The media reports Fifty Nine year old Carlo Ventre kidnapped his daughter in California from his divorced wife and took her back to his home in Italy. The mother went to Italy and sued to have her daughter returned. She complained that Ventre had threatened to kill her. After a hearing the Italian court ordered the daughter returned to the mother. When the mother went to Ventre’s apartment in  Rome to get her daughter Ventre bludgeoned the 29 year old to death. He then insisted he did it in self defense when she attacked him with an axe. Then he went back to California to try to get custody of the child from the grandparents, but was arrested on his arrival at L.A. airport and charged with international kidnapping. Convicted, he spent a year in jail and on his release was deported back to Italy to stand trial for murder. During the trial, Ventre was on the witnesses stand telling his story, when after ten minutes of testimony he complained he didn’t feel well. He put his head down and suddenly died of a heart attack while on the witness stand.

Domestic violence is evil wherever it occurs. Tacoma chief of police David Brame’s murder of his wife followed by his suicide is only one well known example of what has become a national problem. No one takes pleasure in death, but there is a certain ironic justice to the fact Carlo Ventre was in the very act of testifying under oath to his excuse for killing a young mother when he suddenly died of a heart attack. I can’t help but see the finger of God in that scenario even though I’ve seen a number of witnesses whom I was confident were lying that survived without anything happening to them on the witness stand. On the other hand, think of the situation described in Acts 5:3 where Ananias and his wife lied to Peter and held back money they received from the sale of their property which they were donating to the Christian group. They both died at the feet of Peter after telling the lie.