Kate Kinsey
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The Last Four Hours of Shirley Beck's Life

7/9/2014

13 Comments

 
Something terrible has happened in Clarksville, TN, just up the road. When the threads online started, I was too sick to even comment. I didn’t want to write about it, because what the hell was the point?

But days have passed and I can’t stop thinking about the last four hours of Shirley Beck’s life. 

As I writer, I choose my words carefully, always looking for the best word to convey all the shadings and nuances of my meaning instead of one that is merely adequate.

But we throw around some words so casually that their edges have been blunted. Words like horrified. Disgusted. Disturbed. Sick. Incomprehensible.

Those words are pale and tepid, not nearly heavy enough, not strong enough. Using them to describe what I feel about Shirley Beck’s death is like trying to smash through a plate glass window with a pebble when what I need is a brick.

Shirley Beck, age 39, was a “house slave” to four roommates, one of whom she called “mistress.”

On June 26, three of the roommates beat her to death while the “mistress” watched.

Beck was hung up, gagged, choked and beaten continuously for four hours. Martial art kicks, a bamboo rod, oxygen tubing and a metal pole were among the weapons used on her.

The story only gets worse.

The beating started in the bedroom, but when Beck “leaned” into the television, they moved her to another room because they were worried about the safety of the electronics.

Beck passed out a couple of times, but they thought she was “faking it.”

One of the murderers paused long enough to take photos of Beck, her body battered and broken, hanging from the ceiling. 

Why does this haunt me so much? Because I know that yearning to serve, to be willing to accept pain and even cruelty for the sake of another’s pleasure.

Understand, I’m not really much of a masochist. I suffer in order to please my master, and I know what it is to just keep breathing, trying to endure. To simply hang on through the next blow, and the next, in the knowledge that it will finally end and I will be rewarded with a kiss, a smile, a tender embrace from the master who has never, in all these years, violated my trust.

What keeps tearing at my heart is that Shirley Beck got none of that. She hung there for four hours, just trying to endure. Four hours. There would be no tender caresses or aftercare when it was done. No one would tend her injuries with smiles. No one would say, “I am proud of you.”

She gave her trust to the wrong people. Maybe she went looking for BDSM for all the wrong reasons. But that doesn’t make what happened her to any less tragic. She still wanted to be a good submissive. She wanted to offer her body, heart and mind up in service to someone that valued her.

It breaks my heart.

Her murderers have admitted she asked them to stop. Did they really mean she “asked,” or do they really mean she begged? She must have. What words did she manage between choking sobs and muffled screams of pain?

For Shirley Beck, the suffering just went on and on. I can’t even comprehend that level of pain, the rising panic when it occurred to her that this time they were not going to stop. In the last moments of consciousness, did she realize that, to these people, she was nothing? To die in that kind of anguish, with that sense of betrayal, might have been even worse than the pain.

When tragedy hits in our kinky community, it is almost always an accident born from ignorance, negligence or just blatant stupidity. People just didn’t think. Or maybe they were being as careful as they could be, and fate just fucked them over with some accident no one could have seen coming. It happens, and many of us hope that someone will not be crucified just because the justice system and the vanilla world don’t understand what it is we do.

But this was not negligence or ignorance; this was just brutality. This case is the very worst of what the world thinks we are, and what they believe we do. It doesn’t matter that these people, while known to some of us, were not really a part of our community, and that their behaviors have crossed so far beyond the bounds of decency that we would hardly call them human beings, let alone practitioners of sane, rational and consensual BDSM.

For every person out there who is still carrying the burden of a secret longing, still struggling to figure out what those desires say about them, and what to do about them, this case is a staggering blow.

Yet I am not hoping that this will be forgotten, or knocked out of the news cycle by some new atrocity. People should hear about this. They need to know about this. Will it frighten some people away? Probably.

Maybe some people need to be frightened. If you want to be a submissive, you need to make damned sure you have your head on tight, and that you understand your reasons for being here, and if you ever think for even one moment that you really deserve to be treated like shit, YOU SHOULD NOT PLAY THESE GAMES. When red flags start flying, so should you.

But this case is not really about BDSM or kink. It’s about criminal inhumanity trying to hide under the sheep’s leather clothing, about the bastards who dare to drape their sins in our kinky flag.

Do they lie to themselves, really believing they are one of us? Or do they know that they perpetrate the worst perversion of all? They take the things we have worked so hard to understand about ourselves, all the lessons we have learned and taught, all the trust we have earned and given, and they grind every bit of it into the dirt. And then they piss on it.

When I first heard about this, I was sick at heart. Today, I’m angry. I hope these people are nailed to the wall, that they are punished in every way and to every extent the law allows.

But I just keep thinking about those last four hours of Shirley Beck’s life.


http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2014307030033&gcheck=1
13 Comments
Carrie link
10/22/2014 06:00:09 am

I've just stumbled onto your blot today and have begun reading. I'm a submissive who's very sure of herself and what my boundaries and red flags mean to me. I'm in a committed, loving BDSM relationship, but even reading this, well it made my heart break. I've not heard of this situation and I'm just torn to pieces about it. Thank you for writing this and for making the people who read this blog aware of the dangers of committing yourself to someone who doesn't take your personal safety nor trust seriously.

May she rest

Reply
angie
10/30/2014 06:41:17 am

I'm a friend out of state n just heard i hope those. animals do life how can someone do something like that to such a kind person she got away from her husband n went to a worse place rip Shirley

Reply
Jill
3/25/2015 03:05:36 am

I didn't know they were having problems. I never knew he was mean to her. I knew them both. It doesn't surprise me though because he drank all the time. God rest her soul. She was a very loving person that needed positive guidance. She could easily be persuaded by society. RIP Shirley and Love auntie Jill

Reply
ben
11/21/2014 03:42:56 am

Im not into this myself but I've noticed women iv talked to on say Facebook or yahoo there seems to be a pattern they never answer messages . never tell their location . and almost all go for yrs or months if ever to sign on or talk

Reply
Jill
3/25/2015 02:59:39 am

I cried when I seen this and I thank the author. I see the compassion. I knew Shirley Beck. I didn't understand her longing for the life style she was getting into. She had wanted me to register online with this Web site and I just knew better so I didn't. I hadn't had much contact with her and her husband, for a few years. I ran into her at store and she said they were moving down south. I didn't think much of it. So so sad. It breaks my heart that I was unable to turn her away from her yearning but there was no stopping her. She did NOT deserve this though. She would do anything for you and she had such a kind heart.

Reply
Twila
3/30/2016 10:23:38 am

I knew the ones who did this as well as the victim. I will let Jill know this she moved here without her husband to be with another man. Then got into the lifestyle here, she was happy for a while. She never should have suffered what she did, I have done all I could to help put the ones who did this behind bars. In fact I was in court this morning as an "expert witness" I am a Mistress that has been on for over 25+ years. Shirley lived with me for a while as mine until she left while I was away to be with them. I did my best to warn her but she would not listen. I miss her dearly and wish she were here today. Since she is not and I could not protect her then I did what I could today to help make sure she got justice. I love you Shirley may you finally find peace and comfort.

Reply
Michael
11/10/2015 06:55:40 pm

It is a sad and unfortunate thing for me to post here about this, but I lived with two of these people (the mistress and her slave as she called him) though I never met the poor girl who this happened to. I can say without a doubt it is a travesty. No one deserves this kind of treatment and I am so sad to even admit I know the culprits. Reading the story I could just see the whole thing unfolding and it is awful. They have stained anyone who lives the lifestyle. I can just hope that karma gets them just as bad as they gave her.

Reply
Danielle Tate
4/6/2016 01:29:51 pm

I'm glad I found your blog; I've been researching Shirley's story from a different angle, and I really didn't understand what the BDSM part of the story meant until you explained it. From what I gather, a romantic relationship with a BDSM spin involves as much trust, perhaps more so, than a typical relationship. That would make Shirley's situation analagous to that of a battered woman in a "vanilla" marriage. What they did to her was abusive even though non-abusive BDSM exists, just like it's abusive when a battered woman's abuser controls her finances but not abusive when a married couple have a joint checking account. Abuse isn't about love; it's about power, and denying power to the victim. I don't know if I have this right, but it seems that in healthy BDSM, the "submissive" person is there voluntarily and they only pretend to give up their power because they find it exciting to do so... that if they wanted, they could say their safe word and get out of anything that was going on immediately. So the power isn't really in the dominant person's hands at all, but equally shared by both. In an abusive relationship, the abuser tries to dominate their victim for real.

I came across Shirley's story as part of a disability rights memorial research; her name pinged on one of my web searches because she was a murder victim who received disability payments. I'm familiar with the "power difference" paradigm because so many of my disabled homicide victims are killed by people who had a lot of power over them--their caregivers, their parents, their non-disabled partners; sometimes by perfect strangers who take advantage of a person whose disability makes them seem vulnerable.

I am curious what you think about all of this--whether disability and the BDSM community ever intersect; what the role of power in all of this is. I'm not sure what Shirley's disability was, only that she couldn't handle her own finances. She probably started out with less power than the average woman, and had even more of it taken from someone who saw her vulnerability.

Reply
BigDizzle
6/11/2016 09:47:16 pm

Wow... That was hard to read. I'm not a submissive, but my wife is. She is so sweet and caring. It's like she lives her life just to make the kids and my life better. I don't see how anyone could do this to someone like her. I don't really know what to say tbh. This story was shocking to read. My heart goes out to the victim's family, and I hope those MONSTERS get what they deserve. It's people like these sickos that cause so many sweet and caring people to have emotional scars that cause them pain for years to come. People like this are the reason that so many vanillas have such a disturbing view of what bdsm is. If this article was the only info I've ever heard about the scene, then I'd think it was disturbing too...

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Twila Ours
6/12/2016 01:35:31 am

They have all been sentenced, the so called Mistress got 27 years total, her fiancé got 25 years, the Reynolds guy got life which is 52&1/2 years and the Richardson one got life plus 25 years so my friend has finally gotten some justice. Although none of this will bring her back I know it has helped myself and her family rest a little easier.

Reply
matchstix link
5/5/2017 04:10:39 pm

kate, i just finished your book "how to be a healthy and happy submissive". i found it lucid, sane, informative, and refreshing.

i did not, however, expect your parting thoughts about shirley beck. i had not heard her story before.

li am not unfamiliar with traumatic events that life can bring, but when i read your words it reminded me of one event in particular. i could feel your intensity pulling at me from inside. that feeling of focused rage and groping emptiness that can accompany a horrific loss of a beautiful person.

thank you for shining your refreshing light for shirley. i saw it.

Reply
Ryan Duran link
1/5/2021 06:53:24 pm

I enjooyed reading your post

Reply
Ryan Duran link
1/9/2021 10:04:36 pm

Helloo mate great blog

Reply



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