14 - Sunday, January 10, 1988 - North Shore News

Les Bewley

© life sentences ¢

IT IS hard to tell which is the most hilarious: the crafty at-
tempts of convicted criminals to extort some benefits, or the

maudling, bawling,
media to their childish bluffs.

We are talking here about such
convicted mesdames as Gayle
Horii, Mary Braun and Tina
Zinaeff, bluffers all, who have

managed in varying degrees to get .

their own way by threatening to
starve themselves to death.

When a kid threatens to hold his
breath until he turns blue, sensible
adults say: ‘‘So? Turn blue, then.”’
When adult prisoners threaten to
starve themselves unto death,
otherwise sensible adults take leave
of their senses instead of retorting:
**So? Starve to death, then.”’

There is no way on God's earth
to explain this abandonment of
plain common sense except by
understanding that many kind folk
have been brainwashed into feeling
they are ‘insensitive’ if they reject
even the most outrageous, spurious
demands upon their sympathy.

Mesdames Mary Braun, 67, and
Tina Zinaeff, 63, are the
Freedomite Doukhobors who,
thanks to extensive, sensitive
media coverage, recently wrung

still another parole out of the

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tear-soaked attention given by the

unstrung National Parole Board by
threatening to starve themselves
unto death, again.

These crafty little darlings, who
both have lengthy records of con-
victions for arson, were protesting
their latest eight-year sentences for
arson, in 1985.

If memory serves, these two and
their buddy, the late Mary
Astaforoff, appeared in my court
some years ago, charged with at-
tempting to set fire to hospital
beds.

When the trial began, Mary
Astaforoff began to peel off her
clothes in “the mistaken belief I
would view this as proof of her
religious sincerity.

A quick decision was required.
If 1 fet her strip naked on allegedly

tcligious grounds, then every other
nul in town could fairly claim
discrimination if | refused to allow
them to strip, smoke pot, fondle
snakes, burn incense, smear
themselves with feces or fly kites,
all in the alleged name of religion.

I would not order a court officer
to get into the hopeless, un-
dignified position of holding in a
half-nelson a screeching, wriggling
female determined to disrobe while
he strove to haul her knickers back
over her knees.

That left only one recourse: to
use this virago’s tactics against her.
Stripping myself naked would be
stupid. Religion, as a tool, was the
answer,

“Mary,” sez I, ‘I deeply respect
your religious beliefs and I ain sure
that you will in return respect
mine.”

““My religion absolutely forbids
me to look upon a naked woman
upon pain of roasting in hell for-
ever."’

Mary stopped unhooking her
brassiere and fixed me with a cool,
calculating, shrewd look in return.

It said: ‘You old bugger, this is
checkmate and you know that I
know it. If I peel off, you get the
sympathy and my religious sinceri-
ty is in question."’

She put her blouse back on.

You will recall Ms. Gayle Horii,
44, as the lady who was sentenced
in 1986 to life imprisonment with
no parole for 10 years after fatally
stabbing her stepmother 20 times.

Ms. Hoi, described as a high-
flying Vancouver stockbroker who
talked of multi-million dollar
commissions and lived the ‘‘pood"*
life, obviously never heard of the
sensible maxim: “If you can't do
the time, don’t do the crime,” and
clearly feels that a person of her
elevated status shouldn't have to
put up with grungy old prison reg-
ulations.

She promptly staged a hunger
strike at Kingston prison in On-
tario and thus extorted a transfer,
at considerable public expense, to
Britush Columbia where she
preferred to reside, for 30 days.
That accomplished, she proclaimed
she would fast unto death unless
the heartless authorities Iet her re-
main in B.C,

Enter the media. especially col-
umnist Nicole Parton of the Van-
couver Sun, who held a five-hour
interview with Ms. Horii.

The Sun then gave the top of its
front page and an enormous
number of column inches to re-
count Ms. Horii's self-pitying and
self-serving bitches about the
alleged injustices done to her by
society, her mother, her step-
mother, the courts and the correc-
tional system.

Ms. Parton's wide-eyed, sym-
pathetic account of this poor
waif’s troubles included a sweet
photo of the nurderess, but did
not include a photo of her but-
chered victim. Nor did it contain
any interviews with the five hus-

bands whom Ms. Horii married
and discarded before her present
marriage, in order to get another
view of her character.

Ms. Parton simply swallowed it
all, hook, line and sinker — they
must have had many good woman-
ly weeps together — and then tear-
fully regurgitated the naive view
that Ms. Horii was ‘‘the victim of
the system’’ and ‘ta small,
frightened, intelligent woman — a
good woman who did a bad
thing.”

You would have to look very
far, indeed, to find a more
unintelligent, naive, unhelpful and
totally irrelevant conclusion than
that.

Of course, good people often do
bad — sometimes terrible —
things, just as bad people often do
good things. But what in hell, ex-
actly, has that to do with the bad
things they are convicted of and
sentenced for?

Is that any sensible excuse for
their actions? Is it any excuse for
yielding to their stupid but
calculating bluffs?

Of course it isn’t. The next time
somcone seeks to con the public,
the press or the authorities by
milking their sensitivity, the
response should be: ‘‘Well, it's
your choice, if you want to starve
to death. Don't worry about the
coffin and the funeral, we'll pro-
vide them for you.’’ Then watch
them back off, in a hurry, to at-
tack the groceries.

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