On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, one half of a newly-wed couple allegedly strangled the other half with an orange electrical cord in the couples' new, million-dollar Long Island, NY home. The motive for the murder still isn't clear.The husband in this case: Michael Forbes, age 50, 6'1" and 250 lbs. Forbes served time for violent crimes in the 80s, most notably attempted murder.
The wife: Trinidad native Kelly Chadee Forbes, age 29, 5'5", 140-150 lbs.
It sounds like another tragically predictable instance of domestic homicide until the suspect is named. This time it is the wife, Kelly Chadee Forbes [her photo is on the left -- click to enlarge].
Emergency services answered a 911 call from Kelly Forbes on November 21, 2007. Responders found Michael Forbes unconscious at the Forbes residence. Forbes died an hour later. Cause of death: asphyxiation.
In a jailhouse interview published in the NY Daily News on Sunday the 25th, Kelly stated that the murder had been a matter of self-defense. "I was just trying to save myself," she said.
Kelly and Michael were married in September. They'd been dating for a year or so. Shortly after their wedding they moved to their new home -- away from Brooklyn, where Michael worked in real estate and where Kelly had lived for some time.
A reporter noted bruises on Kelly's arms. Crying, she indicated that abuse by Michael Forbes prompted the violence that took her husband's life.
The truth will eventually come out. For now there is only Kelly's testimony as to what happened. Her words and the troubling bruises.
Kelly Chadee Forbes had an online presence, much of it apparently posted prior to her relationship with Michael Forbes.
She had a MySpace profile that was private, visible only to friends, her last login date the day before her husband was murdered, November 20, 2007:
http://www.myspace.com/sxytrini78.
Kelly was "Sxytrini" on hi5.com, another social networking site:
http://sxytrini.hi5.com/.
That public profile showed that Kelly was receiving comments from some of her 226 friends as recently as November 19.
She'd apparently created the profile when she was still dating, as she'd written the following in a box labeled "Who I'd like to meet":
I'm a laid back person, I have a 7yr old daughter and a busy work schedule. I can be sarcastic at times and have a really good sense of humor so I would prefer someone who can laugh at themselves now and then...Under "Interests," Kelly referenced the island where she was born:
I'm from Trinidad, so I like visiting when I have the opportunity. I love watching basketball, but somehow I never made it to a game...so that's something I want to do very soon...And Kelly's favorite quote? "Only God Can Judge Me."
Kelly Forbes was KMarie117 on the networking site WAYN.com:
http://member.wayn.com/kmarie1127.
There she listed many of the same things about herself that she'd posted on her other site, including, again, her favorite quote: "Only God can judge me."
The same quote was prominently displayed on Kelly's Yahoo profile:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/kmarie1127.
That page, last updated at the end of September, 2006, made it clear that Kelly had done some Internet flirting, if not dating. Under "real name," Kelly wrote, "IF U DONT HAVE A PIC...4GET IT."
She probably meant she didn't want any strange men chatting her up unless she had some idea as to what they looked like.
Kelly Forbes also made it clear in several online profiles that she was a big fan of erotica author Zane. The pseudonymous author's work has been referred to as "black erotic fiction at its finest."
Did the attractive Kelly (her profile photos showed a much more appealing woman than her mugshot, of course) see her marriage to the older man as a trap, especially once she'd moved from Brooklyn out to the home on Long Island? Did she realize that the romantic, erotic scenarios she read in her favorite fiction were less likely to come true?
Was Kelly Forbes fighting back against abuse just a few months after she married the man she allegedly murdered? It's a compelling question. Was Michael Forbes intimidating and threatening all along, or (if Kelly is telling the truth) did the act of getting married flip some sort of switch in the ex-con's head?
Kelly Chadee Forbes would probably have only one answer to any discussion of what happened that Wednesday. That much seems obvious.
Her answer would surely be, "Only God can judge me."
Sources:
New York Post;
Newsday.com;
New York Daily News.
