EASTHAMPTON, Mass. – Charles Thurman spent nearly eight years in jail after stabbing his wife nearly to death in an attack that led to changes in Connecticut’s domestic violence laws. His notoriety lives forever in a television movie about the brutal assault.
Twenty-five years later, Thurman has quietly slipped into a working-class life in Easthampton, Mass.
Thurman, now 47, declined to comment on this grim silver anniversary of his assault, saying he wants to put the past behind him.
“With the things I have been through with this in the last 20something years, I am not really willing to talk about it,” Thurman said in a voice-mail message. “Every time I talk, it always comes back to hit me in the face. I am tired of hearing about it. I really truthfully just wish it would die, but I don’t think it ever will. But if that’s what they want to keep doing, so be it.”
Thurman long ago dropped the nickname Buck and prefers to be called Charles.
About a year ago, he and his wife, Christine, their 5-year-old son and Christine’s daughter from a previous relationship moved into a close-knit neighborhood of small, well-kept homes in this western Massachusetts town of about 16,000 people. Christine is nearly blind, said neighbor Pam Wright, who described Thurman as a contented spouse and father, always willing to help his family and lend a hand with neighbors. He is thrilled to be a homeowner, she said.
Neighbors have never seen him drink or smoke.
“If I offer him a beer on the porch in the summer, he declines,” Pam’s husband, George Wright said. “He has never explained why, or anything more about his past. He just says he had to give it up because he had a problem with it once.”
George Wright, who is retired, said Thurman has plowed his driveway. He described him as an immense help.
Thurman’s modest ranch home is surrounded by a manicured lawn, flower gardens and a small vegetable plot.
Pam Wright, who called herself a victim of domestic violence in a previous relationship, said she learned of Thurman’s past through coworkers at Smith College in nearby Northampton, where she has a clerical job. She discounts it as any reason to fear him.
“He waves in the morning and says, ‘Good morning, Pam,'” Wright said. “His past doesn’t matter to me. He’s never even uttered a vulgar word in my presence.”
Easthampton police say there is no record of violence at the Thurman home. The Wrights said they’ve never seen a hint of trouble in Thurman’s relationship with his wife. “In fact, they’re so affectionate, I have more than once suggested they find a hotel room,” George Wright said.
The Wrights’ portrayal of a man with boundless patience contrasts sharply with the memory Easthampton Police Sgt. William Kelly has of the same man he arrested and booked in 1999 for violation of a restraining order requiring him to stay away from his former Northampton girlfriend.
His ex-girlfriend accused him of violating the restraining order when he approached her, waved and honked his car horn at her and her son, whom he fathered. The woman had fled the state the year before after accusing Thurman of repeatedly choking and sexually assaulting her, according to police and court records. The restraining order required him to remain 100 feet from her.
A judge ordered him to serve one year of probation, which he served without incident. The case has been erased from Hampshire County court files.
“He had mood swings,” said Kelly, who was aware of Thurman’s past when he arrested him. “He was very thankful for the way we were treating him. Then he’d flip out and accuse us of making a bullsh*t arrest, and that he shouldn’t be there. His moods were like that, up and down.”
In 1983, Thurman was sentenced to 20 years, suspended after 14, for first-degree assault. He was convicted of stabbing his wife 13 times, stomping on her head, and partially paralyzing her.
His public defender, Eugene Riccio, appealed the conviction and won March 31, 1987 based on his argument that Judge Walter J. Pickett Jr. had failed to instruct the jury that they couldn’t draw a bad inference from the fact that Thurman chose not to testify. The case was sent back for retrial but was settled on a plea agreement. Thurman wound up serving nearly eight years, and five years of probation.
Riccio claimed Thurman suffered from a mental impairment which altered his decision-making abilities.
“We argued that he couldn’t appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct as a result of his impairment, based on brain damage,” Riccio said, who argued Thurman’s emotional level was that of a 6- or 7-year-old child. “He wasn’t capable of controlling violent impulses.”
The lawyer could not explain how his former client has managed to go 25 years without another attack as violent as the one he unleashed on Tracey. “Prison does change people,” Riccio said.
Riccio said Thurman does regret his actions and has made it clear he won’t violate the lifetime restraining order which prevents him from stepping foot in Torrington. In court on Aug. 12, 1987, he told his ex-wife, turning to face her:
“Tracey, I’m never gonna bother you again. All I want is to let that baby know I love him,” he said, referring to their then 6-year-old son, C.J. He has made good on his promise.
“In his mind, he believed Tracey was taking his son away from him,” Riccio said. “He wasn’t able to deal with family problems through normal channels. What I saw was an individual during the months of trial who was controlled, cooperative, polite and respectful.” Thurman was portrayed as “the domestic violence Frankenstein,” Riccio said, “but I never felt that to be true in light of the mental health issues.”