A nursing assistant who stabbed her husband to death has been acquitted of his murder after a court heard she suffered years of domestic abuse.
Donna Cobb, 42, plunged a butter knife into Kevin Cobb’s heart in self-defence during a violent struggle at their home in Harlem, New York, on a night in November 2006.
Her husband was high on cocaine when he returned home at 3am and attacked her while screaming that he was going to kill her, the court was told.
Mrs Cobb said she grabbed the knife from a bedside table and ‘poked’ the father of her six children with it to stop his assault. She said she had no intention of killing him.
During her testimony at Manhattan Supreme Court, she said: ‘I just wanted him to stop choking me.
‘I didn’t think he was going to die. That was not my intention. I mean, I loved him.’
After describing the life-and-death fight, she sobbed: ‘I’m sorry.’
But prosecutors claimed that Mrs Cobb did not act in self-defence as the knife ‘poke’ was three-inches deep.
It was also argued that the conflicting accounts of the incident she gave to police was evidence of her trying to cover-up a murder.
Defence attorney Earl Ward disagreed and said the injuries sustained by Mrs Cobb were consistent with a violent struggle.
The jury took less than two hours to find Mrs Cobb, who works at Harlem Hospital, not guilty of murder.
Speaking to reporters outside court, her attorney said: ‘It was clear to the jury she was a battered woman.
‘There was evidence she was being choked. She had marks on her neck and he had scratches on his hands.
‘She was fighting desperately for her life.’
During the trial, the defence introduced witnesses who backed up Mrs Cobb’s account of the injuries she sustained before she killed her husband.
‘We brought in someone from her church, from her job, the two oldest kids, and they all corroborated the bruises and the black eye and the punctured ear drum,’ Mr Ward said.
‘This was a case that should not have been brought.’
Bizarely, when the case was intially covered in 2006, the murder weapon was erroneously reported as a ceramic elephant and not a knife.
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I witness abuse when i was child (7-10yrs). if I was tall enough, strong enough, old enough, I would have killed the monster (not my father) was abused my biological mother until the day she died.
Its Sad, Black Men really need help. Its wrong for any Black man to abuse Black women as they have enough to contend with, they are your Black sisters, cousins, moms, daughters etc. But one has to look at the way this system is set up, Back in history, Whites wouldn’t give them jobs and prevented the needed resources from being equitably doled out in their communities, yet Wtes had no problem opening liquor stores in Black commuities on every corner, nor shoveling the drugs and guns into Black communities so as a result you have a generational epidemic thats gotten way out of hand. The damage appears to be far too great and far too extensive, the damage is done already! Whatever Wtes set out to do, they’ve accomplished their goal, they have virtually destroyed the Black family! Whats tragic is that many of these Black youth with guns killing others without conscience are the sons crack addict and drug addicted parents from those same drugs that were shoveled into their communites going back to the 60′s. The problem is not immediate, its been generational. Many of these young Black men come fom broken homes, drug addicted homes and many come right out of the court system, they are already damaged goods. The love, the nurturing, the care, parental guidance.. not there! The dad’s who should have been there to raise their sons properly…Not there! Where are they you ask! Filling the many jail cells in every state, in every town all over America, over 2 million Black men locked behind bars to be exact. Why you ask? Its the way Wtes have set up this system, to destroy the Black man, as by doing this, they inevidably destroy the Black family, they destroy the Black household. You ask, where are the Black men who should be the leaders of their families and communities, rotting in their Jail cells, many of them for crimes never committed! The Black youth of today, the gangs, the violence, this is the result of a system set up by a whose agenda stems back to the time of Willie Lynch Days. Whats sad is that even the young black youth who are trying to do something good with their lives have less than a half of chance in hell, why…many succumb or are forced to join gangs just to survive their neighborhoods. Sad, this is a lost generation of black youth. These Kids have not Hope! They consider themselves lucky if they even live to be 30! Many of the Black youth today are lost souls! They need help, they need someone who really cares, they need guidance, they need somone who gives a damn! Have people so easily forgotten Mother Hale of Hale house in Harlem. Many of us had worked in some of the inner city hospitals years ago and the number of babies born from drug addicted parents were too numerous to count. I feel for Black people as they have been the most discriminated against people in the world, but if many Blacks would arm theirselves with knowledge aforethought, knowledge of their own real Black history and the history of Wtes in this country, knowing the stage has been set for you to fail since the time of your ancestors, then you have armed yourselves and your children with the armor needed to avoid the pitfalls and traps set for you. Above all, try as best you can to make sure you put God in your lives and in the lives of your children before all else. Whatever your beliefs, know without a doubt that your greatest sin is not put God first in all that you do whether it be great or small! And for Black men, our message to you is go out and be a mentor to these Black youth, give back to help make up for the damage thats been done, these young Black men need to know that someone out there really cares about them and that society hasn’t given up on them, otherwise there is no hope for them, as they are lost souls! Please, they need your help above all as you are their Leaders!
Kai,
I agree, but remember this is some men not all men. My father used to beat my mother often, it’s something I that I will never do. What ever we can do, control, create is what we have to do. There’s not one to blame, and that’s is where I have to stand up, and where we have to stand up – no one else! The beginning of a new year is the best time to start the process.
Thank you
Daniel
HW
Just finished watching episode and what that woman had to go through is terrible. I would never let any man touch me