“God Didn’t Listen,” Complains Lye Attacker 1

Herbert Rodgers couldn’t stand the thought of Carmen Tarleton, his estranged wife, seeing another man. Nor could he stomach the idea of the pending divorce. He beseeched the Almighty for divine intervention.

When God didn’t stop him, he said, he set out for her home, planning to beat the man with a baseball bat and pour lye over him. But when he got there, there was no man, so Rodgers broke into the house through a window, tied her up and dumped lye all over her in an attack that left her with a broken arm, a broken eye socket [from his beating her with a baseball bat], and burns over 80 percent of her body.

He didn’t care about the presence of their 12- and 14-year-old daughters, who were living with Tarleton. When Vermont State Police Troopers responded to the 911 call, the girls were outside the house, screaming “He’s killing her!” The officers entered the home, where

…[trooper Hugh] O’Donnell and other responding officers found Tarleton crawling on the floor, her face distorted from the chemical, her skin turning brown before his eyes as she begged for an ambulance. …

“During my encounter with Rodgers he told me that he had been talking to God over the past week or so asking him to stop him from doing this,” O’Donnell said in an affidavit released Monday. “He said that he was going to wait until his birthday for God to respond.”

Tarleton

That was six years ago. In recent days, after a mind-boggling 55 prior surgeries, Carmen Tarleton received a new face. No word on whether God has gotten better at obeying ultimatums from the faithful.

[image via nbcnews]

One comment on ““God Didn’t Listen,” Complains Lye Attacker

  1. Mainer Feb 28,2013 3:36 pm

    ‘God did not listen’ I have had that exact same problem….but it was about wanting a Maserati as I remember.

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