Prior Greer Ruling Led to Wife's Death

If Terri Schiavo dies in the next two weeks, it won't be the first time a ruling by Florida Circuit Court Judge George Greer has cost a woman her life.

"She did not appear . . . [to] be in imminent and reasonable fear of danger," Judge Greer explained, after he denied Helene McGee an order of protection against her husband in March 1998. A few days later, Mrs. McGee's body was discovered in her Dunedin home, stabbed to death by the same man Greer said she had no need to fear.

After the murder, the Schiavo case judge explained that if he'd only known her husband had access to a weapon, he would have granted Mrs. McGee's request for protection.

When McGee applied for an injunction at the Pinellas County Courthouse a few weeks before her death, Deputy Clerk Judy Wong asked her whether she had suffered physical violence, such as hitting or kicking, in her marriage.

"She said, "No, he hasn't ever hit me,' " Wong told the St. Petersberg Times.

McGee did note, however, that her husband had raped her, burned her belongings and threatened to kill her.

But that wasn't enough to persuade Judge Greer, who also failed to consider the fact that Mr. McGee had a prior history of domestic violence.

After Helene McGee's death, the court discovered that her husband was fined after pleading no contest to misdemeanor domestic battery on his fifth wife in Hernando County in 1993.

"This case apparently had a lot of the red flags which are pretty standard," Robin Hassler, director of Gov. Jeb Bush's task force on domestic violence, said at the time. "And that's disturbing."

Linda Osmundson, executive director of the Center Against Spouse Abuse in St. Petersburg, said Greer missed a lot of evidence that indicated Helene McGee was in danger.

"When the mortality review looks at this case," she told the Times, "they're going to say, "Here's a clue, and here's a clue, and here's a clue. . . .' "