Cops: Divorce Kidnapper On Suicide Mission

Ad Exec Who Held Ex-Wife Hostage Sought Info on How to Kill Himself, Police Say

(AP)  An advertising executive who handcuffed his ex-wife and held her hostage inside their home was on a "suicide mission," printing out piles of papers on how to kill himself before setting the house on fire, police said.

Richard Shenkman spent most of Tuesday handcuffed to his hostage, ex-wife Nancy Tyler, and had downloaded piles of paperwork from the Internet on how to kill himself, according to a report by Michael Prescher with the South Windsor Police Services' criminal investigations unit that was released Wednesday night.

The paperwork included a variety of means for committing suicide, including carbon monoxide poisoning, hanging and blowing up a house with explosives, the report said.

Shenkman, 60, was arraigned Wednesday afternoon while shackled to his hospital bed in a Connecticut emergency room. He was heavily sedated and surrounded by police, corrections officers and security guards as Judge Brad Ward set bond at $12.5 million, defense attorney Hugh Keefe said.

"He's been fading in and out of consciousness," Keefe said. "But he was mentally alert enough for Judge Ward to arraign him."

Shenkman was released from Hartford Hospital later Wednesday and brought to the MacDougall-Walker prison in Suffield, according to the state Correction Department. He is due in court July 14.

The bedside arraignment took place less than a day after Shenkman held police at bay for 13 hours, telling negotiators he would blow up the two-story house with 65 pounds (nearly 30 kilograms) of explosives, authorities said.

Tyler escaped at about 9:30 p.m. with handcuffs dangling from one wrist and marks on her face from "the barrel of a handgun being pressed hard against her," Prescher said.

Shenkman then allegedly set the house ablaze and used the cover of the growing flames to dart in and out of view, taunting police.

Police said he would point his handgun at himself or outside to fire off shots, at one point shouting "Shoot me! Shoot me!"

He was taken into custody after police shot beanbag rounds at Shenkman and knocked the gun out of his hand at around midnight, authorities said.

He has been charged with kidnapping, arson, reckless endangerment and the illegal discharge of a weapon.

The standoff was just one of many chaotic episodes in the history of a man described by authorities as a threatening, angry ex-husband. He already faced charges of setting fire to another Connecticut house in 2007 rather than turn it over to Tyler.

Court records say Shenkman frequently violated a protective order and repeatedly threatened Tyler's life and his own, saying the only way they would become divorced was if one of them died.

Voice mail messages, e-mails and handwritten notes in the divorce case file show Shenkman's intense mental anguish.

"I am totally broke. In money. Mind and spirit. All I have left is the ability to shout to the world what you and Nancy have done to me, her children and herself," Shenkman wrote in a July 2007 e-mail to Tyler's attorney.

At times, he used those messages to paint himself as a needy, groveling victim: "I need help praying. You and I could say a prayer together ... Please call me, please call me, please call me. Please," he begged in a voice mail to Tyler.

Frequently, he alluded to suicide: "Nancy, I want to call you back and give you a location. You can call the police and have them go there and find me," he said in another voice mail message.

Often, however, he was menacing: "My goal is to destroy everything because she has destroyed my family and me," Shenkman wrote in a May 2007 e-mail to Tyler's attorney.

Shenkman and Tyler, 57, married in 1993. Court records show it was a third marriage for him and a second for her.

After three years of contentious divorce proceedings, a judge granted the divorce last year, but Shenkman has been appealing. On Tuesday, the state Appellate Court rejected Shenkman's appeal.

Later that day, a Hartford Superior Court judge was expected to evict him from the home.

On Wednesday, Tyler returned to the rubble of the home and walked the property with a police escort and her two children.

[ToolMangler1]

What we need is a "Government Agency" to save us from ourselves. You know! the moment they see any sort of behavior that doesn't meet the criteria of a "Well adjusted human being" the individual is placed in "Protective Custody" (for their own good).

(Doesn't that make you feel all "warm and fuzzy" inside)

[John_Merritt]

That really is a sad story. This man was one big ball of 'torment'. How would you like to live that way where you see NO GOOD END in sight? Having been beaten but not broken by divorce before; I know the feelings he probably went through. Fortunately, I have always had a deep faith in my God, and He has never failed me yet.

If you think this is rare, its not, its only an extreme condition of an underlying current that is out there today. Everywhere. Right now there are less divorces than in previous recessions, but the downside, is you have unhappy people living with each other constantly. That is not good for the adults or the children.

The bad part, is the recession has a ways to go, and with time, comes more misery for others. Unless something miraculous happens with these poor people, over time this will continue to be a problem and this story will not be remote; but could be an example of what awaits many people.

Sign me: But by the grace of God there go I..............

P.S. If you know people like this, please befriend them if you can.

[displeased]

"P.S. If you know people like this, please befriend them if you can."

Until they pull out the handcuffs and the shotgun.

[get_down]

Richard Shenkman, 60, turns out to be nothing but a three time loser.
So sad - too bad.
Take it like a MAN man.

[displeased]

It was the gun that made him do it. If he didn't have a gun, he'd still be alive! Oh wait...never mind...