WASHINGTON - A Kensington woman who feared for her life went to court for protection, but she was killed by the man she was hoping to escape.
Heather Lynn McGuire was riding in a car with her estranged husband Tuesday morning when he shot her in the head and dumped her body out onto Connecticut Avenue. A manhunt ensued.
It ended Tuesday night when Philip Joseph Gilberti was found dead at a home near Montgomery College from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The story has people wondering if protective orders really are effective.
Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy says most of the time, they can be very helpful in preventing this kind of tragedy.
"They can work, but obviously as we know from this particular case, they don't always work," he says.
Still, McCarthy encourages victims of domestic violence to seek protective orders when possible.
6 comments:
Yes, the courts let her down. This is a terrible story and one that advocates for victims of domestic violence can use to change laws here in Maryland.
Liberal Maryland is a criminal friendly state. Shameful. Just shameful.
Those with protective orders both for and against them need to be fitted with electronic proximity alarms with gps capability -- get within x# of feet of one another and law enforcement gets immediately notified and dispatched. The gps feature only works when the order is violated and is not a continuous beacon.
The State either protects to the best of its ability or it doesn't -- there's no in-between.
The way it works in MD is that ANYONE can walk into a commissioners office ANYTIME and make up ANY STORY they wanna raise their hand and swear to about Anyone and the cops will go arrest that person and throw them in jailk without so much as an opportunity to tell their side of things. I KNOW, My ex wife did it to me, made up a totally false story to have me removed from my home, arrested and charged with assault and "false imprisonment" in a bedroom that has a rear exit onto a deck. Her story was completely false, and I recorded her at a later date admitting to the truth, but that, apparentlt was ILLEGAL for me to do. I should have just gone and shot the bitch like this guy did. The courts did me wrong time and again. I told the truth and I got screwed, again and again....and I still have the digital re3cording of her admitting what she did. The whole systemis rigged for the females. A guy doesn't stand a chance. 6 different judges made rulings in my divorce case, over and over again ruling against me without explanation....it just sucks. I'd really like to know what she did to piss him off that bad...do ya think maybe she had just a little to do with her own demise....??
The State either protects to the best of its ability or it doesn't -- there's no in-between.
March 15, 2012 10:46 PM\
The state, i.e. state police, is not there to protect us. They simply can't. They is too many of us and not enough of them.
They will try to protect your property but we are on our own. And by the way, you are not allowed to defend yourself with a gun.
Only criminals are allowed to have weapons. Can't have our officers being accidentally shot by a citizen with a gun.
And until someone actually DOES something to you, there is little we can do, since they is no crime committed....yet.
Sorry you lost your life ma'am. But he broke the law. He didn't obey the protection order. He got a weapon and carried it which is also against the law.
If he didn't kill himself we would have him up on a ton of charges. We might have even got a conviction and maybe some jail time.
But he didn't play by the rules, and now you're both dead.
Maybe we should make new laws to make it more illegal to disobey what we tell them.
Yeah, that might work.
Sorry you are dead, but your death will make it harder on the next guy to break the law.
HAVE A NICE DAY!
as for the clown who thinks he's the victim because his wife took out an order, you are wrong, you do have an opportunity to go back to court and have your side told. If she doesnt not have information,proff, to back it up at that time the judge null and void the order but if you acted like an azz in the time being then yeah, you are screwed as you should be. Further more if you are separated or divorced then why do you want to go near her anyway? Also it is more the case now a days that woman are not taken seriously and even when the order is in place. the police show up and the man is not taken to jail as he should be , but simply told to leave the premises. too bad more woman dont have shot guns. so that when the order is violated , she can shoot the whimp! then she can walk on a self defense plea. cause if i was heather thats what i would have done,, but wait she was too nice of a woman and put too much faith in this system. i hope that family sues everyone that came in contact with this case , so that the children dont have to suffer fro the rest of their lives
Too the guy who said that maybe she had something to do with her murder your wrong she had done nothing wrong. he was just mad she was trying to put him in jail because he was beating her bad before that she was just trying to protect us(im one of her kids)i think your an ass good thing you didnt shoot your girl you should never treat a woman like that.
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