Why Women Kill

Overview

Last year, in America, 682 men were killed by their wives or girlfriends. That is the tip of an iceberg in which an estimated three or four million women are physically and psychologically battered and abused by their partners each year. Some kill to escape their predicament, but in many cases the courts will not let these women explain what motivated them. A life sentence is not unusual and some women are even sentenced to death. In this programme prisoners in Alabama and Texas reveal how they came to commit such acts.