Many of you may remember the case of Richard Kirk, the Colorado man who shot and killed his wife Kristine in 2014 while she was on the phone with 911. Richard had allegedly ate part of a marijuana-infused edible similar to a tootsie roll earlier that night, causing him to act erratically, prompting his wife’s call to 911.
The case came to an end earlier this month when Richard agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 25-30 years. His trial was set to begin next month where he would have been facing first-degree murder charges and the possibility of life in prison. As part of the deal, Kirk will serve 5 years of parole after he is released and give up custody of his three children to Kristine’s parents.
“All involved feel this is a fair resolution of a very complicated, tragic case,” Denver District Attorney Beth McCann said in a statement. “The family did not want the case to go to trial given the personal and emotional toll family members have already suffered.
“Mr. Kirk has accepted responsibility for the murder of his wife and the range of sentence possibilities will allow the judge and the public to hear any facts in mitigation and aggravation of the situation.”
Kirk’s lawyers had claimed that the marijuana edible caused Kirk to kill his wife and the Kirk children have even sued the company that made the edible and the retail shop that sold it to Kirk. They claim that he was not given enough warning about the effects of the edible and that the packaging lacked proper instructions.
And yet there is a reason this case has gotten so much coverage nationwide, especially in the “cannabis press.” It’s because the case is so incredibly rare. Of the millions of people who have ingested cannabis edibles in just the last few years, one guy went nuts and shot his wife? And what about people eating marijuana brownies going back to the 1960s and 1970s? If edibles can make you kill someone, wouldn’t there be more instances of it happening?
A more likely explanation is that something else triggered the events of that night and Richard Kirk just happened to eat some of an edible that day. There is absolutely zero evidence that the edible lead to murder. And since there will be no trial, there will be no evidence of it forthcoming, no matter how flimsy it might have been.
The sad fact is that over 4,000 women die each year as a result of domestic violence. Many factors lead to these horrible deaths; mostly it’s the woman either leaving or trying to leave the relationship that triggers the last gasp of soulless violence on the part of their unhinged ex/soon-to-be-ex.
