriend, Schelese Shaw, that her behavior leading up to the explosion caused by Dixon made her morally responsible for the deaths of two innocent people. The behavior he referred to, as explained in the article, was not returning his multiple phone calls after she apparently had chosen to leave him.

Working in mental health in a prison for male offenders, I have heard many comments made by men who continue to try to rationalize the reasons that they had sex with their daughters, raped their mothers or murdered their wives. When the idea is perpetuated that women are responsible for their abuse, men will continue to blame others and justify their crimes against women by distorted thinking, such as, “if she hadn’t acted so seductively,” “if she hadn’t been so critical,” “if she hadn’t tried to leave me,” or now a new one, “if she would have returned my calls.”

To even refer to Schelese Shaw in the discussion of responsibility for that crime is just one more social message, projected by someone others would hope to look up to, that blames women for the violence inflicted in the attempt to control them. Using Judge Wheeler’s reasoning, he is “morally culpable” for any women who may be battered by men who happen to have read his statements.

Robin Burgess,

Lawrence