Massachusetts Woman Facing Foreclosure Kills Herself — Suicide Note Tells Family to Use the Life Insurance Money to Pay the Mortgage
(www.bizchicksrule.com) — This is one of the saddest things I have ever heard in my life.
Carlene Balderrama, 53, of Taunton, Massachusetts, shot herself with her husband’s rifle on Tuesday afternoon after faxing a message to her mortgage company telling them that by the time they foreclosed on her house later that day, she would be dead. According to a CNN report I heard this afternoon around 5:30 ET, the mortgage company immediately notified the local police, but the woman was already dead by the time they arrived.
"I had no clue," said [husband] John Balderrama, explaining that his wife handled all the couple’s finances. "I’m just lost. I tell you, I’m beside myself."
He said his wife had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company and shredding them without his knowledge. He had no idea she hadn’t paid the mortgage in 42 months.
"She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday. "Apparently she didn’t have anyone to talk to. She didn’t come to me. I don’t know why." (source)
CNN reported that the house was to be auctioned off at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, the note was faxed at about 2:30 p.m., and police found Mrs. Balderrama dead around 3:30. It appeared that people interested in the house had already begun arriving at the property around the time Mrs. Balderrama committed suicide or shortly thereafter.
The CNN anchor reporting the story read excerpts from the fax and the suicide note. The note read in part that Mrs. Balderrama hoped the money from her life insurance would help her husband and their son because it couldn’t help her anymore. The same report characterized the loan as one that was designed to fail, and said that people like Mrs. Balderrama blame themselves when truly no one is meant to be able pay back those loans.
CNN also reported that there were no boxes packed and that it did not appear that the Balderramas were prepared to leave. Given that the husband had no idea it was even happening, that makes sense. According to the report, the mortgage company is working with John Balderrama to work something out so he and the son can stay in the house. Given the circumstances, it seems like the right thing to do.
This is positively heartbreaking. I cannot even begin to imagine what that woman must have been feeling to not talk to her husband about the situation, and to think that the only way out was to kill herself so he and their 24-year-old son would have the life insurance money for the house. She must have felt so desperate and so alone.
It’s scary to think about, because there are so many Americans in a similar position right now. Bills piling up, uncertain income, lots of questions but not a lot of answers… If you are facing foreclosure or bankruptcy or any other kind of financial hardship, know that no matter what happens, it is NOT worth dying for. It’s just not. There is always somewhere to go, some way out, some other option. It may not be an option you like, but there is always another choice.
Don’t try to "handle it." Talk to your spouse, your partner, a best friend, a pastor or counselor, a financial advisor — SOMEONE. We are all under stress right now with the economy, the "housing crisis," gas prices, and constant bombardment with BAD NEWS about how much everything sucks. We’re not made to deal with these kinds of things, so needing help doesn’t make you weak — it makes you human. And ASKING for help doesn’t make you weak, either. It keeps you sane.
Don’t wait until things get so bad that suicide seems like the only way out. Whatever problems you think it will solve will only be magnified by your death. And then the world will be without YOU. That’s the last thing any of us need right now. We just need to stick together, ask for help when we need it, and yeah, sometimes adjust our expectations. The solution to the problem may not be exactly what we would like it to be, but there is ALWAYS another option. Take it.
Contents © Copyright 2008 by Kristen King
Tags: womens business blog, women in business, women and business, women, woman, business, carlene balderrama, massachusetts, foreclosure, woman commits suicide, home foreclosure, woman kills herself, use life insurance to pay mortgage, housing crisis, recession, economy, biz chicks rule, kristen king
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19 opinions for Massachusetts Woman Facing Foreclosure Kills Herself — Suicide Note Tells Family to Use the Life Insurance Money to Pay the Mortgage
Phil Gerbyshak
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:40 pm
This is incredibly sad for the family. What a loss!
Massachusetts Woman Facing Foreclosure Kills Herself — Suicide Note Tells Family to Use the Life Insurance Money to Pay the Mortgage
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:40 pm
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Jennifer Gniadecki
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:44 pm
It’s good the mortgage company is going to work it out with the husband, because I’ve never heard of a life insurance policy that paid out on a suicide.
Also, I agree with you, there is nothing so bad as not being there for your family. Get help, downsize, even living in a car with the people you love is better than having them grieve you the rest of their lives in a house that you kill yourself in.
She didn’t really give them anything but a sense of loss they’ll never recover from. So unnecessary.
Kristen King
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I agree, Phil. Can you imagine what that husband must be going through, the guilt he must be feeling?
Kristen King
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Jen, you are so right. How can this family ever get over that? Better to be together and homeless than homeless and your wife or your mother killed herself — all for nothing. Like I said, it just magnifies the problems.
Alicia, Mental Health Notes
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:55 pm
This is such a tragedy and, given some similar stories I’ve read over the past year, is becoming alarmingly common. It’s so sad.
My heart goes out to her family.
Kendra
Jul 24, 2008 at 7:01 pm
My heart is so sad for her family. It is just a horrible situation all together- I hope that they will have the strength to heal.
Kelly
Jul 24, 2008 at 7:51 pm
So I’ll be the pragmatist - how could the husband have no idea that the mortgage wasn’t being paid for almost four years? I don’t want to be unkind but I get the feeling that there was a reason that she didn’t share the notices with her husband or talk about her fears regarding the notice.
A marriage is a partnership - just like a business. My husband doesn’t know every thing that I spend my money on but he does have a clue about the big things. I insist on knowing about the car payments, the taxes and the house. I have three children and I believe that’s the responsible thing to do.
I think sometimes we choose not to know things. I know because I’ve been there. My husband and I had a really scary year with our business during our second year. It was a horrible time but in retrospect, I am glad for it because it taught me to value what I have, no matter how meager or how big.
I am sad for her family but I hope that this story yields something positive for others.
Jean Murray
Jul 24, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Yes, this is a very sad story. I do know that sometimes it seems like you can’t tell someone - particularly people you love - that something bad is happening. But when you do, you find it works out.
I think there was more going on with this woman than has been stated in what we’ve read. How could she not know that suicides don’t get insurance money?
I do feel very bad for her family, who are left with an incredible burden.
Hope Wilbanks
Jul 24, 2008 at 8:21 pm
How utterly sad!! I hadn’t heard this story, but it is definitely heart-breaking and a sign of the times. :(
Nancy
Jul 25, 2008 at 2:20 am
So heartbreaking :( My thoughts and prayers are with her husband and son.
Kristen King
Jul 25, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Thanks for all of your great comments, guys. This is such a sad, sad story. Kelly and Jean, there is definitely more going on here than just a family own on its luck. I hope to talk about the “pragmatic” side of it more once we have a little more distance from it. And by we I mean I.
kk
sweetcherry
Jul 26, 2008 at 5:54 pm
you know eveyone has a valid point concerning this horrible and tragic topic ,but i would like to talk a little bit from experience. i am a single mother of three i work as a cna and only receieve 240 a month for child support my rent is almost 900 dollars a month but my net pay is 550 bi weekly plus i have utillities and grocery and things that my kids may need. the reason i’m saying this is because at one point my bills was way more than i could handle and i ended up getting evicted out of my apartment and beause of the eviction it was hard for me to get another apartment and i had to move into a pay weekly hotel with my kids which was like 300 dollars a week and that was the most hardest time of my life because that was even more than i was paying for rent ,at times i didn’t know how i was going to come up with the money to pay i almost came close to having to sleep in the van with my kids , i had to beg, borrow, and belittle myself for the sake of my children , so i understand when you feel as though there is no way out , because the thought had entered my mind that i have life insurance with my job and my 401k so my kids would’nt have to go through this anymore but then i thought about the other things they would have to go through with that being said as much as i cried and prayed to god my situation is much better and i still have my life to be thankful for.sometimes i think that these corporate offices are cold hearted and uncompassionate and its very unfortunate that this woman felt as though this was the only alternative obviously she never knew my best friend and my father JESUS deepest codolences.
Erin
Jul 27, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I’ve been reading the comments and I’m not really sure where I fall on the spectrum. I feel an enormous amount of sympathy for Mrs. Balderrama and her family.
The thing is — people make horrible decisions every day and it’s their inability to accept the realities of this life that makes things so much worse. She couldn’t accept that the family could not afford to keep the house. She did not want to imagine a life without that house. Maybe she didn’t think her husband would understand. Maybe she was misusing the family money. None of it matters in the end but she couldn’t understand that in the moment. She was afraid of losing not just her home but also the love of her family. I can understand the mother and wife not wanting to destroy the family. And because she was so mired in the desperation of the situation she couldn’t see that there is more to life than a family home. And yes, even more to life than a husband.
Like most people, I’ve had my share of financial problems and I’m still very young. It’s depressing and it makes me feel hopeless and it scares the shit out of me to receive a bill and know that I have no idea where the money will come from to pay it. I just imagine the sleepless nights she suffered through. The torment she lived with not ever telling her husband year after year and it’s not completely unforeseeable that something like THAT would escalate into a suicide. I can understand how she would feel like she had no other solution.
Sometimes I feel completely hopeless myself and I don’t have the responsibility of a mortgage or family to take care of. So I cannot imagine the shame a mother and wife must feel in not being able to save her family. That being said, her husband and son will never live their lives the same way again knowing that she thought more of the house and their comfort over her own life. But hopefully they can come to understand that no one logically decides to commit suicide. It’s impulsive (even if it’s planned out) and ineffective and emotionally charged and insecure. And if anyone were faced with their own personal nightmare and could not see a way out of hell with their own eyes and thought it would save the people they loved most…well. I think maybe we all have a breaking point at which we say, “I give up.” It’s not justified at all. It’s just that I doubt this will be the last incident of a family being destroyed by finances, especially in this time where the economy is falling apart.
Kristen
Jul 28, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Such heartfelt comments, all of them. Thank you for sharing these experiences and continuing this dialogue. I think the important theme that’s emerging is that we really need to support one another so people DON’T feel like they’re going through things alone. Especially with money, people don’t talk about their problems because they feel ashamed. We need to break the stigma, and we need to do it soon. People are dying because they are too ashamed or scared or isolated to take advantage of their support network and avail themselves of the options. This has to stop. Like Erin said, this likely will NOT be the last time we hear a sad story like this.
megan
Jul 28, 2008 at 9:18 pm
There is a lot more to this story. I appreciate and respect everyone’s sentiments here, they mirror my own, but not exactly in this case. There is something not quite right going on here…it’s not as simple as it looks on the surface.
Mr. Balderrama is a plumber making a very good income ($90K+) that increased since the purchase of the home, as did his bankruptcy filings. Three, to be exact, beginning 8 months after they moved into the house. That was in 2002, when the mortgage crisis didn’t exist.
They had over $100K equity in the home this year. It could have been sold for very little, and they still would have made money on it.
In public records for the bankruptcy, there are no outstanding credit or medical debts. The only debt was the house and car. There is no explanation for why they were unable to afford the house payment with such a good salary.
No one knows where all the income went. There is speculation about gambling or illegal drugs, because, quite simply, the money had to go somewhere, if not the mortgage.
His bankruptcy filings were thrown out all three times, because he failed to make payments and scheduled court appearances. There is a system in place to help people, but you have to take part in it.
How he could say he didn’t know what was happening in regards to the mortgage, is bizarre to say the least, since he was earning a better-than-avergage income, yet filing for bankruptcy over a span of 6 years.
The media is making this a sensational story about foreclosure, but you should really be questioning this family - including Carlene’s - true motivations.
Kristen King
Jul 29, 2008 at 9:12 am
Thanks for your comment, Megan. It is definitely a strange situation…
megan
Jul 29, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Thank you, Kristen, it really is. Because of when this family’s financial issues arose, in ‘02, I truly believe this particular case has very little to do with the mortgage crisis.
I post what I can to try to temper the media’s exploitation. I think they are enormously responsible for worsening the mortgage problems and many other negative perceptions the American people have about the state of our nation.
They create hysteria, plain and simple. I think the media heard this story and found it to be the perfect tie-in story to heighten anxiety over the foreclosures. They have a lot of power, and aren’t reponsible with it.
Another interesting foreclosure case, for example. One of ABC’s “Home Makeover” houses is going to be foreclosed. Nothing to do with the mortgage crisis at all - the family took out a 2nd mortgage on the home for $450,000, and couldn’t afford to pay it. This is after 1,800 volunteers worked on their home, the home was paid off, and they were given $100,000 in cash by the builder. They basically cashed in on a good deed, and now their kids will be uprooted from a mini-mansion they were given as a gift, to who-knows-what.
Not every foreclosure is the same. But certainly, if you heap them all together, it looks like a much bigger crisis.
Thank goodness for blogs!!! ;o)
Alex Rothstein
Aug 27, 2008 at 11:23 am
I just wanted to make a correction.
Some of the previous posts have stated that life insurance policies on those who commit suicide do not pay out a death benefit. This is not necessarily true.
“I’ve never heard of a life insurance policy that paid out on a suicide.”
In many states there is a period of contestability of two years, after which it does not matter if the insured commits suicide or not - the death benefit will be paid.
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