9-30-2009 New York:QUEENS -- Either Brigitte Harris was trying to stop a sexually abusive "monster" when she strangled and mutilated her father, or she was a vigilante, seeking revenge with malicious intent.
The defense and prosecution offered those differing views to the jury at Ms. Harris' murder trial at state Supreme Court in Queens this morning. Jurors will now have to decide if Ms. Harris, 28, is guilty of second-degree murder -- a charge that carries a minimum sentence of 15 years to life in prison -- or a lesser charge of first- or second-degree manslaughter.
Both sides agree on one thing: Ms. Harris killed and dismembered her father, 55-year-old St. George resident Eric Goodridge, on July 28, 2007. He was found in her Far Rockaway apartment handcuffed and beaten, with his genitals cut off and a towel stuffed in his mouth.
In an emotional, hour-long summation, defense attorney Arthur Aidala told a captivated jury that Ms. Harris had no choice.
"Brigitte stopped her pedophile father from destroying any more lives," he said.
"A father's duty -- in the animal kingdom or the human race -- is to protect his young, to protect his children," Aidala continued. "Eric Goodridge preyed on his children. He made her what she was on July 28, 2007."
Prosecutor Karen Ross saw the matter differently.
"You may not like the victim. You may think he is the most despicable man you ever heard of. You may even feel sympathy for the defendant. That doesn't give her the right to take the law into her own hands," Ms. Ross said.
"Justice is about following the law," Ms. Ross added.
Ms. Harris dubbed herself "XXLadyVengeanceXX" on her MySpace page, which she said was a reference to an ultraviolent South Korean film that follows a wrathful woman who abducts a wan who has killed several children and takes him to an abandoned school, where she ties him to a chair and chokes him with a tie.
The proceedings started with Ms. Harris' own words.
"I'll tell you why I am going to do what I am about to do," she said in a video she made on her computer three days before she killed her father. Ms. Harris went on to explain how she was repeatedly raped by Goodridge, how no one did anything about it and how she had to stop him before he did the same to her nieces.
"Nobody understands, unless it happens to you," she continued. "It had to be done. It just had to be done." ..Source.. by Peter N. Spencer
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