Geisha Kow­lessar

For 12 years, the life of Michelle Plaza was metic­u­lous­ly con­trolled by her hus­band, Fran­cis. Every ac­tion was mon­i­tored, said Plaza's el­der broth­er Pe­ter Clax­ton in an in­ter­view at his Arou­ca home yes­ter­day. Plaza, the moth­er of three boys, was dis­cov­ered ly­ing in a pool of blood at her home at York Town­ship, Penn­syl­va­nia, on Sat­ur­day. She had been shot four times.

Her hus­band, a fire­fight­er with the Yoe Fire Com­pa­ny in York Coun­ty was ar­rest­ed and charged with one count of crim­i­nal homi­cide. Be­fore mi­grat­ing to the Unit­ed States, Fran­cis was a pris­ons of­fi­cers, held a black belt in karate, worked as a drafts­man and pos­sessed sev­er­al guns at his home, Clax­ton said. But the killing of the 44-year-old woman may not have been a to­tal sur­prise to rel­a­tives.

Re­count­ing nu­mer­ous con­ver­sa­tions, Clax­ton said all his sis­ter de­sired was "out" of her mar­riage. "She would al­ways tell us she was un­hap­py. She told us she was go­ing to leave her hus­band," Clax­ton said. Ac­cord­ing to Clax­ton, his sis­ter al­so told her hus­band she "had enough" which then led to her shoot­ing death. "She was on the Net prob­a­bly chat­ting with one of her friends and her hus­band came in and pulled out the plug. "She told him she want­ed her free­dom and she wasn't go­ing to take it any more," Clax­ton re­count­ed.

It was at that mo­ment, Clax­ton claimed, that his sis­ter was shot dead. Faced with over­whelm­ing de­spon­den­cy, Plaza, how­ev­er, de­cid­ed to "make her mar­riage work for the chil­dren sake," her broth­er at­test­ed. Clax­ton said his sis­ter who was pur­su­ing her mas­ter's in so­ci­ol­o­gy dropped out of school a few weeks ago to ap­pease her irate hus­band. "Her hus­band was an­gry she was go­ing to school and he in­struct­ed her to drop out," he said. "My sis­ter did so to please him but she had in­ten­tions of re­turn­ing."

Con­trol freak

When­ev­er Plaza called her rel­a­tives in Trinidad, her hus­band would be lis­ten­ing in on her con­ver­sa­tions, Clax­ton said. "My sis­ter had to hide to call us...If she went out with her friends he would call five, six times to find out when she was com­ing home....It was like men­tal bondage," he said.

Sur­mis­ing his broth­er-in-law as a "con­trol freak," Clax­ton added that Fran­cis was al­so very "pos­ses­sive and in­se­cure." "But the scary thing was that out of the home, he ap­peared 'nor­mal' to peo­ple," Clax­ton said. Plaza, how­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to her broth­er, nev­er made any pre­vi­ous at­tempts to leave her hus­band. Sup­port­ing this de­ci­sion, Clax­ton be­lieved his sis­ter "did the right thing." "A mar­riage is some­thing sa­cred and un­til 'death do us part'...Peo­ple should make every ef­fort to mend prob­lems," Clax­ton said.

But, he said, if Plaza had been more open with her mar­i­tal prob­lems and with the in­ter­ven­tion of rel­a­tives, she might have still been alive. De­spite his sis­ter's life sense­less­ly snuffed out, Clax­ton con­fessed he held no ha­tred to­wards her killer. "I don't hate her killer...I hate the sin but not the per­son," he said. Plaza is ex­pect­ed to be cre­mat­ed in the Unit­ed States on Sat­ur­day. Her ash­es, her broth­er said, would be brought to Trinidad and scat­tered over the wa­ters at To­co, one of Plaza's favourite spots.