Lavergne, Gary M. Worse Than Death: the Dallas Nightclub Murders and the Texas Multiple Murder Law.

• Author: Friedman, Barry D.
• Position: Book Review

Lavergne, Gary M. Worse Than Death: The Dallas Nightclub Murders and the Texas Multiple Murder Law. Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2003. xii + 257 pp. Cloth, $26.95.

Lavergne tells the story of the murder of six patrons of a Dallas nightclub just after midnight on June 29, 1984. The gunman, Abdelkrim Belachheb, an illegal alien from Morocco, had a lengthy history of charming women, becoming their financial dependents, and physically and mentally abusing them while they struggled to understand their predicament. But when a strong-willed female patron at the nightclub rebuffed Belachheb's advances by ridiculing him and, finally, pushing him away forcefully, Belachheb--an uninhibited chauvinist who could not reconcile himself to being treated disrespectfully by a woman--snapped. He retreated to his station wagon, gathered the Smith and Wesson 9-mm semi-automatic pistol that he had purchased a year earlier along with two clips holding fourteen rounds of 9-mm bullets, and returned to the nightclub to settle the score with the indomitable woman whom he now perceived to be his paramount nemesis. He shot her twice, and then proceeded to shoot other patrons sitting around the bar (including several women who had also resisted his advances). As one of the female victims lay wounded, although not mortally, on the floor, Belachheb approached her, placed the gun at her head, and shouted, "Take that, bitch!"; he then fired a lethal shot (p. 104). After killing the five patrons who had been sitting at the bar, Belachheb wounded a man trying to flee and killed another man walking out from the kitchen.

That Belachheb was the gunman was undisputed. A prominent defense attorney, who took the case on a pro-bono basis, sought a verdict of not guilty on account of insanity. The prominent manifestations of Belachheb's mentality were, chiefly, alternate episodes of, sometimes, grandiosity, and, at other times, complaints about perceived persecution. His sanity was the central issue--really, the only issue--of the trial. The jury delivered guilty verdicts on every count. Because Texas law at the time did not provide for the death penalty in cases like Belachheb's, he was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences...