Wedded bliss

[Gob]

short term...

An Indiana anesthesiologist shot dead his wife minutes after the last guest left their wedding party early on Sunday morning after an alleged alcohol fueled argument over a pre-nuptial agreement turned tragic.



Dr. George 'Scott' Samson, 54, is said to have told his new wife, Kelly Ecker, 50, that she would 'never get her hands on his money' during the wedding reception at the Ohio Building in Terre Haute on Saturday evening. According to witnesses, the argument became increasingly bitter when the wedding after-party moved to Samson and Ecker's mansion, with guests deciding to leave at 1.17am on Sunday morning as the fighting escalated.

Three minutes after the final guest departed, Ecker, who is a nurse at the same hospital as Samson, made the first of three terrified 911 calls claiming her husband was going to kill her. The first two frantic calls to the dispatcher ended abruptly, but moments later Ecker phoned back, her trembling voice pleading for help, before a volley of gunshots rang out and the phone line cut.

Less than half-an-hour later, officers who who responded to the couple's Terre Haute home discovered the body of Ecker, fatally shot in the head and neck and in the basement the body of Samson, who had taken his own life with a 45-caliber semi automatic pistol.According to Advance Indiana, the reception had been changed from the newlywed's home to the Ohio Building at the last minute and the marquee tent set up in their garden still hauntingly sits outside their home.


Ecker, a nurse at Union Hospital, phoned 911 at 1.20am after witnesses said their argument about money spiraled out of control. 'The investigation has revealed that there was an verbal argument between the couple toward the end of the reception, which carried over to the after party at the couples' home,' said Vigo County Chief Deputy Sheriff Clark Cottom in an email to the IndyStar. 'Shortly after the last guest left at around 1:17 a.m., Kelly Ecker Samson called 911 reporting that her husband had threatened to kill her. 'There were a total of three very brief 911 calls, which in the first two the caller disconnected.'

Cottom said that Ekcer was found in the bedroom her 10-year-old son from a previous relationship slept in, while Samson shot himself once in the head with a registered gun.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z3FWRIzhjd
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[oldr_n_wsr]

Booze does funny things to a brain. I should know.
Terrible tragedy.

I am praying for the son.

[Sue U]

It's a good thing they had a gun handy; further proof that guns in the home always make everything better.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Guns don't do anything themselves. We really should think about banning people.

[wesw]

guns are soooo last year. decapitation is much more relevant

[MajGenl.Meade]

Arguing about who is head of the household?

[rubato]

It's a good thing they had a gun handy; further proof that guns in the home always make everything better.

I think they claim that guns make people more polite. And see, he shot her first.


yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

The guests (so-called friends) who walked out and left them violently arguing should be ashamed of themselves! They couldn't be bothered to call 911, or intervene in the argument?? Despicable!

[wesw]

alchohol causes more misery in this country than any other substance or device

[Gob]

The guests (so-called friends) who walked out and left them violently arguing should be ashamed of themselves! They couldn't be bothered to call 911, or intervene in the argument?? Despicable!

Probably too embarrassed. You're at a wedding party and the bride and groom start belting each other, I'd leave asap.

[BoSoxGal]

Sorry, Gob, but I just don't get that.

Embarrassment shouldn't come into it. If I see a highly intoxicated man fighting with a woman, I'm going to intervene - because 9x/10, it's going to end in domestic violence. I don't care if they both get pissed at me for butting my nose in.

[Gob]

I'm from Llanelli.

[rubato]

The guests (so-called friends) who walked out and left them violently arguing should be ashamed of themselves! They couldn't be bothered to call 911, or intervene in the argument?? Despicable!

They didn't know the future. And if their own personal histories have given them no experience with familial violence they can not be expected to predict that was a likely outcome.



yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

The guests (so-called friends) who walked out and left them violently arguing should be ashamed of themselves! They couldn't be bothered to call 911, or intervene in the argument?? Despicable!

Probably too embarrassed. You're at a wedding party and the bride and groom start belting each other, I'd leave asap.

We had a similar situation in the hotel in my town a couple of months ago. The wedding party and some family members waded into the fray, which did end up with police being called, destruction of property, assault, and domestic violence charges. Like the couple in the OP, these were not young kids either, but a long-paired couple, with at least one elementary school-aged child.

Talk about a wedding to remember - I just don't get some people.

[BoSoxGal]

When I was 18, I spent about 8 months working as a waitron at a 'resort' in Ellsworth, Maine that was host to many wedding receptions - I was often asked to work the receptions, and during that one summer, I probably worked 20-30 wedding parties.

What I saw go on at those receptions, between the just-wedded couples AND their many in-laws, is probably one of the reasons I have steered clear of marriage. On more than one occasion, for instance, I stumbled on a bride/groom getting cozy with someone they didn't just marry, in the bathroom or the coatroom or even right out in the hall.

Who cheats AT their wedding reception???



Back on point; I don't mean to be judgmental, but I honestly can't see walking away from a clearly volatile situation such as the one described in the OP. If the murder/suicide occurred within minutes of the last guest leaving, then it was CLEARLY obvious things were pretty bad, and a voice of reason was needed - or at very least, if I were her friend (or his), I'd have made my friend go for a walk or ride with me to 'cool off', and if he'd (or she'd) refused, I would have called 911.

[Big RR]

BSG--I knew a couple who routinely engaged in loud, verbally abusive arguments (with or without alcohol) most of the time. To my knowledge these never escalated to physical arguments, and so far as I know (they moved away), they have been together for more than 20 years. Indeed, I saw them around 8 years ago and they got into a big shouting match about a TV show from the 60s. It is possible this couple was much like that, which is why their friends ignored it, and that something further happened to escalate this to the level it went to.

[BoSoxGal]

Oh, I'm sure you're right, Big RR. It's not terribly likely that they'd never fought before - although some cases of extreme DV violence do seem to come 'out of the blue' to friends/family, I believe one of the articles I'd read on this case elsewhere reported that guests had said they hardly spoke to one another at all during the reception, until they began arguing toward the end and took that back to the 'after party' at home.

And I just read an article indicating that his elderly parents and her 10 year old son were in the house at the time of the murder/suicide - so I suppose perhaps the friends/guests thought that nothing so horrible could occur with others present in the home.

Maybe I'm just a busy body/'helpy helperton' by nature.

[Big RR]

Either that or you have more experience in seeing where these things went bad.

[Lord Jim]

This is a pretty unusual situation...

The murder/suicide phase of a marriage usually comes much later than the reception...

[TPFKA@W]

I read a local updated version of this that indicated some guests tried to get her to leave with them and she declined. There were 2 elderly people and her son found alive at the scene. He had headed to his gun safe for more ammo probably realized he had blown it and offed himself. The child was found by his mother's body.

Not really much here to make light of really.