Whilst in Florida last month I picked up a newspaper and read a report on a homicide in a nearby town called Brandon. Apparently, a man woke up in the middle of the night and, feeling  thirsty, went downstairs to get a drink of water. On his way to the kitchen he heard some noises coming from the lounge and decided to investigate. As he looked through the lounge door he saw his wife having sex with another man. He immediately turned around, walked back upstairs, grabbed his gun, returned to the lounge and coolly shot the other man five times, killing him outright. He  then rang emergency services saying he had caught his wife and another man “fornicating” and had shot the man dead.

The killer is a 71 year old retired lawyer with no previous convictions of any type, his 41 year old wife is his ex-next door neighbour and the dead man was apparently her regular lover, a 32 year old ex-jailbird and small time criminal, whose address, appropriately enough, was Lovers’ Lane!  The lawyer was said by friends to be a usually well-balanced and easy going guy, though his record of 5 times married perhaps shows him to be a man of questionable judgement and something of a slow learner! He married his wife only two weeks after she had been arrested for firing a gun at her lover – yes, you’ve got it, the same one as above!

It’s a sad story but, other than the shooting, is all too common. What on Earth was the old guy thinking of when he married a woman, not only 30 years younger than him but one who was clearly likely to be a lot of trouble? Why would any older man think that a woman that much younger than him would find him attractive in the first place? Maybe he was a good looking guy in tip top condition. Maybe, he was, but he was still 71 and a healthy woman in her early 40s is surely likely to be more attracted to a well turned out guy nearer her own age than a well turned out guy in his early 70s.

I don’t know all the facts of the case but I suspect that the husband, as a retired lawyer, was fairly wealthy and  a decent catch for the younger woman. When will men learn? Although in fairness, it sometimes happens to older women too. Before marrying somebody much younger than themselves wouldn’t it be wise to ask the question – “If I was broke and living in a rented flat would she still love me and want to marry me?”  If the honest answer is “No”, which I suspect it would be 99 times out of a 100, then he should steer clear.

The saddest part of this story (apart from the death of the opportunistic lover) is that a man with a previously clean record and in the final stages of his life is now in all likelihood going to spend the rest of that life behind bars. What a shame, but, as the saying goes, there’s no fool like an old fool!