Restraining order tragedy

[ANCPR]

Hello,

The story below represents the kind of tragedy that separation and
divorce can lead to.  The allegations that led to the restraining order
that evidently led this father to suicide are sealed.  I believe that
secrecy and cover-up are the last thing that our society needs in cases
like this.  There needs to be a complete investigation and public airing
of the details so that we, as a society, can decide how to handle the
fact that the stresses of divorce have a huge effect on the suicide rate
of men, but not on women.

Lowell Jaks, ANCPR  http://ancpr.org



http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/240/metro/Pilot_was_ordered_to_leave_h
is_home+.shtml

Pilot was ordered to leave his home

Notice was served day before crash

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff, 8/28/2001

MHERST, N.H. - Less than 12 hours before his corporate plane slammed
into his new $750,000 hillside home, Louis W. Joy III had been served
with a restraining order, sought by his wife earlier that day, by two
Amherst police officers. The order, which forced Joy to temporarily
leave both his palatial home and his volatile marriage, accused him of
domestic violence.


He left the house with a few belongings and without protest on Friday,
police said. It is unknown where he spent the night.


But by daylight Saturday, after Joy told Nashua airport officials that
he was flying south to Atlantic City, the plane buzzed his wooded
Amherst neighborhood, banked steeply, then smashed into his empty home,
destroying it.


No one on the ground was injured, and federal aviation officials are
investigating. Police said they are aware of no suicide note.


The domestic violence petition filed by Joy's wife, Jo, on Friday was
sealed early yesterday by a Milford District Court judge at the request
of her attorney, David Lauren.


In asking to seal it, Lauren said the affidavit contains information
that ''would prove extremely damaging'' to the couple's 8-year-old
daughter. Publication, he said, would further traumatize the child, who
''is entitled to retain favorable memories of her father.''


The restraining order, which temporarily banished Louis Joy from the
house at 19 High Meadow Lane in which he had lived with his wife and
daughter for about four months, also awarded custody of the girl
temporarily to his wife.


A hearing was scheduled for Sept. 24, but Louis Joy had not yet hired an
attorney, according to Lauren's petition. Lauren did not return calls
from the Globe yesterday.


Louis Joy, 43, a published author, business consultant, and motivational
speaker, had founded the consulting firm Manufacturing Excellence Inc.,
to which the plane was registered.


He was remembered as a reclusive eccentric who nailed all the windows
shut at his Newark, Del., home and became angry with a prospective buyer
of the house when she asked if he would remove a fence.


Joy coauthored a book with his wife in 1993 titled ''Frontline Teamwork:
One Company's Story of Success,'' which one synopsis said was
''guaranteed to capture the interest of front-line workers and help them
contribute to the success of their organizations.''


Residents in the sprawling Amherst development of million-dollar homes
said the plane buzzed the neighborhood around 7:30 Saturday morning
before the engine went silent and the plane plowed into the house,
avoiding a stand of trees no farther than 75 feet away.


Manchester Superior Court records showed no divorce filings involving
the Joys, nor any lawsuits or other legal matters regarding Joy's firm,
which he ran out of his home.


The chief medical examiner's office in Concord has not yet positively
identified Louis Joy as the man killed in the crash. An official there
said yesterday that the office was awaiting out-of-state medical
records.


At the crash scene yesterday, the builder of the house, Ron Rees, said
the crash and subsequent fire were so severe that the thick concrete
foundation of the Colonial structure was cracked beyond repair.


''It's more surreal than anything else,'' Rees said after viewing the
wreckage.


He said he had been in contact with Jo Joy, who he said is ''taking it
fairly well, and as well as anyone can be expected.''


It took Rees's workers about a year to construct the custom-built
dwelling to the couple's specifications. The $750,000 house had about
5,000 square feet of space.


The Joys moved in four months ago from Delaware. The long and winding
driveway was paved only days before the crash.


''It was a beautiful home,'' Rees said.


This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 8/28/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.