When the strange and horrific tale of Jayne Peters, Mayor of Coppell, Texas became a headline story on the Weekend Edition newscast on NPR I decided it merited comment and attention in our own little corner of suburbia in the Santa Clarita Valley.
Our family has a personal connection to Coppell, Texas where we lived for just short of two years between 1994 and 1996. The then 25,000 person bedroom community sandwiched on the northern approaches to DFW airport boasted McMansions where upper middle class professionals used leverage to increase their consumption and enjoy all the trappings of suburbia, including excellent public schools and a fine parks and recreation system. The best comparison in the SCV would be portions of the Westridge tract and some recently built areas of Stevenson Ranch.
We did not enjoy living in the DFW area in general and Coppell in particular so much so that we fled the area in June of 1996 to take a job with Price Waterhouse in Los Angeles. Through the generous relocation package provided by PW we showed up at a corporate apartment on Dockweiler in Newhall in June of 1996 for a one month stint having never been to the area (not once). At the end of the 30 days we would move into a rental house in Northbridge and enroll two of our remaining three children in Helmers Elementary (the youngest would attend there as well), ultimately purchasing the tract home in which we still reside in November of 1996. One can only imagine how undesirable we felt Coppell was moving out here sight unseen just two years past the earthquake and four years past the Rodney King riots.
What did we find undesirable about Coppell? All of the residents of American suburbia to one extent or another, fueled by a certain prosperity doctrine that springs from some churches and right of center politics, gather edification from career, what we own, and how well our children are doing. We rely, probably too much, on these things to provide our happiness. Coppell had this disease on steroids.
As the story of the elected official Jayne Peters came out slowly, the reasons behind the murder-suicide become ever more disturbing. While the family had suffered the death of the father two years earlier and the financial stress this wrought, it appears that the trigger of the murder-suicide was a bogus graduation gift and college admission.
Late reports indicate in June of this year the Mayor used a City credit card to rent a new car and present it to her daughter as a graduation “gift.” Over the summer the Mayor’s daughter told everyone she was going to the University of Texas at Austin (the equivalent of admission to one of the higher tier UC schools) and had the rental car packed up to attend orientation.
The situation unravelled on Monday (7-12) when law enforcement believes that the Mayor shot her daughter to death with a handgun borrowed from the Mayor of a neighboring City, and returned the rental car to the next city over and walked home (about a four to six mile walk). The next day (7-13) the Mayor would take her own life leaving many notes, including a hand written DNR note near the body. The University system in Texas and TCU, another school the daughter planned to attend, revealed that no application had ever been filed for the girl, not even the common application required for admission to ANY public institution in Texas.
Any rational person will agree that the problems detailed in the various stories of this family did NOT merit the outcome (think of people in our own community who have perservered over much worse trouble), so I am left to wonder how much of this darkness exists behind the doors of the tract houses in parts of our own community, just on the edge of eruption.
A YIKES! UPDATE
My Nebraska Bride finally focused on this story and she realized that 15 years ago she participated with Jayne Peters in the Coppell Early Childhood PTA (Mom’s Club) and that our own daughter played with Corinne Peters. Oh my goodness!
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It’s tough keeping up with the Jonses (to quote an overused phrase). It’s even tougher going through such a tragedy as a death caused by an illness that takes without discretion. When a loved one suffers from cancer those closest to that person suffers the effects as well…the emotional ones anyway. It’s a cruel fate for those of us left behind to ponder why something like that can happen. More importantly, to go through those feelings and experience that pain AND end up with nothing afterwards is particularly devastating.
We don’t handle death well. We try to move forward and put on our ‘game face’ and pretend everything is all right. So too when we’re troubled by finances. It’s embarrassing to know you’re losing everything and yet many of us try to pretend as if nothing’s wrong. That big old ball of trouble gets so big we can’t even see if for what it is anymore. The despair can be overwhelming unless you have the strength to begin step-by-step, little by little to gain understanding and put priorities in place to move forward. But in the meantime, despair can turn to outright mental and emotional morbidity in light of one’s desperate circumstances. Jayne Peters obviously was either too proud or too stunned from everything that happened to open up and reach out for real help. For those of us who have been anywhere close to being in her shoes, the scariest thing in the world is to admit to yourself that you need help, so we cover up our feelings and our problems and pretend to those around us that everything’s fine. We’re so embarrassed by our circumstances that we feel no one will understand…Until that final moment that life swings one way or another. Do we give up and give in to our problems, or do we face them and recognize our shortcomings, our indiscretions and pay whatever cost to get ourselves out and move on?
I’ve been on both sides of that coin…the despair and the breakthrough. My heart goes out to the survivors and to the people who loved Jayne Peters. If only Ms. Peters herself could have realized that there’s always nowhere to go but up.
It’s a tragedy beyond comprehension, made worse by the deceipt of it all.
WebGuru:
I have a little different view, and think this might have had more to do with narcissism than despair. Let’s review some facts:
One year after the death of her husband Jayne Peters ran for and won the part time Mayor job.
Ms. Peters did not have regular employment (she listed her occupation as a “contract software developer”) and spent a lot of time on local government and regional transportation committees that don’t pay very much, but do feed the ego and make one feel important.
Ms. Peters shot her daughter dead in the laundry room and then:
1. Unpacked the rental car;
2. Drove the rental car back to the agency 2.5 miles away;
3. WALKED back to her house;
4. Typed up two notes, one dealing with the disposition of two miniature collies and four cats that “miracuously” survived;
5. Spent the night in the house with the body of her daughter in the laundry room; and
6. Shot herself about 24 hours later.
It almost seems a most profound kind of evil that a mother would see the death of her child as preferable to selling the 4,000 square foot house, moving into an apartment, resigning from the elected office and getting a modest job in an office somewhere, sending the daughter to Community College ($300 a year in Texas) and lining up student loans to fund the last two years at UT in her grades were good enough. (I fear that in Coppell, Texas one would find a significant minority that in their dark hearts would subscribe to the first option.)
The pastor who officiated at the dual funeral mooted that she killed her daughter to protect “her image of her father” who had “left them destitute.” I think if Corrinne had a choice she would have elected to go to junior college for two years rather than get a head shot. Further, how would you feel if the story was a mom dieing of cancer and the surviving Dad deciding to take our his daughter and himself?
I have to agree with both….
On one hand, she probably was terribly distraught over her husbands death (battle with cancer) and then having very little, monetarily, and trying to raise a daughter in the lifestyle that she ‘feels’ she should be raised in. As YourWeb Guru said, it’s a “big ball of trouble” when on is basically in denial over their (perhaps) dire financial situation and one must be strong to get out of it.
On the other hand, I agree with Tim Myers because the MOTHER could have downsized and sent her child to community college, like so many of us have to do these days. Children are resilient, if they are taught to be. It would have been a completely different (and better) story had the mayor been ‘honest’ not only to others and her daughter, but to herself.
Thankfully the people in my life don’t care what kind of home I live in, what schools my children attend or what kind of care I (or they) drive.
It’s a tragic story, however I’m afraid I’m not feeling a lot of sympathy for the mother/mayor. I know it sounds cold and I wish I could in this case,, but I have become rather cynical in my older years of those that ‘pretend’ to be something they are not. in order to make an impression on others.
I have no doubt that there are a lot of people suffering behind closed doors in SCV. In fact, I suspect that some of this suffering has led to the uptick of angry confrontations we have seen in our neighborhood between residents and security officers. People lash out when they are hurting and feel their lives have spiraled out of control.
I understand and have compassion for the sort of despair that leads people to take their own lives; however, when they take the lives of others my sympathy ends, especially when the victims are their own children. I dont’ care what sort of financial problems you have, there is no justification for taking innocent lives.
It is sad that people have allowed themselves to be brainwashed into believing that their personal worth is determined their job title and possessions. I know it can be difficult to avoid falling into that mindset and even more difficult to keep your children from doing so. My 14 year-old asked me the other day if she could plan on getting a car for her 16th birthday. She declared that she couldn’t possibly drive my car because it is 8 years old . . . I told her that she’s been watching too much MTV — there won’t be any car on her 16th birthday. It didn’t occur to me that I should corner her by the washing machine and shoot her in the head.
I love what we did when our oldest son starting driving in 2005. Since it was going to be a convenience for us to have him driving we bought him a white 1996 Grand Am four door with a 130,ooo miles and a nonfunctioning air conditioner! (He was happy to get it.)
This is a horrible tragedy that defies rational explanation. I grieve for this family.
It is interesting that such things almost never happen in impoverished, crime-ridden barrios and ghettos. Why is it that marginalized blacks and Hispanics can endure through despair, but there are upper middle class whites in Columbine, Coppell and Santee who just couldn’t hold it together?
Fortunately my daughter just moved out of Santee
It reminds me of all those men that commited suicide when to market crashed in the 30′s. It’s sad that a persons wealth (or status) must define who they are as people.
Many have not experienced adversity in their lives, and that can be the problem. If one does not experience the bad, how can they really appreciate the good.