Is it ALWAYS the husband?

Looking back at the hundreds of murder cases I've covered during my career, I would guesstimate that a good one-third of them involved men killing their spouses/girlfriends/baby mamas. During lunch with some former colleagues yesterday, we began talking about the murder earlier that day in Carson of Veronica Reyes, purportedly by her estranged husband, Carlos Reyes (left), who remains at large. We concluded that, yes, more often than not, it is the husband.

It brought to mind a preliminary hearing I watched that morning while waiting for another case to be called at the Long Beach Courthouse. The basic story was that a San Pedro couple of seven years, who have two young children together, were on the outs. She woke up one night in May to a tapping on her head and a shotgun in her face. Her 29-year-old boyfriend pointed the gun away quickly, she said, and they argued. A week before, he hit her and, she said, accidentally hit their 3-year-old, as they slept. In a different incident, he pulled up next to her in his car as she was trying to leave with their children and put a gun in his mouth.

The woman tearfully testified she was not afraid of him - only that she was afraid he would hurt himself, which is why she went to the police. She said the police told her he will hurt her, but she didn't believe them. Judge J.D. Lord did not find there was enough evidence to hold the boyfriend for trial on an assault with a deadly weapon charge, but acknowledged that he - like the police and prosecutor - recognized the domestic violence pattern that was emerging in their relationship.

"I'm not minimizing," Lord said about the case. "I recognize there is significant danger to the victim that just testified ... But I can't hold him to answer because I'm predicting the future, and it could be grim."

The prosecutor was going to file a different charge against the boyfriend, but sheriff's records indicate he was released from custody Wednesday evening.