The judge had the perfect solution for a woman who killed the man she said had been tormenting her for several years: Stay away from men.
"I think she is a good woman," Common Pleas Judge Lisa Richette said of Lavina Richardson, 42, who stabbed 72-year-old Wilmer Broadnax to death last May 23.
"I don't think she is vicious. I think he (Broadnax) drove her crazy," Richette said.
The judge suggested that Richardson "stay away from older men. Stay away
from men - period. I think you are a perfect candidate for victimization."
Richette found Richardson, of the Tasker Homes project in South Philadelphia, guilty of involuntary manslaughter yesterday, telling her, ''Being a victim of a battered-woman syndrome does not give you a license to kill." Sentencing was deferred.
Assistant District Attorney David Augenbraun said Broadnax, of Euclid Avenue near 54th Street, apparently had been jealous of Richardson and that when he saw her in a car with another man, he became enraged.
After Broadnax bumped his car into the auto containing Richardson on Morris Street near 31st, he dragged her out and threatened her with a knife, Augenbraun said.
A 17-year-old boy disarmed Broadnax, who fell to the ground while he and Richardson were pushing each other. Then the woman stabbed him three times.
Augenbraun had sought a voluntary manslaughter conviction because when Richardson began stabbing Broadnax, "she wanted to kill this man."
