Last Saturday, police say, a 48-year-old Houston man named David Conley climbed in a window of the house where his ex-girlfriend lived with her husband and six kids. Using rope, and handcuffs he’d bought a few days earlier, he restrained the entire family. He then shot them all, one by one, starting with his ex-girlfriend’s husband, and ending with her.
Police took Conley into custody after an hour-long standoff.
Why hasn’t this horrific case of mass murder gotten the media attention that other mass shootings have gotten? Possibly because seven of the eight victims were black.
And possibly because, well, cases of men murdering their families are so common that they barely make the national news any more — even when the men in question kill more people than many much-better known mass murderers.
Someone shooting random people in a theater or a mall — that’s news. Men killing their exes and their children? That’s just part of the background noise.
Conley has reportedly confessed to everything, telling police in detail how he planned and carried out the eight murders. He has a long history of violence, having served five years in jail for a previous attack on his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Valerie Jackson.
In a series of jailhouse interviews, he’s been a bit more cagey on the question of guilt. But he’s been a lot less shy in discussing the motives for the murders he won’t publicly admit to.
He seems to have murdered eight people because Valerie wasn’t raising her children the way he wanted them raised. (Never mind that he was an on-again, off-again father as well as an on-again, off-again boyfriend, and that only one of the six children was his.)
And he was angry at her for “cheating” on him — with her husband.
The children “were growing up to be monsters, they were disrespectful,” Conley complained to one local TV reporter. “I’m not saying they’re dead because of that. I’m not even saying I killed them.”
“The Bible says, ‘Thou shall respect your mother and father or your days shall be short,” he told the Houston Chronicle. “I’m not God, but you know, then, I’m the man of the house.”
Let that sink in for a second:
“I’m not God, but you know, then, I’m the man of the house.”
At the time of the murders, of course, Valerie’s husband, Dwayne Jackson, was the “man of the house.” But Conley felt that Dwayne, the father of five of the six children, was somehow usurping his own rightful authority.
“He tried to pimp out over me and take everything, rule over my house.” he complained to one local TV reporter. “How would you feel?”
But it seems pretty clear that his most virulent anger was aimed at Valerie. He blamed the alleged bad behavior of the children — particularly his son Nate — on her.
“Nate didn’t give me any respect because of what his mother was doing to me,” he told the TV reporter. “She was cheating on me.”
Conley apparently made her pay for this “disrespect,” killing her last, after forcing her to witness the murder of her husband and her six children.
Yet he seems to think he’s the victim here — disrespected by his children, his authority as “man of the house” usurped by another man, and “cheated” on by a woman he had previously beaten and repeatedly left. When he asked a reporter “how would you feel,” he apparently assumed the reporter would feel some sympathy for him.
This is toxic masculinity at its worst.
Uh.
Damn.
That’s-that’s just sick. In so many ways, that is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever heard.
“This is toxic masculinity at its worst.”
It’s beyond time to treat people who spread toxic masculinity as hate groups. That includes MRA, PUAs, etc.
Well done, David.
Don’t know about the reporter, but I’m certain redpillians sympathize with Conley. An alpha man’s gotta do what an alpha man’s gotta do.
Of course commenters on the news articles are blaming the murdered woman.
https://twitter.com/NevilleSquamous/status/631831141763448832
I am so, so sad for the victims.
Those poor children. That poor woman. I can’t believe anyone could be so vile, and yet…
That is vile. The sheer, toxic entitlement…
jesus.
I posted not too long ago this link : http://www.gannett-cdn.com/GDContent/mass-killings/index.html#title
Basically a mass murder is a murder of 4 or more. The vast majority of cases are of men killing their families. Usually using a gun.
And no one fucking cares.
Thank you for this, David. So many of the themes of toxic masculinity are here; the “disrespect” motive is a big one. I would like to recommend James Gilligan’s book, “Violence” for its analysis of murder based on this motive. The intensity of the killer’s hatred for a woman who left him is here too, with the incredible torture of watching him murder her children, not only his own child but five other little children. Dr. Gilligan says that the combination of men who have no social roles or standing, the availability of weapons of mass destruction (guns), a competitive culture that despises non-achievers, toxic religious beliefs, the misery of racism and poverty, and the sexist belief that women are possessions of men, add up to murders like these.
As you say murders like these are so common they don’t receive media attention, I think also because they are disgraceful testimonies to the failings of our culture. The mainstream isn’t willing to change the culture of poverty, racism, and sexism, so we tolerate this ongoing “collateral damage”. Feminists are right to point out that the scapegoat for these failings, the focus of hatred, is more often than not a woman who has “left” a man.
I don’t think it’s enough any more for women with abusive ex-partners to get useless restraining orders, to wait with terror for their assault, to flee and live underground. I don’t know the solution except to say that if these men are free to arm themselves to kill, ex-partners may have to arm themselves too. I know as a woman I have been socialized not to fight back, told I am peaceful and non-aggressive, but that sure does seem like a setup to me right now.
This has made me cry. Just that.
Family annihilators make my physically ill. : – (
And David Conley could only legitimately claim his son as “family” after his ex-wife divorced his useless ass. Too bad Nate didn’t live long enough to thoroughly ostracize his father and cut him out of his life completely.
Even though this horrible man used religion as an excuse for this vile act I sincerely hope that if the families of the victims are religious it brings them at least some comfort.
As for the victim blaming. If you do this you are a horrible person.
Hi Leela, thanks for reposting that chilling information on mass killings. 94% were by men. This HAS to be addressed.
Wow, how do these people in the comments get such superiority complexes?
That’s just messed up. What on Earth makes that asshole think that anyone other than the suspect wasn’t a fit parent?
I got nothing. This shit speaks entirely for itself,
I bet the media is acting confused about his motives,as the usually do, as none of them ever seem to want to mention The “M” word.
David, blaming the woman is a given. Toxic masculinity and its results are always the women’s fault. ITAWF (It’s Always Women’s Fault) is the motto of the manuresphere, as well as much of the male-dominated world.
I’m just waiting for Dalrock to choose Valerie Jackson are the next subject of his Vile Women Who Bring Misfortune On Innocent Men series (his blog is nothing but).
@Leela:
Right. Because it is somehow completely understandable* that a man who gets angry over some big or little, real or imagined, blow to his ego (which is also completely understandable) explodes at others, often killing them. It is completely understandable that his family, who may be the source of those ego blows or augment them somehow, would be a natural target. Nothing to see here, move along.
And the a*holes of the manuresphere blather on about the injustice of VAWA.
*Sarcasm.
Again, nothing proves that you are indeed an upstanding person, partner and father more than killing your ex, her husband and all the children, including your own.
I just can’t.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! From one of the news stories:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/10/accused-texas-shooter-david-conley-had-troubled-past-with-victim/
So the cops had been notified that an armed man, for whom they had a fucking arrest warrant, was in the home of his ex-girlfriend with a weapon, and they say they can’t enter the home forcibly on two separate visits? In fucking TEXAS? I smell bullshit, piled to the moon.
I suspect that the home was known to the cops as a frequent call-spot. So they probably figured this was just more of the same, and didn’t want to bother. I am livid at the notion that some of those children, or their mother, might still have been alive during one or both of those visits, and the cops did NOTHING.
Cherchez la femme, amirite?
I don’t believe in evil, in the religious sense, but this is an act of pure evil. His sense of entitlement seeps from every pore – the Manosphere will deify him, or at least they would if he were white.
As I’ve been following this story, I’ve been wondering if this would be a MRA hero because he shares their attitudes toward women. Or if they’ll just let their racism take over and shrug it off as a black man being a thug.
I can’t. I just can’t. I’ll be in the other thread.
THOU SHALT NOT KILL
The justifications these people make are… incredible, in the worst possible way.
I want to vomit.