William Balfour, 31, of Chicago, was found guilty last week of murdering Darnell Donerson, Jason Hudson and Julian King. They were the mother, brother and nephew of singer and actress Jennifer Hudson.
In my opinion, this case was a tragedy, but a preventable tragedy. Julia Hudson, Jennifer’s older sister, brought Balfour into the family when she married him. If she hadn’t married this man, it obviously wouldn’t have happened.
Jennifer Hudson was the first witness in the murder trial. She testified that the entire family was against Julia’s relationship with Balfour. “None of us wanted her to marry him. We did not like how he treated her,” she stated in court.
Julia secretly married William Balfour anyway in December 2006.
Who is William Balfour?
William Balfour is one of those people who was dealt a bad hand in life, and made it worse.
It seems that his family history includes sociopathy. His father was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years. His maternal grandmother went to prison for manslaughter. His mother was physically abusive to Balfour and his older brother.
Balfour himself had an extensive juvenile record, ran away from shelters and relatives’ homes, dropped out of school in ninth grade and joined a gang. At age 17, he stole a car with the owner clinging to the hood and crashed it into a telephone pole. He was convicted of attempted murder.
Read Hudson murder suspect led grim life before slayings, on RedEyeChicago.com.
Hook up
When William Balfour got out of prison in 2006, he hooked up with Julia Hudson, whom he knew from elementary school.
I can imagine how that seduction went:
“Julia, baby, you are so fine ”¦ if I was with a woman like you, I could turn my life around ”¦ you know I never had a chance ”¦ my dad was locked up as long as I can remember ”¦ my mom used to beat me and my brother ”¦ she actually gave us up, said she didn’t want us around any more ”¦ mothers are supposed to love you, but my mother never showed me any love ”¦ you’re a woman who knows how to love, I can just tell ”¦ yeah, I used to be wild, but I did my time, and now I’m ready for a new life ”¦ with you at my side, I’ll be a new man ”¦ I know I can do it ”¦ c’mon, baby, I really want to make something of myself ”¦ but I can’t do it without you ”¦ you know I love you, and you love me ”¦ there’s no reason for us to wait ”¦ “
I’m sure Balfour laid it on thick. He probably anticipated that if he hooked up with Julia Hudson, he’d be on the gravy train, because Julia’s sister was an actress ”¦ a movie star ”¦ a celebrity ”¦ and rich.
When Julia Hudson no longer wanted Balfour around, my guess is that not only was he outraged to lose control of her, but he was also outraged to lose the gravy train.
Reasons
Yes, William Balfour never had a chance in life. I recognize that he came from the mean streets of Chicago, as did Julia Hudson. She could have felt sorry for him. But she didn’t have to marry him.
Many Lovefraud readers have accepted as romantic partners people with serious life issues—including arrests, convictions, addictions and other problems. Why did they do it? Here are some of the reasons I’ve heard:
- Everyone deserves a second chance.
- I felt sorry for him (her).
- I believed I could change him (her).
- I just knew there was a good person inside him (her).
- I believe in the power of love.
- I’m a Christian, and I believe people can repent.
- He (she) needed me.
- He (she) just needed unconditional love.
Disqualifications for marriage
The purpose of marriage is a life partnership, in which both spouses support each other. Marriage is not social work. Therefore, if you are searching for a spouse, I recommend eliminating anyone with the following characteristics or history:
- Conviction for murder or attempted murder
- History of domestic violence
- Conviction for fraud, theft or property crimes
- Drug dealing or manufacturing
- No apparent income or means of financial support
- Pathological lying
- Failure to support children
- Controlling behavior
- Outbursts of rage
- Suffered abuse as a child, combined with any of the above.
Do not delude yourself into thinking that your relationship will be different, your love is special, you can change the person. Yes, sometimes people can turn themselves around. But do you want to bet your life on this person, and the lives of your family and friends?
UPDATE:
Newlywed, still in wedding dress, found stabbed to death in tub, on ChicagoTribune.com.
Donna A GREAT AND USEFUL ARTICLE.
“Marriage is not social work!” What an UNDERSTATEMENT!@....... WOW! that is sure the truth!
I would personally add to your lists of disqualifications for a RELATIONSHIP/Marriage would be 1. dishonesty, 2) any past felony charge serious enough to go to prison (statistically that would give them a PCL-R of on average 22, but still a 25% chance of being a P) (3) Any significant use of alcohol, and ANY drug use
Unconditional love as I think I’ve shown is pretty much reserved for God’s love for us and our love for our infants. You may love your baby no matter what the defects it is born with, but to continue to “love” UN-conditionally an adult/child who is seriously trying to hurt or kill you would require you to stand there and not flinch.
The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.
While human beings can change, few of us really do, without understanding ourselves and putting a great deal of commitment into that change. It’s just like stopping smoking or stopping booze or any other addiction, we fall back into the “same old pattern” pretty quickly.
Donna, what a superb article – and, a very, very tragic end.
Your reasons for why I allowed the first exspath were spot-on….simply 100% Truthful and honest.
Deal-breakers – YES…..any of those issues are good enough reason to not even give a second glance! The only other thing that I would add to that list would be: “Need for pity.”
PITY is one of the main reasons that I gathered up the first exspath. He was broken, sad, lost, and had SUCH a wretched childhood. Surely, he “deserved” a chance to realize his true potential! And, I was going to “Be The One” to HELP him! His love for me and himself would be the driving force behind a desire to realize his true potential and become a great human being!
Well…..he did become great! He became a great abuser on every level, and a cunning manipulator. So, with me….he really DID realize his true potential, didn’t he?
Goal accomplished!
I would add non-recovering addicts-any type.
My S mother was not happy that I broke up with my alcoholic fiancé.
Incredulous, I sputtered back, “But he’s an alcoholic. You want me married to a drunk?”
Her answer? “So what? At least you’d be married.”
If the person is in recovery, go cautiously and do not go with someone who is new to recovery (less than 7 or 8 years.) It takes a very long to change a lifetime of conditioning.
And even then, you need to be cautious. There are those who are “talking the talk, not walking the walk.”
If you decide to take in a recovery addict, make sure that you are in the counterpart recovery program for people who live with such addicts.
Addictions are a two-person disease. You’re going to need help.
You don’t want your life torn apart or dominated by gambling, drinking, drugging, compulsive spending, sex, or what have you.
G1S Even the recovering addicts can still be “dry drunks” (psychopaths) so in my book every recovering addict until I get to know them over a period of YEARS in many situations would be suspect. So your advice above I think is GREAT!
Thanks for noticing that it takes YEARS for somebody to change an active addiction.
It’s infuriating to read how somebody has been three months in a recovery program and the courts think the person has the problem under control. That’s barely having walked through the door.
Addictions cannot be cured although there are always those who claim they can-for a price and with their program! 😉
And because the addiction is there whether addict is actively indulging in it or not, the partner is going to need help.
Why? Because while the addict gets addicted to the substance of choice, the partner gets addicted to the addict. If you live with it, you are affected by it.
If the partner grew up in a home where addictions were present, then the partner is already prediposed to finding a partner with an addiction.
Statistics are that if a child has one alcoholic parent, the chances are about 75% that the child will marry an alcoholic or become one. If both parents are alcoholics (substitute the addiction of choice,) then the probability that the child will become the same type of addict or marry one skyrockets to 95%.
BTW, I wouldn’t equate a dry drunk with a psychopath. They are not interchangeable. It is very possible for somebody to have an addiction and a conscience.
All good additions to the list. Thank you.
Oxy,
Dry drunk actually is not used to describe a person but a condition. Dry drunk syndrome is actually a thinking pattern so to speak.
Generally AA uses the term to describe one of two conditions.
Alchohol is just a symptom of the disease. So if you remove the alcohol you still have to deal with the underlying factors of the disease. For those in a 12 step pragram that involves “working a program” to maintain sobriety. Embracing the steps, working them and paying it forward to help other struggling alcoholics. Kind of sums it up. Lossing the stinking thinking is key.
For those that loose the alcohol/or other substance but never address the underlying factors of the disease this condition would be refered to as a dry drunk. Not true “sobriety”.
Or when a person who has been working a program all of a sudden starts to revert back to the “stinking thinking” and stops working the program, this often happens right before a relapse. This period of time is often called dry drunk. The alcohol hasn’t been swallowed as of yet, but the “recovery” process is now non existant…And stinkin thinkin leads back to the bottle.
The big book describes this condition for the alcoholic feeling “restless, irritable, and discontented.”
Soon to follow is often Complacency. A huge red flag for a person in recovery.
My husband had a period of dry drunk syndrome a few months before he went “back out”.
G1S I hired a woman once who was an LPN and she was in AA and very strong in AA but married to a guy she met in AA for several years. He fell off the wagon and she was very upset about this and did not want anyone to know this. Then he had a bad wreck and got arrested (he was drunk) and she became very hostile to me because I knew. she did everything an employee can do to stab me in the back, talking behind my back to my new boss who didn’t know me, etc. etc. I realize in retrospect that she love bombed me to get the job and had some big bad “issues” herself which i didn’t see until the claws and fangs came out. The job was in a very political situation and I was extremely busy taking care of patients and so didn’t realize what she had done with the back stabbing until it was far gone.
G1S “a dry drunk” (my opinion of the term) is one that is not drinking but still acts like a drunk, bullying and overbearing, sneaking, lying etc. in other words, a person high in P traits that exercises these traits DRY as well as he did when he was DRUNK. I’ve heard people from AA use this term as I have described it so that was where I picked itup.
Witsend described it as it is viewed in AA and Al-Anon.
Alcoholism is a disease of the body, mind, and spirit. Take away the physical ingestion of the booze and you’ve worked on the body part. Don’t address the mind and the spirit and the alcoholism is still present, but without the booze hence “dry drunk.”
There is nothing that says that P cannot be an alcoholic.
It’s quite possible that you heard dry drunk described as you heard it in AA, but I’d bet that nobody used the term “psychopath.”
There are a lot of similarities, which is why I think Al-Anon would be helpful for many people with Ps in their lives, but again, Al-Anon is limited to alcoholism. It does not address psychopathy. Neither does AA.
As for somebody who is “very strong in AA,” what exactly does that mean? According to whom? Her?
Trust me, there are plenty of AA Nazis and Al-Anon Nazis who think that they are very strong in both programs, but the fact that they have self-appointed themselves to oversee the others means they have a lot to learn. There are also many who talk a good talk, but ain’t walking the walk at all.
For somebody just walking in, as I’ve gotten the impression that’s about all you’ve ever done, you couldn’t have picked up on these nuances or subtleties. You would need many years in the program to understand and pick up on these sorts of things.
Control issues are rampant in many 12-Step groups. Control is a big part of the disease.
In my humble opinion, many times control issues are amplified because there is such a concentration of triggering personalities that bring out the worst and weakest in others.
I take offense at equating someone with an addiction to a psychopath. I can see how someone who has never had an addiction (and I include nicotine as an addiction) might fall into the trap of thinking that an alcoholic, etc is a psychopath. The two are not the same.
As someone who was tossed into the rooms of AA many, many years ago, I can honestly say your chances might be higher of running into a P in one of those rooms. However, there are MANY who deal with addictions who do not lie, cheat, steal, etc. They are trapped in a pattern of behavior (I don’t buy into the disease paradigm) just like someone who does retail therapy to deal with their emotions. Would you say a compulsive shopper is a psychopath?
At any rate, it’s BECAUSE OF programs like AA that not more advances are made in terms of SCIENCE and helping those with addictions. Addiction is a brain disease. AA and other programs like it would say it’s a spiritual disease.