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SEATTLE TIMES RUNS GLOWING OBIT OF CHILD KILLER...RUNS PIC W/OBIT OF HIM WITH DAUGHTERS HE KILLED
The Seattle Times ^ | 11/28/04

Posted on 11/29/2004 8:15:32 PM PST by paulat

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To: Puckster

You're assuming anyone in the obit department even knows the real facts surrounding the life and death of the man.


41 posted on 11/29/2004 8:39:35 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: Pikachu_Dad

Oh yeah, right! Next logical step is MURDER?!

I get it, yeah, yeah!


42 posted on 11/29/2004 8:39:51 PM PST by Puckster
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To: HairOfTheDog
I appreciate your point about the tone of the obit under the circumstances..... but those obits are placed and paid for by the family, not written or edited by the paper.

If you were the paper's editor, would YOU have taken the money?

43 posted on 11/29/2004 8:39:57 PM PST by paulat
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To: Veto!

I'd investigate the wife.


44 posted on 11/29/2004 8:40:07 PM PST by Carling (What happened to Sandy Burglar's Docs?)
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To: HairOfTheDog

Then would you agree that SOMETHING is seriously FLAWED?


45 posted on 11/29/2004 8:40:52 PM PST by Puckster
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To: paulat
If you were the paper's editor, would YOU have taken the money?

It's not the editor's job to make a judgment on this guy. If his immediate family wanted the obituary, then I would run it for their sake.

46 posted on 11/29/2004 8:41:42 PM PST by sinkspur ("It is a great day to be alive. I appreciate your gratitude." God Himself.)
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To: sinkspur

How touching.


47 posted on 11/29/2004 8:42:25 PM PST by Puckster
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To: paulat

I could place the ad and pay for it online. I bet it's appearance in the paper is a lot more automatic than coordinated by the paper.

It's a bizarre act by the family.... but it's vital that you get it straight in your head that the newspaper didn't write that obituary, the family bought space to do what they wanted.


48 posted on 11/29/2004 8:44:27 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: Puckster
How touching.

Running an obituary is not a good or bad thing. It just is what it is.

Write a letter to the editor, if you're so inclined.

49 posted on 11/29/2004 8:45:07 PM PST by sinkspur ("It is a great day to be alive. I appreciate your gratitude." God Himself.)
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To: HairOfTheDog
Do your really believe that feedback on similar issues hadn't already been known by the OBIT dept?

What world of reason-ability do you live in?
50 posted on 11/29/2004 8:45:32 PM PST by Puckster
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To: sinkspur

Inclined I am, even if it won't bet print.

But, read my last post prior to this.


51 posted on 11/29/2004 8:46:42 PM PST by Puckster
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To: Puckster
Do your really believe that feedback on similar issues hadn't already been known by the OBIT dept?

Yes. Let's keep all of the "immoral" dead out of the obituary pages.

I got an idea. Start your own newspaper, and you can keep whomever you want out of it when they die.

52 posted on 11/29/2004 8:47:56 PM PST by sinkspur ("It is a great day to be alive. I appreciate your gratitude." God Himself.)
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To: Puckster
What does this say?

Click the link. It's a paid classified.

53 posted on 11/29/2004 8:49:21 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: sinkspur

The largess you extend to the OBIT is once again "Touching".


54 posted on 11/29/2004 8:49:25 PM PST by Puckster
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To: paulat


I am speechless and appalled.
Beyond appalled actually.


55 posted on 11/29/2004 8:49:42 PM PST by onyx
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To: Carling

"I'd investigate the wife."

SNIP from another story:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/200944_edmonds24.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=5

While there were never any allegations of physical abuse, concerns about Byrne's temper were raised years ago during the difficult divorce from Dawson.

"He was unwilling to examine the effect his outbursts had (or would have) on his children," Terry Douglass, a marital counselor who saw the couple in 1998, wrote in a declaration filed as part of the divorce proceedings.

Douglass, who suggested Byrne consider an anger management program, said he sometimes directed his angry outbursts at his wife and sometimes at her.

"The intensity was so great that I was unable to respond and was physically intimidated," she wrote. "I remain concerned about my safety from Steve Byrne."

Yesterday, Edmonds police were still trying to sort out what happened.

Byrne e-mailed friends and family at 12:38 p.m., four minutes before the 911 call. He sent a different e-mail to his wife, Assistant Police Chief Al Compaan said, but like the others, it was more generally focused and "had no further explanation."

"Based on the e-mail, there was obviously a lot of anger," Compaan said. "They were quite a lengthy dissertation on his apparent frustration with the system, the divorce and custody issues. But what actually was the tripwire, I don't know. I don't know for sure if we'll ever know."

After arriving at the home Monday, police quickly found the two girls, dead and in their beds, with "no obvious signs of trauma," Compaan said.

Police searched Byrne's home and found some items that may be linked to the cause of the girls' deaths, but authorities are awaiting results from toxicology tests, which could take several weeks.

"We honestly don't know the cause of death yet," Compaan said. "We don't want to speculate until we get the results back and can corroborate our suspicions."

According to court documents, Byrne met the girls' mother when both were in Pakistan, he working for a California laboratory and she there working with her family. They were married in 1991 and Kelsey was born two years later.

But there were problems in the marriage from the beginning, and within months, the newly married couple were in counseling. Therapy became a part of their married lives and they saw several counselors during the next few years.

In early 1994, the family moved to Bainbridge Island to be closer to some of Dawson's family.

They most recently lived as a family in a low house on a rural street on the island, where the yards are large and trees tower everywhere.

Bonnie Clark, a neighbor who lived two homes away from the family's Welfare Avenue house, remembered Byrne yesterday only by his first name.

As a neighbor, she watched as he taught his children how to ride bikes, pushed them on a swing or played ball with them.

He told Clark about his family troubles -- even asked her and her husband to write a letter on his behalf to help with his custody case, which they did, along with several other friends and neighbors.

"He was distraught over not being able to live with his children," Clark said. "As far as we could see, he was a good father. He played with his children often and they all seemed to enjoy each other so much."

But problems continued to plague the marriage, and in 1999, Byrne filed for divorce. The couple separated in April of that year.

From the start, there were disagreements over the parenting plan, with Byrne wanting more time with his daughters.

The proceedings required the use of a guardian ad litem, Carol Rainey, who spoke with the couple, with people who knew them, and with counselors who had worked with them.

Rainey concluded in her report that Byrne and Dawson were "exceptional parents."

In the end, Byrne saw his daughters about 40 percent of the time, and the girls' primary residence was with their mother.

But in early 2003, Dawson sought to move to the Seattle area to be closer to her job that was requiring a 90-minute commute and, she argued, was a taking up time she could have with her daughters.

Byrne immediately fought the move.

"My kids have a life on Bainbridge. It's the only life they've ever known," he said in a deposition on the matter.

But the court allowed the move, finding that the benefits to the girls outweighed any difficulties they might have adjusting to a new school and new community.

Eventually, Byrne moved to Edmonds to remain in close proximity to the girls.

"He seemed to be OK with it," Pedersen said. "I did not see any signs of depression or anything that would lead to this. What I did see was a man grieving over a divorce and in anguish over his children."

The girls appeared to adjust well. Both had excelled as students at the Montessori school, and later at Captain Wilkes Elementary at Bainbridge, before moving to Shoreline. There, they attended Sunset Elementary, and were active in soccer and other extracurricular activities.

"They had these innocent, angelic faces, always smiling," Pedersen said. "And so sensitive -- they couldn't hurt a fly. But they were so confident, too. And the girls just adored their parents."

Everyone agreed that both children adored their parents. Kelsey, the oldest, had red hair and, Rainey wrote in her report, was "an active, effervescent child."

Hayley, who was 4 at the time, was described as "bright, happy and a delight," by Rainey.


56 posted on 11/29/2004 8:50:39 PM PST by paulat
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To: sinkspur

Prayer indeed, of course....God hates sin, not the Sinners, which we all are, this guy who actually pickets is not showing God's love but rather Satan's hate disguised as God's judgment....


57 posted on 11/29/2004 8:51:13 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance
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To: paulat
"They must have resolved them because I didn't hear any more about it," she said.

Apparently not, dumbass.

58 posted on 11/29/2004 8:51:43 PM PST by Recovering Hermit
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To: paulat
From the top of your post:

The Seattle Times ^

Does your link actually go to the Seattle Times as you say? No, it doesn't, does it? This is a contracted Classified Ad service.

59 posted on 11/29/2004 8:53:04 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: paulat
So Steven James Byrne had a close friend by the name of Rita Hibbard who happens to be an assistant managing editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Do you suppose this obit was written and paid for by her?

60 posted on 11/29/2004 8:54:36 PM PST by vox_freedom (Fear no evil)
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