Source: Torontosun.com
CANADA – TORONTO – Shirley Beck was a wife and a mother enduring life’s harsh struggles.
She told friends that “something was missing in her life.”
And she thought she had found it in the BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism) community. In October 2012, Beck left her family and moved to Clarksville, Tennessee to learn about the sexual practice.
There was also a man she met online whom Beck hoped would become her “master.”
“I drove to the Greyhound bus station to pick her up,” said BDSM mistress Twila Ours. “She was my best friend. I loved her kind of like a daughter.”
She confessed to Ours that she “felt empty like something was missing in her life.”
And the mom hooked up with the man she met online, cohabitating in a motel room. Ours was in the next room.
The BDSM mistress said her friend was happy — for a while. Her “master” moved on to another woman and Beck asked Ours if she could be her “slave.”
But there was little sex in the relationship because the “slave” had been molested as a child. Intercourse was out in any BDSM scene.
Beck became Ours’ house slave, the lowest level on the rung. Her mistress claimed she had begun her own “slave” training when she was around five or six years old under the tutelage of her mother.
Ours said she sometimes whipped Beck or used other forms of discipline. The “slave” liked the pain, Ours said, adding that she sometimes loaned her out.
But Beck — remembered as a sweet, kind woman who was frail and covered in bruises — made the fateful decision to move on as “house slave” to another mistress. Her name was Cynthia Skipper.
Under Skipper, Beck did all the chores in a house with six people, none of whom worked.
And the corpulent Skipper was a much harsher and cruel mistress than Ours had been. One roommate, Alphonso Richardson, became enraged when he believed his cup had cockroach poison residue.
Beck would be severely punished. It was Skipper who gave the green light for punishment and Reynolds and Richardson kicked and hit her for almost four hours while she and Derek Vicchitto mostly watched, according to trial testimony.
The killers would later claim that Beck never uttered “Jacob,” her safe word. A tough task given a sock was crammed into her mouth.
Beck, 39, was beaten until she was unconscious three times.
And then, on June 26, 2014, she was dead.
“When they told me she was dead, it tore me apart,” Ours said. “Shirley was kind, sweet, loving, caring. She would do anything for a person.”
Ours told reporters that it wasn’t BDSM, saying “that’s not how we punish subordinates.”
Richardson, Skipper, Reynolds and Vicchitto went on trial in 2016, with their defence lawyers arguing that there were mitigating circumstances, particularly that Beck liked pain.
Prosecutors wanted them hammered.
Reynolds and Richardson were found guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree felony murder. The two men were sentenced to life in prison.
“Is there any more dangerous people than these?” the prosecutor asked during the sentencing hearing.
Dowdy mistress Skipper was found guilty of the lesser charges of criminally negligent homicide and especially aggravated kidnapping. Vicchitto was found guilty of two counts of facilitation of second-degree murder and especially aggravated kidnapping.
Skipper was caged 25 years while Vicchitto, her fiance, was sentenced to 12 years on a murder charge and 25 years for the especially aggravated kidnapping.
Reynolds mother told reporters: “Before this, he called me and said, ‘There’s some crazy stuff going on and you need to come get me’.”
