The Murder of Mary Joe Frug
client surfer
> My question is, What were the circumstances of her murder?
Professor Frug was knifed to death while walking to the Sage
grocery store in Harvard Square from her nearby Cambridge at
about 8:30pm on a Thursday evening.
In the months surrounding her murder, there had been several
other assaults and rapes near what had been considered a very
exclusive and "safe" area of Cambridge.
> Was it a "random" attack -- some kind of street crime? Or did
> her murderer know her and specifically choose her for his
> (her?) victim?
It looked like a random crime. The Cambridge police
department came up with a description of a suspect, but has never
arrested anyone.
Last fall, I was interviewed by the Boston Herald for a
story they were doing on women who had been assaulted and now
carry a gun for protection (I fall in that category, and am also
a firearms instructor). During the interview I gave the reporter
examples of situations where using a firearm in self-defense
would and would not be [morally, ethically, and legally]
justified.
This led to a discussion of Mary Joe Frug's murder. The
reporter revealed some info to me that had never been made public
-- speculations on the identity of the murderer. Essentially,
they will most likely never find out who did it, and there are
several different schools of thought on who it was, and whether
it was random or someone she knew well that carefully planned it.
I suggest calling the Cambridge Police Dept for more information.
Appended below is something I wrote last year after she was
murdered for posting to this conference and WomanNotes at
Digital:
-------------------
Mary Joe Frug, a professor at New England School of Law, was
stabbed to death by an unknown assailant off Brattle Street in an
exclusive area of Cambridge last Thursday night. She was walking
to a grocery store.
This entry is about her life. The data here comes from an
article in the April 6 Boston Globe.
Frug, 49, a feminist legal scholar, lived with her husband,
Gerald, who is a professor at Harvard Law School. The couple
have two children, Emily, 16, and Steven, 20, a sophomore at
Harvard.
She had taken a one-year sabbatical from the New England School
of Law to study under a fellowship at Radcliffe College's Bunting
Institute.
"She was a brilliant, endearing, witty, passionate feminist legal
scholar doing the best writing and teaching she had ever done,"
said Duncan Kennedy, a spokesman for the family.
Frug was known for her work on issues affecting women and
minorities. Friends and colleagues say she was a thoughtful,
spirited woman strongly devoted to her work.
She received degrees from Columbia University, George Washington
University and Wellesley College. A formal legal services
attorney, she had also taught law at Villanova University.
At the time of her death, she was working on a project entitled:
"Post-modernist Legal Feminism: The [Im]possibility of
Doctrine."
At Radcliffe, where she was among 40 women selected for the
yearlong postdoctoral program, the sense of shock and sadness was
palpable yesterday.
"Our community - women - should feel violated by this. This is
not something done by a woman because a woman wouldn't do
something like this," said Florence Ladd, director of the
institute. "This is a sad and terrible loss for all of us. It's
shocking to have something like this happen."
Five years ago, Frug helped organize a feminist critical legal
studies group that met monthly, sometimes at her home. Joan
Engmacher, an assistant professor at Wellesley College and a
Bunting fellow who was also a member of the group, said, "Her
work was relevant to the problems women and people of color are
having. She had a wonderful mind and a wonderful heart. As a
scholar she was incredibly engaged with her work."
At New England School of Law, Frug was recalled as a brilliant
teacher and caring instructor who always had time to assist her
students with personal as well as classroom problems. She joined
the faculty in 1981. Her specialty was family law.
"She was a very gracious lady, always smiling, very outgoing,
optimistic and friendly," said Plymouth Probate Judge James
R. Lawton, chairman of the board of trustees of the school.
"I got calls all night from faculty members who were shocked
by her death," said dean John O'Brien. "Her death is
incomprehensible," he said, adding that calls of consolation
came in from an international law conference in Paris and from
academic centers throughout the United States.
"She is a great loss to the faculty," O'Brien continued.
"She was always willing to carry the ball on any college
undertaking. She had good ideas on how to advance the
institution. She was always available and eager to assist
any way she could."
The neighborhood where the murder occurred is one of the most
exclusive in Cambridge. Gov. Weld lives nearby on Fayerweather
Street, as do several other wealthy families.
The exclusive Buckingham, Browne & Nichols School, which
Emily Frug attends, is also nearby.
"Wow, that's the last street I ever figured anyone could be
killed on," said Harvey Simon, 37, a writer at Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government who lives in the neighborhood
and walks to work each day. "The feeling a lot of people had
is that it is one of the safest in the city. Obviously, it's
not immune to anything like this."
Later in the afternoon, as word of the slaying spread, passersby
placed a basket of pink carnations and white chrysanthemums near
the spot where Frug was killed.
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Jill Lundquist
>
> "Our community - women - should feel violated by this. This is
> not something done by a woman because a woman wouldn't do
> something like this," said Florence Ladd, director of the
> institute. "This is a sad and terrible loss for all of us. It's
> shocking to have something like this happen."
It does sound as if this was a terrible loss to both the communities
of women and men and of women. As someone who has lost a family member
to a sudden murder, I also empathize with her shock and grief.
I do wish that Florence Ladd had said that and not added the drivel
about how women never murder, or never murder strangers, or *whatever*
she might have meant by that sentence. I certainly hope that was
her anger and horror talking, not her intellect.
--
Jill Lundquist lund...@spot.colorado.edu DoD #882
riv...@mdcbbs.com
> re: jjs...@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (Jim Saul)
>
> Appended below is something I wrote last year after she was
> murdered for posting to this conference and WomanNotes at
> Digital:
>
> -------------------
>
> Mary Joe Frug, a professor at New England School of Law, was
> stabbed to death by an unknown assailant off Brattle Street in an
> exclusive area of Cambridge last Thursday night. She was walking
> to a grocery store.
> "Our community - women - should feel violated by this. This is
> not something done by a woman because a woman wouldn't do
> something like this," said Florence Ladd, director of the
> institute.
While I agree that the murder of Professor Frug is a great tragedy,
I cannot help but point out that the statement made by Ms. Ladd is not
only sexist, but totally untrue.
As far as the idea that a woman would not kill a woman, Winnie Ruth
Judd was convicted of murdering and then dismembering two other women,
stashing their bodies in a steamer trunk. Barbera Graham went to the
gas chamber for clubbing Mrs. Monohan to death. Gertrude Wright
Baniszewski was sentanced to life in prison for starving a young woman
to death after branding her with heated needles.
Aileen Carol Wuornos used a gun aganst her male victims, as did
Penny Bjorkland. Katie Bender used a sledgehammer, then a saw!
Historically, women favor poison, a weapon which requires no
strength to use, merely forethought. In addition, poison is far more
difficult to trace, allowing the perpetrators to kill again and again
as was the case with such notable killers as Belle Gunness, Sarah Jane
Robinson, Lydia Sherman, Madam Borgia, The Marchioness of
Brinvilliers, Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh, Martha Grinder, and the
Wardlaw Sisters!
The above named women literally gave their lives (plus a couple of
hundred others) to strike a blow for true and absolute female equality
in a male-dominated world! Ms. Ladd's comment is a gross insult,
denying these women their proper and due place in the pantheon of
depraved criminality. Are we to consign the very real efforts of
these women to historical anonymity? Are we to let the careless
statements of Ms. Ladd mask the efforts of a lifetime of the above
named females? Never, I say!
:)
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
| Michael Rivero riv...@mdcbbs.com Homo Cyberneticus-Computational Man |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| "Americans have become obsessed with the recognition, praise, and |
| when necessary, the manufacture of victims, whose one common |
| feature is that they have been denied parity with that Blond Beast |
| of the sentimental imagination, the heterosexual, middle class |
| white male." |
| "The Fraying Of America", TIME Feb. 3, 1992 |