Rafael Rocha-Perez/Martha Freeman vs. Otto Sanhuber/Dolly Oesterreich

When I read the CNN article (http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/09/29/closet.murder/index.html) about how Martha Freeman, Jeffrey Freeman's wife, kept her lover Rafael Rocha-Perez in the closet of a spare bedroom, and that they were accused and convicted of murdering Jeffrey Freeman, I immediately thought of Man in the Attic. I've only watched parts of this movie, which is why I haven't rated it yet. I found the movie to be profoundly disturbing, especially since Man in the Attic was based on the real life affair of Dolly Oesterrich, wife of Fred Oesterrich, and Otto Sanhuber (http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/classics/otto_sanhuber/1.html). It's hard to believe a comedy, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0062739/, was based on the Oesterrich murder.

What puzzled me about the Rafael Rocha-Perez/Martha Freeman trial is this: why didn't they use the same defense as Dolly Oesterrich and Otto Sanhuber? Why didn't they claim Rocha-Perez killed Mr. Freeman in self-defense? And why did the jury to conclude it was premeditated, first-degree murder? Mind you, all I had to go on is the CNN article itself, which didn't say very much. So I Googled the Web and went to the Tennessean website for news articles about the murder trial.
Here's the first article: (http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060927/NEWS03/609270412).
The second article: (http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200660927009)
The third article: (http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609280409)
And a fourth article: (http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609290431

It turns out that, by the coroner's testimony, Jeffrey Freeman was first bound and then strangled in that order. So there was no way Rocha-Perez and Freeman could plea self-defense from an understandably enraged, jealous, humiliated husband. If Jeffrey Freeman wasn't bound, his wife and Rocha-Perez would have probably been convicted of second-degree murder at best if not manslaughter. And, fortunately, since they weren't able to hide the murder for years like Oesterrich and Sanhuber did, they would have gone to jail. Fortunately yet again, though, their own actions led to a proper conviction.

Jeffrey Freeman didn't have to die, just like Fred Oesterrich didn't have to die. That's what divorce is for. And it's still amazing that men like Otto "The Batman" Sanhuber and Rafael Rocha-Perez are willing to isolate themselves from the rest of the world to be with the women they love.

Or so we would think. According to Denise Noe's research in the Crime Library article linked in the first paragraph, Sanhuber went on to marry a woman named Mathilde. I guess he opened his eyes to what was really going on.