"He feels terrible about it," attorney said. "He's not a bad person."

[Liberal_in_LA]

Murder suspect's tumultuous life with victim

Michael Cabanatuan,Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writers

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

(07-14) 19:00 PDT -- The man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend with a baseball bat at her Novato home had punched her in the past, threatened her with a gun and told her he needed to abuse her so the Marines wouldn't send him to Iraq, the woman wrote in court papers.

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Mitchell's lawyer, former San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, suggested outside court that Mitchell had killed Keller during a situation that escalated out of control.

"He feels terrible about it," Hallinan said of Mitchell. "He's not a bad person." :nopity: :nopity:

Court records shed light on the couple's stormy relationship. In a request for a restraining order filed in March in Marin County, Keller wrote that they met in August 2007 and, within two months, were engaged and living together.

Keller said Mitchell soon became the subject of a restraining order filed by his brother and two sisters, who said he had brandished a gun at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco - the adult venue opened by his father and uncle and now owned by a family trust.

Mitchell's domestic abuse, Keller wrote, began while the couple were preparing to move in together. "We were in the car and James was driving. We were arguing about the definition of a word," she wrote. "James hit me on my lip."

It was the first of many attacks, Keller said. Once, she said, he dragged her naked from her bedroom when she refused to have sex with him. Another time, she said, he punched her when she knocked over a table he was using to snort cocaine.

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Mitchell was convicted of abusing Keller in February 2008 in San Francisco. She wrote that after she refused to give him her car keys, he ripped her purse off her shoulder, slapped her in the face and pushed her down. She was four months pregnant at the time.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/07/15/MNRJ18OG9S.DTL#ixzz0LOTxqJNl

[CakeGrrl]

1. Lock this POS up - throw away key.

The article raises a question: She served him with a permanent restraining order just before he killed her, and that final act of defiance may have been what set him off.

Knowing a legal action like that can further antagonize an abusive personality, how do they expect the person who requested the order to protect themselves?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. Restraining orders are as powerful

as the paper they're printed on.

The history sounds like breathing set this guy off.

Throw away the key, indeed..............................

[havocmom]

22. Two cops in my family said restraining order just gives a jump start to suspect list

A false sense of security is worse than no security at all.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. I bet she feels worse -

What an inane thing to say. Hallinan is a smart lawyer, but he really blew it with this line.

I can never get over women who - in two months - are living with a man they just met. TWO MONTHS? And they stay after he hits them the first time.

I've never understood this.

Death by baseball bat, with their one-year-old nearby. Nice...........................

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. article says abuse began while they were 'preparing' to move into together. She moved in

with him AFTER he hit her in the lip. OMG!

[CakeGrrl]

7. "Hopefully he won't do it again - we're going to live together."

You have to wonder how she rationalized it, as have so many other women who have stayed with abusers.

I wonder if the economy is more of a deciding factor than it's been in the past?

Then there's the "better than being alone" thing, which I do not get at all. Of course, I'm in my 40's, have never married, and am not sweating it. But did she decide since they'd gotten to such an "advanced" phase of their relationship, she didn't want to scrap it and start all over again?

I wonder how many women have left and stayed gone after the first abusive incident?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

14. It's beyond comprehension -

this kind of behavior speaks to something inside those women that we better-adjusted women don't have, something terribly broken and terribly powerful.

I had women, married women, who came to me (as a lawyer) and wanted out of their marriages because they were tired of getting beat up. These were NOT poor women, and I was not working cheap.

I had a routine - I'd ask them if there was any hope of reconciliation. If they said there was, and they weren't really sure they wanted a divorce, I gave them a list of therapists in the area.

If they said no, that they just wanted out, I gave them a list of things that had to do before I could do anything for them - pretty basic stuff, getting financial information together, making sure she had adequate funds to take care of her and whatever kids were at home, and photographing the house with all the furniture.

After that, we could file for a legal separation and get the guy out of the house.

That was the point at which the women would fold. These women were unable to confront these men who were beating them up. They were afraid, even when I told them they could do it in my office, that I could arrange for a police escort to take him home and stand over him as he packed up his stuff and left the house.

Not one ever returned. Not one..............................

[CakeGrrl]

16. That's really disturbing. It's like the fear of having to go through

a 'normal' breakup amped up exponentially with legal action in the mix. It's so strange to think that some would rather risk the next beating than take that major step.

[EFerrari]

17. That next major step is when women get killed because they try to leave.

It happens when you leave the lawyer's office or after the police escort goes away or even in open court when you're getting ready to testify for your restraining order.

No amateur shrink should be advising women in these lethal situations.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

18. I think there was another element to their behavior -

it would have made their "failure" public. Official.

Their marriage, the appearance of which they prized so highly, would have been exposed as broken, and they would have risked being perceived as not having succeeded at being a wife.

These were all affluent women, no shelters for these ladies, with access to the best medical and legal help available. But, in the end, it always stayed with me that they valued their perceived status more than their actual misery.

Fear is a powerful thing, but it all depends what we fear......................................

[REP]

11. I also don't understand having a child with an abusive fuck like that

A pregnancy won't make him quit being abusive.

He may hurt the child, once born.

Even if she leaves him, the child ties her to him for at least 18 years.

Any way you look at it, it's a terrible decision.

[charlie]

5. Son of one of the Mitchell bros?

The porn moguls? Wasn't it his uncle who killed his dad? Talk about a family with issues.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. Yes, that's him. They had 11 bailiffs at his hearing. His own siblings filed restraining orders

against him.

Yep, he's the son of the porn guy

[mzmolly]

13. Under the circumstances, I'm guessing he's a man who learned the "value" of women

from a young age?

[charlie]

15. Likely so

Chilling, isn't it?

[mzmolly]

21. Extremely.

:scared:

[drm604]

8. Infamous family.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Brothers_O%27Farrell_Theatre

His father and uncle were Jim and Artie Mitchell, the Mitchell brothers, of "Beyond the Green Door" fame.

One of the brothers, Jim, killed the other, Artie. Jim was this man's father, Artie was his uncle. Seems like it runs in the family.

[lapfog_1]

9. Son of Jim Mitchell

one of two brothers known as "The Mitchell Brothers"... the porn producers from the 1970s and 80s (After Deep Throat made it "chic" to go to porn, they released "Behind the Green Door" with Marilyn Chambers).

Far more lucrative to them was the MBOT (Mitchell Brothers O'Farrel Theater) in San Francisco, the famous strip club where Hunter S. Thompson once worked as a night manager.

Jim shot Artie (his brother and partner) to death over Artie's failure to kick his drug habit back in 1991. I knew them both ever so slightly. Artie was the party person and Jim was the serious business type (who also came off as kind of a jerk). Artie had a mean streak in him when he was high, and often did things that could have jeopardized the MBOT cash cow (millions a year for them). Like throw drug parties at the club and invite the girls to "entertain" the guests... and, well, you can guess the rest.

Never met the kid, but he inherited a bundle (Jim died of cancer a year ago or so).

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. Maybe the money attracted the victim back to the abuser

[lapfog_1]

12. Possibly.

both Jim and Artie had girls from the "biz". Jim married a porn star (Lysa Thatcher) and Artie lived with one of the MBOT dancers (Julie Bajo).

Though I've been out of contact with anyone that knew them for quite a while now, and have no idea about this younger Mitchell's girlfriend, it wouldn't surprise me to find that she worked there.

Still, someone beats you up even once (and the stories are that this had happened a number of times already) and you should get the idea to not only NOT "give them another chance" but that you should move the hell away from there and change your name and your friends and phone number, etc.

[Starry Messenger]

19. I read that yesterday and that sentence really got to me.

I can't imagine how her family felt hearing that. That's probably what she kept telling herself after each incident. "He feels terrible about it, he's not a bad person, I was equally at fault and I helped this happen by not being ___________ enough..."

I really can't imagine what life is going to be like for their little girl.

[HughBeaumont]

20. She could have been with anyone.

Instead, she stayed with Cokehead Private Pyle here.



Wow, what a looker, what a catch. :eyes: Looks like he'd beat a woman for looking the wrong way.

Lock this douche shitbag up and toss the key in the same garbage with Bernie Madoff's. Abusive piece of shit.

[Burma Jones]

23. Well now, Hallinan is PAID to say he's not a bad person

If you can find someone to say it for free, I would be shocked.