Court papers reveal wife's terror of murder husband
Court documents have revealed that a woman whose husband killed her and two others at the spa where she worked said he threatened to throw acid in her face and jealously terrorised her “every waking moment”.
Authorities say Radcliffe Haughton, 45, killed three women, including his 42-year-old wife Zina, and wounded four others in Milwaukee on Sunday before turning the gun on himself.
In a written request for a restraining order filed on October 8, Zina Haughton said her husband was convinced she was cheating on him and that aside from the acid threat he also vowed to burn her and her family with gas. He said he would kill her if she ever left him or called the police, according to the court papers obtained by The Associated Press.
“His threats terrorise my every waking moment,” she wrote.
In a separate police report, she said the couple were in the process of getting a divorce and “we are always arguing”.
Haughton was arrested earlier this month for slashing his wife’s car tyres and she was granted a four-year restraining order on Thursday.
Under the order, Haughton was banned from owning a firearm, but police said yesterday that he bought the .40-calibre semi-automatic handgun used in the deadly shooting two days later.
Haughton, of Brown Deer, Wisconsin, was charged with disorderly conduct last year after police responding to a call saw him point what appeared to be a gun at his wife from a window at their home. Officers took cover, and a 90-minute stand-off followed.
Brown Deer police said Monday the stand-off ended peacefully, and they were never able to confirm a gun was involved because Mrs Haughton would not allow them into the couple’s home. The charge against her husband was dropped when a police officer failed to appear in court.
Police said the officer asked the prosecutor to reschedule, but the prosecutor refused. A call to the prosecutor yesterday went unanswered.
According to court records, Mrs Haughton called police and said her husband had thrown her clothes and bedding into the garden and poured tomato juice on her car.
Customers described Mrs Haughton as a popular hair stylist who decorated her work station with photos of her two daughters.
“She was a wonderful mom,” Kristin Guadagno told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “She had two daughters who were the foundation of her family. She was their everything. She worked so many hours every week to provide for them and take them on nice trips.”
The shootings that happened at about 11am triggered chaos in the commercial area around the spa.
Believing Haughton had fled, police began a massive, six-hour search that locked down a nearby mall, country club and hospital.
It was the second mass shooting in Wisconsin this year. Wade Page, a 40-year-old army veteran and white supremacist, killed six people and injured three others before fatally shooting himself on August 5 at a Sikh temple south of Milwaukee.
