Once upon a time in Missouri,and she cannot recall exactly when, Lynda fell in love with Raymond. Their relationship progressed, and when she was seven months pregnant, she wed Raymond Branch and became Lynda Ruth Branch.
Lynda returned home after the wedding and sat down in a rocking chair tired from the day’s excitement and dreaming of a new life. Then her husband walked in and hit her so hard that her chair was knocked over and she flew to the floor, landing on her stomach. It was her wedding night. Two weeks later, she miscarried. But the abuse continued.
The opinion of the Supreme Court of Missouri regarding case SC 88111 given on April 17, 2007, reveals that over a period of 11 years of married life, Raymond Branch brutally beat and tortured Lynda in a manner that can only be termed horrific.
The opinion notes:
- He cut her with a knife and the top of a can.
- He shot at her.
- He beat her with a telephone receiver when she tried to call for help.
- He threw her down the stairs.
- He cracked her ribs, pulled her hair out, and blackened her eyes so badly that she temporarily lost her eyesight.
- Knowing that she was afraid of small spaces, he locked her in closets and made her beg to be let out.
- He also handcuffed her and burned her with cigarettes.
- He forced her to crawl across the floor and to perform sex acts.
- He slept with his leg over her to make sure she did not leave the bed while he was sleeping, and he marked her car tires and mileage to ensure that she did not leave the house when he was gone.
- He killed her cat and tied it to her car’s rearview mirror.
The last week of their married life, Raymond handcuffed Lynda to the kitchen table, ripped off her clothes (all of them), and put a candle into her vagina.
He then lit the candle, allowing the hot wax to burn her.
On May 16, 1986, after a day-long quarrel, she had fallen asleep on the couch. Her husband woke her up and ordered her to go to the bedroom, “where she belonged.” Raymond had been drinking throughout the day.
Late at night, Lynda opened her eyes to find him standing before her with a gun wrapped in a sheet. The gun was pointed at her. He said that he would kill her and her daughter. That made her act. Lynda claimed during her trial that the gun went off in the scuffle and Raymond Branch lost his life.
The court did not believe her and convicted her of first-degree murder. She was tried twice and twice found guilty. Her first conviction was reversed because evidence of her domestic abuse was excluded. In spite of that, the Supreme Court of Missouri found that “[f]or unexplained reasons, her lawyers in the second trial again did not introduce all of the evidence of the abuse.” The evidence also excluded her medical records.
Traumatized by 11 years of abuse, facing a trial in which her own lawyers failed to produce evidence of her abuse and medical records “for unexplained reasons,” and scared witless at the thought of losing contact with her daughter, Lynda tried to flee before the sentencing.
That attempt to escape lost her all of her rights to appeal in Missouri.
She was convicted in the second trial. The state took her daughter away and sent her to jail. She languished behind bars without the possibility of parole for 20 years.
In 2004, Governor Holden commuted Lynda’s sentence and asked the parole board to set the conditions of her parole. But the board decided to contest the right of the governor to grant parole and went to court.
Finally, on April 17, the Supreme Court of Missouri decided in Lynda’s favor. It issued a writ of mandamus in a habeas corpus proceeding and ordered the parole board to set the conditions and free her.
URL: http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/79453.html
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