Religion News Blog is a non-profit service providing academics, religion professionals and other researchers with religion & cult news

Religion news articles about religious cults, sects, world religions, and related issues

Navigation:

Search

Man gets two life terms in killings of wife and son over devotion to Mormon Church

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Thursday November 6, 2008

Man gets two life terms in killings of wife and son

A Framingham [Massachusetts] man was sentenced to two life terms in prison yesterday for brutally killing his wife and her 11-year-old son in a rampage fueled by his jealousy about her devotion to the Mormon faith.
Jeremias Bins, a 32-year-old Brazilian immigrant, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder after a Middlesex Superior Court jury deliberated for seven hours. The trial began on Oct. 17. He was sentenced soon after the verdict was rendered.
Bins walked into Framingham Police Department headquarters early May 21, 2006, just hours after he had used a 2-pound hammer to bludgeon his wife, Carla Souza, and her son from a previous marriage, Caigue Souza. Bins carried their 5-month-old son, unharmed, and told police, “I’m sorry.”
Police found his wife and her son in their Gordon Street apartment with severe head trauma. She died hours later at Massachusetts General Hospital. Caigue Souza died soon after he was taken to MetroWest Medical Center.
[...]
A family member testified during the trial that Bins, who was baptized as a Lutheran, never accepted Souza’s devotion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that he believed women should stay at home and tend to their family.
The couple met when Mormon missionaries invited Bins, a construction worker, to their church in Weston.
[...]
Bins felt that church members were meddling in his family life, said Souza’s brother, Elvio Maya. He said Bins called Souza’s church and told the missionaries never to come to his house again.
The call led to an argument. Caigue Souza apparently tried to intervene on his mother’s behalf, and Bins grabbed the hammer from his tool box.