“I thought I would never have to kill someone I love,” said Marshai Lathan, who will most likely not be charged for shooting and killing her husband, Andre Williams, on September 14.

According to Ms. Lathan, her adult son (her husband’s stepson) was visiting her at home in Eastpointe, Michigan at 8:00 a.m., when her husband came home from work. The two men had a history of conflict, and Lathan’s son is currently four months into his parole. Williams was not happy to see him in the house.

“He said, ‘You’re gonna get out of here one way or the other,'” Ms. Lathan recalled. Then, the two began arguing. Williams and Ms. Lathan were both armed, whereas her son was unarmed. As the conflict escalated, Williams took aim at his wife’s son, finger on the trigger. When Ms. Lathan tried to get between them, her husband got physical with her as well.

“I said Andre, no, stop, I’m not gonna let you shoot my son,” said Lathan. “He’s shoving me with his forearm to my neck… Once he aimed at my son, I just started shooting.”

Lathan shot her husband twice, and by the time police arrived, he was dead. Her advice to women in abusive relationships: “Leave. Leave ahead of time. Don’t be like me.” Here’s the interview with her provided by Fox 2:

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

32 COMMENTS

  1. Is this an abusive relationship? Both husband and wife were armed. Husband objected to a son with a criminal history being in his house.

    Need more details before I side with the woman in this case.

    • Well, pointing a loaded gun at someone who was invited into your house seems to be reasonably good cause, especially when the person being aimed at is unarmed. Whether or not it was an abusive relationship is implied by her statement that one should get out (of the relationship) before you kill that special someone.

      • The husband may well have been abusive. But both spouses apparently went about heeled. And apparently the mother knew her son was not welcome in that house. We don’t know about that history. Maybe the criminal son had been threatening to the husband in the past.

        Any record of the husband being abusive?

      • Whatever the hell happened, why would she decide to hang with her son at home? Wouldn’t this be a grand time to meet at the corner café? Or to at least leave when her husband demanded it?

        • It sounds like 3 different kinds of stupid all trying to win 1st place. Kind of like the “armed father/son, orange shirt guy, cell phone lady matress thing” a few days ago.

    • Details? We don’t need no stinking details! The wamenses can’t do anything wrong! Clearly we should just listen and believe… Betcha the guy would already be in jail if the situation was reversed.

        • jwm,

          I am pretty sure PwrSerge was building on your comment with a parody on Blazing Saddles (“Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!”) and was not criticizing your comment.

        • Uncommon. Our generation gap is showing. The ‘badges’ quote, I would have said, comes from the ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ with Bogart.

          Maybe I’m suffering a little ptsd after reading Serge and pg2 and vals exchanges.

        • One of the downsides of a classical education… when I let the rhetorical guns loose, people tangential to the argument catch a little of the muzzle blast.

          Though I do love the fact that once again, we have a genius who mistakes an utter contempt for feminazis for an utter contempt for all women.

          In this case, the circumstances stink to high heaven. An abusive husband who was perfectly ok with his battered wife carrying a loaded firearm at all times? Either this guy has done a service to the genepool by letting his wife remove him from it, or, far more likely, we have a homicide being covered up by a convicted felon and his mother. I note that baby daddy #1 is no longer in the picture… imagine my shock.

    • Unless they were separated or divorced, the wife had just as much right to invite someone over as her husband did. The husband had no right to aim a loaded gun at someone who was not a threat. If that had happened outside the home, it would be no different.

  2. It would be interesting to see if there was a previous history of violence between the husband and wife. If I was the kind of jerk who beat my wife I wouldn’t hang around after the first time if she walks through the house with a gun. I wonder if she had life insurance on him. Also wonder if they did gun shot residue tests on her and her parolee son. Maybe the son did the shooting and she is covering for him.

    • If he was on parole, you can bet they did a GSR test on him. As a matter of fact, he is probably in jail now, a parole agent would have violated him and let him sit there for a while for being in a place where a shooting occurred .

      • Sounds like rock solid ground to sue the state and win a fat payout.

        Guilty until proven innocent sure is nice.

        • You must have missed the “parole” part of the story. In most cases a parolee has no choice but consent to any search, drug test or anything else his parole officer wants, and being held without charges is part of that. Technically the parolee is still a prisoner, and can be returned for all or part of the original sentence without most of the basic protections of due process. These differences are pretty much what separate a parolee from a free person.

  3. “I believe her because she’s telling the truth.”

    – Kirsten Gillebrand; a credit to blondes everywhere.

  4. Gee I have 2 grownup sons in their40’s. And one has a criminal record(unjustly in my view). Her house-her son. Where is it ever stated “abuse”? Whatever I don’t “get” that ghetto ethos. Don’t murder my son…

  6. Reading between the lines, hell, reading the lines, this looks like a batch of really really dysfunctional people. It almost seems like one of the three was bound to kill some one eventually.

  7. Couldnt the husband just call the fuzz since the son was on parole and at the very least have him immediately ejected from the house if not arrested for trespassing? Maybe depending on whos on the lease?

  8. Just another instance of natural selection playing itself out – it usually favors the cunning and murderous. While I’m not advocating killing all the truly stupid people, if we could just remove all the warning labels the problem should sort itself out.

    • I too consider the current state of things an affront to natural selection, much to the detriment of the human species. Less warnings and less safety is what’s needed. I suppose relatively simple but lethal public puzzle traps is a bridge too far? At the current rate “Idiocracy” is less humor and more prescient documentary.

      I owned a Honda once with a sticker warning that ingestion of engine parts may cause undesirable operation of the engine, injury, or death. It was an adorable little engine, but frankly, anyone inclined to consume parts of it ought to be encouraged to do so, not prevented.

      Too many people…we got too many problems..

  9. @ uncommon sense

    “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!”

    Actually a quote from the Bogart movie, “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”.
    (just because we need to keep the record straight around here)

  11. I don’t buy it! Son is a felon and in a house with two other armed people? How about felon son was armed and dad who just got off work, then comes home, son gets into argument with stepdad and shoots him, mom takes the blame to cover. More likely to me.

  12. In any event, take a look at the son at 1:58-2:05 with his gleeful, big sh!t eating grin. Seems pretty damn proud that things went down like he hoped they would. That alone makes me question the events as presented.

    • Hadn’t noticed that. Agree. And I sure hope they checked for residue on both, scenario of armed son doing the shooting and mom taking the heat sounds pretty likely, more likely than abusive husband who allows his wife to pack in his house. Which sounds suicidal.

Comments are closed.