As Ill. Murder-Suicide Shows, System Can't Always Protect Women
The system worked, in Cindy Bischof’s case. When her ex-boyfriend became abusive after they broke up, the 43-year-old suburban Chicago real estate broker got a protective order. When he violated it, she pressed charges—and prosecutors took the case seriously.
Yet when Michael Giroux, 60, was released from home confinement this month, he made a beeline to Bischof’s office and murdered her in the parking lot outside, shooting her repeatedly as she was trying to escape in her car. Then he pointed the .38-caliber revolver at himself and committed suicide, the Chicago Tribune reports in a page-one article yesterday.
Most of those killed by an abusive partner are women. And, although the number of murdered victims nationwide has been halved in the last 30 years, dropping from about 2,900 in 1976 to 1,510 in 2005, according to Justice Department statistics, Bischof’s murder on March 7 illustrates a sad truth. The legal system, at least as it currently operates, can’t guarantee a woman’s safety, the newspaper points out. Hence, women sometimes have no choice but to assume a new identity and disappear, in order to protect themselves, experts say.
However, Bischof’s family has a different perspective: “If they’re doing everything they can and this still happens, the laws need to be changed,” says Michael Bischof, a suburban Chicago resident.
The Bischof family is setting up an advocacy group to try to protect other women in abusive relationships, and encourage the use of global positioning devices to track those who violate orders of protection, according to a follow-up Chicago Tribune article today.
