People are still talking about the shouting match… I mean interview… CNN’s Nancy Grace got into… I mean conducted, with murder suspect William Balfour’s mother earlier this week.
Balfour is the man police are calling a “person of interest” in the brutal slayings of Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew. Police say all three were victims of multiple gunshot wounds. The latest reports say Hudson’s young nephew, Julian King received two fatal gunshot wounds to his head and that the shots were fired at close range.
Shortly after that news broke Balfour’s mother appeared by phone on Nancy Grace’s CNN talk show vehemently defending her 27-year-old son’s involvement in the crime. For the record, Balfour hasn’t been officially charged with the triple murder; rather police are holding him in jail on a probation violation.
As I mentioned in a previous blog William’s mother, Michele Balfour, didn’t do her son any favors by the way she conducted herself on national TV. However, it got me thinking about how some parents absolutely refuse to see their children in any other light than positive.
In Balfour’s case this isn’t the first time he has run afoul of the law. As pointed out by various news reports, William Balfour has already spent nearly a third of his life behind bars for attempted murder and carjacking.
What’s more, his propensity for crime seems to run in the family. According to reports, Balfour’s father is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence for murder and his brother served time for drug dealing.
Still, Michele Balfour insists that her “baby boy” is an upstanding individual, who has been wrongly targeted by police and unjustifiably portrayed in the media as “Attila the Hun.”
Then, there’s this incomprehensible statement Michele made on Grace’s show when asked about her son’s prior carjacking arrest:
“My son — it was still in the man’s car, right? The man saw my son starting his car. He ran outside, jumped on top of his own vehicle. This is why they said vehicle hijacking, because my son jumped — the man jumped on top of the car while my son was stealing it, right? He stuck his hand inside the driver’s side and started choking my son. So my son kept driving even more, took the owner of the vehicle on a high-speed ride…”
So let me get this straight; the carjacking wasn’t Balfour’s fault… it was the car owner’s fault. According to Michele Balfour, her son would have never gunned it down the freeway with the car’s rightful owner hanging onto the luggage rack if the man hadn’t started choking her son while he was stealing the vehicle. (By the way, according to police reports, Balfour hit a number of utility poles during the carjacking incident, which led to the car’s owner sustaining severe burns from live wires.)
Asked whether her son could have committed the Hudson family murders, Michele Balfour told Nancy Grace:
“No, he has never done bodily harm to no one. He has never been the type of kid that you could say was a violent type.”
Lady, your son spent seven years in prison for attempting to kill someone.
In addition, a judge mandated that your son attend anger management classes (which he reportedly never showed up for).
Oh, and remember back in 1999, when a judge asked your son about the relationship he had with you. His response: “It’s good until she gets an attitude.”
Despite all of this Michele Balfour spent precious airtime trying to convince the world that her son is a “good boy,” who got his GED while in prison; that he is gainfully employed and there’s no way he could hurt a fly because he took horticulture classes while in the state pen.
Is this mom in complete denial or is she just doing what any parent would do in her situation?
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