commentary by Patrick H. Moore
There is apparently no end to the cruelty a jilted spouse is capable of in extreme cases and, sadly, it often concerns the kids. Before I get into the grim details of how a vindictive English father incinerated his two prepubescent sons in an attic fire in their playroom, I want to say a few words about the possibility of “letting go.”
Throughout my life, I’ve been genuinely startled on numerous occasions when close personal male friends have fallen apart, literally for years, when the old lady gives them the boot. Like any other guy, I’ve been indoctrinated with the notion that men are supposed to be strong, even stoic in the face of adversity, but have, to some degree, disregarded the “stiff upper lip” doctrine as so much hot air.
Rather, as an at least partly modern dude, I’ve tended to think that the best way to deal with the heartbreak of breakup is to face your grief head-on, feel it deeply and then breathe a sigh of utmost relief as it slowly fades away.
When I was 40, my spouse of 11 years and I came to the grand finale. She fell headlong into a full-tilt mid-life crisis. Through a bizarre pattern of psychological displacement, she decided her father, who of course was the enemy, was like my father, and since I was like my father, therefore I was like her father, which in turn made me the villain.
Was she right? Who is to say but realist that I sometimes am, I realized the gig was up. I had raised her two bio kids for a decade and was very close to both of them. Therefore, I was losing not only my significant other but my kids as well. In short, disaster.
I’m not one who enjoys being kicked around, which she was bound and determined to do, so I knew I had to deal with my grief and find the strength to get out of Dodge. Here’s what I did:
I got in my car, which was probably the worst Detroit-manufactured car of all time (I’m too embarrassed to identify it by name; let me just say I bought it from my father-in-law), and drove for hours day after day listening endlessly to the most depressing CD of all time, “Disintegration” by The Cure. I must have listened to the depressing masterpiece at least 100 times.
100 hours of pure Disintegration complete with utterly maudlin lyrics such as:
“If only I had thought of the right words
I could have hold on to your heart
If only I’d thought of the right words
I wouldn’t be breaking apart”
(from “Pictures of You”)
I’ll be damned if it didn’t work. After listening to the CD 100 times which meant approximately 50 two-hour sessions behind the wheel spread out over about two months, I was Cured. I had worked through my heartbreak sufficiently to move on. That was nearly 25 years ago.
Now my three friends, who I mentioned at the beginning of this somewhat maudlin post were not able to find an approach to Cure their grief as easily as I was. Dudes were “cracked up on the highway” for quite a while.
But to their immense credit, in the throes of their very real sadness, unlike the subject of this post, a murdering English arsonist father named Darren Sykes, they never took it out on the kids. They simply suffered alone and in silence, which, if you think about, is rather an honorable way to suffer.
Not Big Darren Sykes. Big Darren decided that if the old lady was going to give him the boot, he was going to make her PAY and PAY and PAY.
Here’s what he did, as reported by the Daily Mail and numerous other media outlets:
A father ‘murdered’ his two sons by luring them into an attic playroom and setting the house on fire, it was claimed yesterday.
Darren Sykes – who also died in the blaze – tricked Jack, 12, and Paul, nine, into believing they could play on a new train set he had bought for them.
He started a fire using fuel downstairs, went into the attic room and closed the hatch as the fire began to rip through the building, said his ex-wife.
Jack and Paul’s bereaved mother, 42-year-old Claire Sykes, states that her beloved children were caught ‘like rats in a trap’ by their cruel father.
Somehow Jack managed to escape the initial death trap by escaping the attic room. It did no good, though; he suffered terrible burns in the lower reaches of the house and died in the hospital five days later with his mother by his side.
Neighbors called the firemen who burst in wearing breathing apparatus and pulled both boys and murderous Big Darren out of the inferno but it did no good. All was lost…
In the aftermath of the cruel arson, Claire Sykes stated that her ex-husband ‘murdered’ their sons:
‘He was adamant I wouldn’t get anything following the divorce and this was his way of making sure of that.
‘I want people to know they were murdered by their father. I can just see them running hell for leather up those stairs (to play with the train set). They had no chance.’
Stealthily, Big Darren had been texting the boys all days about the new train set and how cool it was.
‘They must have shot straight into the attic not knowing what he had planned. He has set it up as a playroom for them and as soon as they were in he shut the hatch.
‘They were like rats in a trap and fell for his cold, calculated plan,’ said Mrs. Sykes.
Claire Sykes described her ex, who was employed as a carpet estimator, as ‘violent and controlling’. She had moved out of the family home in Penistone, South Yorkshire, prior to the divorce.
It all happened oh so fast. Big Darren, who had five hours of visiting rights per week, picked Jack and Paul up at their grandmother’s house late Wednesday afternoon. Twenty minutes later the house was ablaze.
Although an inquest will be held at a later date, it’s obvious that Big Darren is responsible for the double murder/suicide. ‘Police and fire investigators (have) said evidence pointed to the fire being started deliberately and they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the tragedy.’
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Damn! A few days ago we had the alleged pedophile Honorario Yano in Seattle murdering his daughter and granddaughter before turning the gun on himself.
Skip across the pond to Merrie Olde England and here comes Big Darren murdering this kids in the most painful way possible while ending his own life, simply to spite his ex.
You would think these bastards would at least stay alive themselves to gloat or something, awful as that sounds. But no, they’re too gutless to even do that. Or is it that they recognize, perhaps not consciously, that by offing themselves along with their victims, they make it impossible for the relatives of the victims to ever gain any kind of closure through the judicial process, thus — in a sense — making their cruel deed all the crueler?