Nicole ABUSHARIF

 

Classification: Murderer

Characteristics: Alcoholic - Lesbian love triangle - To collect insurance money

Number of victims: 1

Date of murder: March 15, 2007

Date of arrest: 2 days later

Date of birth: September 14, 1980

Victim profile: Rebecca "Becky" Klein, 32 (her lesbian lover)

Method of murder: Suffocation with a plastic bag

Location: Villa Park, DuPage County, Illinois, USA

Status: Sentenced to 50 years in prison without parole on July 27, 2009 Nicole Abusharif is an American woman who was convicted of the 2007 Villa Park, Illinois murder of her lesbian lover, Rebecca "Becky" Klein. After being found guilty of first-degree murder in May 2009, Abusharif was sentenced to 50 years in prison at the Dwight Correctional Center in Nevada Township, Illinois. The case made national news due to the intrigue of a "lesbian love triangle" murder. Murder and Investigation On March 17, 2007, the body of Rebecca Klein was discovered in the trunk of her 1966 Ford Mustang after Klein's domestic partner of seven years, Nicole Abusharif, reported her missing. Klein was found bound with duct tape, gagged with a bandana, blindfolded, and suffocated with a plastic bag over her head. Four days later, Abusharif was charged with first-degree murder and concealing of a homicide. Villa Park police officers believe Abusharif killed Klein on March 15, 2007, two days before her body was found. After Abusharif allegedly suffocated Klein to death, she went out with another woman, 19 year-old Rose Sodaro, whom she met on the social networking site MySpace. That night, Abusharif and Sodaro went bowling in Tinley Park, then returned to Abusharif's home where they engaged in sexual intercourse. Sodaro believed that Klein was Abusharif's roommate, not her life partner. In addition to her relationship with Sodaro, police also believe that Abusharif was motivated to kill Klein due to a $400,000 insurance payout. Forensic scientists found fingerprints on the duct tape and plastic bag belonging to Abusharif, as well as her DNA on the bandana. Prosecutors also uncovered a slew of lies Abusharif allegedly told including stating to Sodaro that she had been a New York City firefighter during the September 11, 2001 attacks. Abusharif, who was also an alcoholic, claimed to have liver cancer and told Sodaro that her alcoholism would lead to her death. Abusharif also brought Sodaro to a funeral home, where she dramatically selected her own casket. During the police's investigation into the murder of Klein, Abusharif's co-worker at a Des Plaines security company, Robert L. Edwards, was charged with five counts of obstructing justice for allegedly lying about his whereabouts when Klein was believed to have been murdered. Police focused on Edwards during their initial investigation because he was at Abusharif and Klein's residence on March 16, 2007 during the search for Klein. He later admitted to police that he and Abusharif were "drug buddies who shared wild sex fantasies". Initially Edwards was on a $1 million bail which was later reduced to $500,000. After being indicted on first-degree murder charges, Abusharif was held at the DuPage County Jail on $3 million bond, later lowered to $1 million. After bonding out of jail, Abusharif was put on home confinement in her Oak Lawn apartment. However, on April 25, 2008, Abusharif violated her bail by leaving her apartment to visit a family member's home next door. Although Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Ruggiero applied to have Abusharif's bail revoked, her bail was only increased by $100,000. She returned to county jail, but was back out on bail before her trial began. Trials In November 2008, Robert L. Edwards went to trial on charges of obstructing justice. Villa Park police still believed he was not involved in Becky Klein's murder, but he was convicted of the obstruction charges and sentenced to 75 days at the DuPage County, Illinois work camp. Nicole Abusharif's jury trial commenced on April 20, 2009. Though Robert Edwards did not testify for the prosecution, Rose Sodaro did, as well as many members of Klein's family. Abusharif also testified in her own defense. When confronted with the evidence against her, she admitted lying during the police investigation. The defense hinged on whether Abusharif would have been physically able to kill Klein.  Abusharif's defense attorneys, Bob Parchem and Dennis Sopata, maintained that Abusharif had a bad back, and would not have been able to subdue Klein, who weighed 40 pounds more than her. While Abusharif's attorneys were skeptical of gaining an acquittal, they were able to prove that Klein's murder was not "cold, calculated and premeditated", as the prosecution requested. That eliminated the possibility for a sentence of life in prison without parole. Verdict and Aftermath On May 5, 2009, Abusharif was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Becky Klein after thirteen hours of jury deliberation. She faced up to 60 years in prison, but Judge John Kinsella sentenced Abusharif to 50 years incarceration. She will have to serve 100 percent of her sentence before being eligible for parole, at the age of 76. Abusharif's conviction was affirmed by the Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court on March 4, 2011. Nicole Abusharif Sentenced to Fifty Years for Murder of Rebecca Klein Dupageco.org July 28, 2009 WHEATON – DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett announced today that twenty-eight year-old Nicole Abusharif (d.o.b. 9/14/1980) formerly of Villa Park, was sentenced to fifty years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for the 2007 murder of her former roommate thirty-two year-old Rebecca Klein. On May 5, 2009, a jury found Abusharif guilty of First Degree Murder after a two-week long trial and approximately thirteen hours of deliberations. Judge John Kinsella, who presided over the trial handed down today’s sentence.  On March 17, 2007, Villa Park Police officers discovered Rebecca’s body inside the trunk of a 1966 Ford Mustang the couple owned. She had been bound, gagged, blindfolded and suffocated with a plastic bag. The police were at the residence in response to a missing person’s report filed by Abusharif the day before. Abusharif filed the missing person’s report after Rebecca’s employer phoned the couple’s home when Rebecca failed to show up for work that morning. “For the murder of Rebecca Klein, Nicole Abusharif will spend the next fifty years behind bars,” remarked Birkett. “I would like to thank all those involved in seeking justice in the memory of Rebecca Klein, particularly Assistant State’s Attorneys Joe Ruggiero and Tim Diamond, the Villa Park Police Department, the Major Crimes Task Force, the U.S. Marshall’s Office and the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office. At only thirty-two years-old, Rebecca Klein was taken from her loved ones at far too young an age. Our prayers continue to go out to her family. While Rebecca is gone from their lives, perhaps today’s sentencing and the knowledge that Nicole Abusharif will likely never again see a single day of freedom, will bring some measure of closure to this horrible chapter in their lives.”  Abusharif will be required to serve 100% of her sentence before she is eligible for parole.   Woman denies killing lover in Villa Park murder By Christy Gutowski - DailyHerald.com May 2, 2009 Nicole Abusharif admits she is a liar. But she denied being a killer Friday while insisting to a DuPage County jury she had nothing to do with her lesbian partner's violent death.  Abusharif took the witness stand for about four hours as the arduous trial - which included eight days of testimony from about 30 witnesses and 150 pieces of physical evidence - drew near its end.  DuPage Circuit Judge John Kinsella told jurors to expect to begin deliberating Monday after listening to lawyers' closing arguments. Abusharif is accused of suffocating 32-year-old Becky Klein March 15, 2007.  Police investigating Klein's disappearance discovered her body two days later in the trunk of the couple's 1966 Ford Mustang in the detached garage of their home on Harvard Avenue in Villa Park. A plastic garbage bag was taped around Klein's head. Her hands and feet were bound with duct tape. Prosecutors Tim Diamond and Joseph Ruggiero argue Abusharif killed Klein to pursue a romantic relationship with another woman and also to collect about $400,000 in life and mortgage insurance. Forensic experts testified they found Abusharif's finger and palm prints on the duct tape and garbage bag, as well as her DNA on bandannas used to gag and blindfold Klein. The night of the murder, the other woman stayed with Abusharif in the Villa Park house after the two partied and bowled together in the south suburbs. The woman, Rose Sodaro, testified earlier in the trial that Abusharif gave her a key to the Mustang that night as a present. Sodaro said Abusharif led her to believe Klein was just a roommate, not lover. Abusharif testified Friday she loved Klein. She said they had an open relationship and that Klein didn't object to Sodaro as long as certain rules were followed.  The defendant admitted repeatedly lying to police, family and friends about the fact she spent that night with Sodaro but said she did so only to avoid having to expose intimate details about her open sex life. "I was protecting Becky, even though she's dead," Abusharif testified. "I wanted to protect her name. It's nobody's business what we did behind bedroom doors." Upon Ruggiero's cross examination, Abusharif admitted profiting in eight earlier insurance claims ranging from auto accidents to workers' compensation. She also admitted several other lies and inconsistencies. For example, to explain online chats with Sodaro in which Abusharif said she was a hero New York firefighter during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, or that she had cancer, she said it was just a fantasy game they played.  The defense team, Bob Parchem and Dennis Sopata, argued it would have been physically impossible for Abusharif to overpower Klein and load her body into a trunk. They said it isn't surprising that Abusharif's fingerprints were found all over the crime scene since the couple was in the midst of repacking holiday decorations. The defense noted it was Abusharif who called 911 to report Klein's disappearance. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. Abusharif, 28, is free on a $1 million bond. The defendant is living with her father in Oak Lawn and said Friday she never returned to the Villa Park house after her arrest. Klein, a college graduate who worked with disabled adults, grew up in a close-knit family in Streamwood. Her parents, Jeff and Marilyn Klein, and an older sister, Melanie, and many other relatives and friends have attended the lengthy trial.   Villa Park slaying was over a 3rd woman, prosecutors say Nicole Abusharif goes on trial in slaying of 'life partner' Rebecca Klein By Art Barnum - ChicagoTribune.com April 23, 2009 The evening that Rebecca Klein was slain, Nicole Abusharif, her "life partner, the love of her life," had gone bowling and was at a bar drinking shots before inviting a third woman to spend the night at the couple's Villa Park home, a prosecutor said Wednesday. Assistant DuPage County State's Atty. Joseph Ruggiero told a jury that Abusharif had been dating the third woman for about a year, and that when she had invited her to spend the night of March 15, 2007, her "significant other" already was "hogtied and suffocated in the trunk of their classic 1966 Ford Mustang parked in the garage [of their home] in the 200 block of Harvard Avenue." Ruggiero's comments came during his opening statements in a trial in which Abusharif faces charges of murder. Defense attorney Robert Parchem, in his opening remarks, said Abusharif and Klein had "a good relationship, but an unconventional one. They allowed a third party into their relationship, with certain rules, as long as their relationship remained a priority. This was not your normal relationship and normal faithfulness." Parchem said Klein knew about the third woman and had met her several times. Klein, 32, had been missing for two days when she was found dead March 17, 2007, in the trunk of the Mustang with a plastic bag over her head, her mouth duct-taped and her hands and feet bound. DuPage prosecutors said they will "introduce evidence that the defendant killed the victim after their romantic relationship deteriorated and had a desire to start a new life with [a different woman]." Abusharif, 29, who has been on home confinement at her parent's Oak Lawn home on a $1 million bond since several weeks after her arrest, denies the charges. Two days after a missing person's report was filed, and after Abusharif reportedly told police she didn't have the keys to the Mustang in the garage, police found the victim's body. Klein cared for adults with disabilities at a Winfield business, and Abusharif worked for a company that sold security cameras. Abusharif is charged with murder and concealment of a homicide. If convicted, she faces up to 60 years in prison.   Money, other woman possible motive in murder Abclocal.go.com April 22, 2009 Rebecca Klein's body was found inside the trunk of a car.  The murder trial of her domestic partner, Nicole Abusharif, began on Wednesday and prosecutors said money and another woman were the reasons for the murder.  Nicole Abusharif, who is out on bond, took a smoking break on day one of her murder trial. The 28-year-old pleaded not guilty to first degree murder and concealment of a homicide. She is accused of killing her long-time domestic partner, 32-year-old Rebecca Klein in 2007. The two lived together in Villa Park. In opening statements on Wednesday, assistant state's attorney Joe Ruggiero described how Abusharif used a plastic bag to suffocate Klein, then dumped her body in the trunk of the couple's 1966 Ford Mustang, parked in the garage of the home. Ruggiero said evidence - including finger prints on garbage bags and duct tape used to bind Klein and DNA on bandanas used to gag and blindfold her - linked Abusharif to the crime. For the first time, prosecutors suggested a motive, saying Abusharif had another lover and spentthe night of the murder with her. Also, they said, Abusharif stood to gain up to $400,000 in insurance and savings if Klein was gone. "Was it money? The love for another woman? Probably both," Ruggiero told the jury. "If you get rid of Becky, you can have the money and the girl you love can move in." The prosecutor promised jurors, "you will meet the other woman." Her name is Rose. The defense argued that the couple had an open relationship and that Klein knew her. Defense attorney Bob Parchem said, "Abusharif lied and covered up for Rose because she didn't believe people would understand the nature of their relationship." That was a fear, he said, that was confirmed when the first officer to arrive after Klein was reported missing asked, "What is this? The 'Jerry Springer Show'?" Rebecca Klein's sister, Melanie Baldridge, was first to take the witness stand. She broke down while describing how she found her sister's cell phone in the basement while police were still looking to her. And Abusharif had told her she didn't have a key to the trunk of the Mustang where the body was eventually found. The trial is expected to continue into next week. If convicted, Abusharif could be sentenced to life in prison.    Girlfriend charged in Villa Park slaying Woman was suffocated with bag By James Kimberly - ChicagoTribune.com March 22, 2007 A Villa Park woman who had reported her live-in girlfriend missing was charged Wednesday with murdering her and hiding the body. DuPage County State's Atty. Joseph Birkett said Nicole M. Abusharif, 26, of the 200 block of North Harvard Avenue, suffocated Rebecca Klein, 32, with a plastic garbage bag Thursday night. Abusharif hid Klein's body in the trunk of a 1966 Ford Mustang parked in the garage and told police that she did not have a key to it, Birkett said at a news conference. An evidence technician discovered Klein's body and the plastic garbage bag Saturday afternoon after removing the back seat of the car. Police later discovered a key to the trunk on a key ring. Abusharif, who has been in custody since Saturday, was charged with first-degree murder and concealment of a homicide. She is scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning, where bond will be set. If investigators know what prompted Abusharif to attack her partner, they weren't saying. "We are asking anyone with information about the facts and circumstances of the homicide or a potential motive to please call us," Birkett said. Police had not been called to home for previous domestic disturbances, he said. Acquaintances of the couple said they did not see signs of strife. "They're both very nice girls," said Cathy Watters of Joliet, whose adult daughter, Erika, once lived with the couple. "I've known Becky and Nicole since Erika lived with them. We were all shocked. I've never ever seen Becky and Nicole argue. Erika said the same thing." Abusharif and Klein recently bought the Villa Park home and planned to renovate it. Klein cared for adults with disabilities at Range of Motion in Winfield. Abusharif worked for a company that sells and installs security cameras and volunteered at Range of Motion, said Jeff Klein, Rebecca Klein's father. In an interview Saturday, Jeff Klein said the couple had been together for five years. They did not appear to have financial trouble, he said. Klein could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Although Villa Park police and the state's attorney let the public wonder about Rebecca Klein's whereabouts for two days after her body was discovered, Birkett stood by that decision. "The citizens of this community were well protected, well served," Birkett said. "When there is a debate over the dissemination of information and the search for the truth, the search for the truth takes precedence." Birkett said he believes the public supports the decision to withhold information even though Abusharif was in police custody. "Patience is a virtue," Birkett said. "We understand the public's need to know, but we also need to pursue the truth and at the same time protect the public and both interests were served here properly." Murder in Villa Park: Love and lies By Lori Weiner - WindyCityMediaGroup.com May 13, 2009 Lovers begin as strangers, and as time erodes the edifice of unfamiliarity, the partners are often confronted by surprises. If the new information affirms our faith in her suitability for us, the relationship continues and endures. If, however, it reveals duplicity, treachery and betrayal, typically the relationship ends. Usually this process follows a predictable template: accusations, followed by tears, protestations, and denials. But in the dissolution of the partnership of Nicole Abusharif and Rebecca Klein, little was typical.  Nicole Abusharif was convicted of the first-degree murder of Becky Klein on May 5, 2009. It was not an easy decision for the jury. They deliberated for 11 hours over two days before agreeing with the prosecution that Abusharif, now 28, was responsible for killing her partner of eight years. Her alleged motives were as ancient as the human race: greed and lust. Abusharif held a combined $400,000 in insurance policies on Klein, and during the year immediately preceding the murder, had fallen deeply in love with a 19-year-old bisexual woman, Rose Sodaro, whom she'd met on MySpace. Sodaro was the prosecution's star witness. Now 22 years old, with a brown pageboy haircut and pert, turned-up nose, Sodaro described, in a marked Chicago accent, her relationship with the defendant. It began with e-mails, then progressed to telephone conversations and finally, to meeting each other. A sexual relationship ensued, with Abusharif inventing numerous false identities for herself to nourish Sodaro's interest. She claimed to be both a Villa Park and New York firefighter, told her younger lover that she was decorated for her service at Ground Zero after the 9/11 tragedy, and toward the end of the relationship, bragged about being accepted into an elite corps of Villa Park firefighters—the rescue squad. None of Abusharif's claims was true. She worked at a security company in Des Plaines and had a substantial nest egg, prosecutors claimed, composed of monies received from eight successful automobile and workman's comp insurance claims.  Abusharif wasn't above trolling for sympathy to maintain her girlfriend's attention. She claimed to have been successfully treated, via transplant, for liver cancer. She told Sodaro that she was a heavy drinker, that her inability to control her alcoholism would inevitably cause her body to reject the new liver. She even dragged Sodaro to a funeral home, where Abusharif dramatically selected the casket she wanted to be buried in. At the memory of Abusharif instructing her to ensure that a firefighting logo was inscribed on the coffin, Sodaro broke down in tears on the witness stand.  On the night Klein disappeared, Sodaro and Abusharif had a date. They went bowling in Tinley Park with Sodaro's friends, and at 3 a.m on March 16, they returned together to the Harvard Avenue home in Villa Park shared by Abusharif and Klein. Sodaro testified that she was aware of Becky Klein. She knew her as her lover's roommate and had no idea the two were actually life partners, complete with matching commitment rings.  Two days later, after an admittedly bungled missing persons investigation by Villa Park police, a violent crimes task force discovered Becky Klein's corpse in the trunk of Abusharif's "baby," her 1966 Mustang, a car which Nicole named "________" and whose appellation she used as her MySpace password. The car was parked in the detached garage of the Villa Park house. Klein's hands and feet were bound with duct tape, her mouth was gagged, her eyes covered with a blindfold, and around her head was a plastic garbage bag secured, once again, with duct tape.  It was a horrific crime, and Abusharif quickly became the prime suspect. Although she had no documented history of violence, although the Klein-Abusharif union was regarded by friends and family alike as an ideal one, the revelations of Abusharif's titillating secret life cast a long shadow of suspicion. Her actions during the search for Klein did little to dispel that impression: she displayed no obvious distress or concern for Becky's welfare, instead focusing on Sodaro. Abusharif told the teenager to lie to the police if they contacted her, to claim they didn't know each other. Abusharif tried desperately to keep Sodaro out of the whole mess, lying to the police that she didn't know the girl's surname, cell phone number, or e-mail address.  Her lies were suspicious enough, but the physical evidence against Abusharif was overwhelming. The Mustang had two trunk keys, and both were found in her possession. Twenty-five finger and palm prints belonging to Abusharif were found on the garbage bag used to suffocate Klein. Abusharif's DNA was found on the bandanas used to gag Klein's mouth and blind her eyes. And more DNA belonging to Abusharif was found on the duct tape used to bind Klein's feet and hands, and to securely fasten the garbage bag over her head.  Abusharif's defense attorneys, Bob Parchem and Dennis Sopata, had little chance of an acquittal given the tsunami of evidence against their client. So they resorted to innuendo and accusation to deflect attention from Abusharif's actions. And shamefully, one of their tactics was to discredit the very nature of lesbian relationships. Parchem claimed in his opening arguments that gay relationships are "different" from straight ones, that infidelity is generally accepted as normal, that Abusharif's desperate wooing of a third party was a typical component of a lesbian union. With his folksy manner and quizzical tone, Parchem seemed to be saying, "Those wacky gay girls. Who can figure 'em out? This is just what they do." ( To their credit, the prosecution quickly rebutted this contention, reminding the jurors that Becky Klein believed her relationship to be monogamous, that Becky Klein wasn't engaging in similar behavior, that Becky Klein considered herself to be married to the defendant in the same way Klein's sister was married to her husband ) .  The defense also offered an alternate explanation, albeit a flimsy one, for what really happened to Becky Klein. They claimed that Klein and Abusharif argued about Sodaro, that when Abusharif decided to meet Sodaro in Tinley Park against her partner's wishes, Klein angrily declared her intention to go to her sister Melanie's house. With that, both women left Harvard Avenue, and according to the defense, Abusharif never saw Klein again. An unknown assailant, the defense posited, murdered Becky after Abusharif left the house.  The most plausible of the defense's arguments concerned Abusharif's physical limitations. With a bad back and weighing 40 pounds less than her partner, they argued there was no way Abusharif could have subdued and bound Klein, let alone stowed her in the trunk of the Mustang, all while leaving no marks on the body or bearing any signs of a struggle herself. But sitting in the courtroom and walking to and from the proceedings, Abusharif, who has gained weight since the murder, looked neither infirm nor waifish.  The defense did manage to score one victory. The jury declined to add to its guilty verdict a key aggravating factor—that the murder was cold, calculated and premeditated, as the prosecution requested. Had they done this, Abusharif would have been eligible for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. As it stands, she will serve a minimum of twenty years and could serve as many as sixty. She will be at least 48 years old before she has her first opportunity for parole.  After she is sentenced by Judge John Kinsella in early June, her most likely destination will be Dwight Correctional Facility in Dwight, Ill., the state's only maximum security prison for adult female offenders. Among the women Abusharif will meet there is Marilyn Lemak, a Naperville homemaker and former surgical nurse convicted in 2002 of slaying her three children. Ironically, Lemak, 44 years old at the time of her sentencing, was also a DuPage county resident who suffocated her victims.  Though the jury found Abusharif to be responsible for the murder of her partner, unanswered questions remain. The most pressing is whether or not Abusharif acted alone. According to published reports, even at the time of her arrest in 2007, authorities expressed doubt that Abusharif had the physical capacity to subdue, restrain, murder and hide her 160-pound partner by herself.  In November 2008, Robert Edwards, who worked with Abusharif at the security company in Des Plaines, was convicted of obstruction of justice in the murder investigation of Becky Klein. Edwards—who did not testify at Abusharif's trial—lied to police about his whereabouts the night of the murder—he was videotaped by Villa Park police admitting to being present at the Harvard address on March 15—and about the nature of his relationship to Abusharif. After initially claiming he only knew her casually from work, Edwards later admitted that he and Abusharif used drugs together and discussed having a three-way sexual encounter, presumably with the bisexual Rose Sodaro and not Becky Klein—though the intended third party was never named.  Edwards has not been charged in connection with Klein's murder. He was sentenced on December 30, 2008 to 75 days at the DuPage County work camp on the obstruction charge. However, Edwards' legal problems continue—he is also facing charges in Cook County for child pornography, discovered on his computer during the Klein murder investigation.  For the family of the victim, the conviction of Abusharif brings, perhaps, the closest thing to closure they will ever have, though nothing will ever mitigate the pain of their loss. But for the family of the convicted, the guilty verdict is the beginning of a very private ordeal understood only by the unfortunate few who have also given birth to, raised, and loved a criminal. Though Nicole's parents and brother were never charged with any wrongdoing in the death of Becky Klein, the guilty woman's actions have tainted them with the brush of accountability.  But throughout the trial, the Abusharifs were far from cavalier. Rather, they appeared shaken, confused, and painfully aware of the seriousness of the charges facing their daughter.  Her father paced the courthouse hallways nervously, telling an observer that Becky Klein was "like another daughter" to him and that he never in his life imagined that he, and his family, would be in such a terrible situation. Her mother sat on a bench, blinking back tears, explaining that she wanted to extend her condolences and sympathy to the Kleins but was advised not to do so by her daughter's lawyer.  Though the Abusharifs' pain is private, it is real. Though the public has little empathy, they are, themselves, innocent. And their betrayal is one of Shakespearean magnitude: their daughter is a convicted killer. What parent would ever believe this to be true of their baby? Yet the accusations have been proven, and somehow they must face it.  The losses engendered by the murder of Becky Klein cannot be overstated. Most importantly, there is the loss of Klein herself, a woman described as the most generous and giving person one can imagine, a woman beloved by her family and friends, a woman who devoted herself to helping people with disabilities find meaning in their lives. Her family and friends are now forever deprived of her. And the family of Nicole Abusharif is left to grapple with the fact that their only daughter is now a convicted murderer.  Clearly, the word "tragedy" was invented for just this situation.