Biography
American abusive husband and homicide
victim, he was killed by his wife, a respected physician, on Easter
Sunday, April 8, 2007.
A graduate of Maine Maritime Academy with a degree in marine
engineering, Lancaster was a good-looking lad who pursued Ann Gryboski
when they were teenagers. After they married on July 1, 1979 in
Lexington, MA, he joined the Merchant Marine. For the first two years of
married life, they lived in Ann Arbor, MI, where Ann earned a master's
degree in public health at the University of Michigan. Their first
child, Christopher, was born there. On their return to Massachusetts,
Ann attended medical school with financing from her parents and she
became pregnant with their second child, Daniel. Although the young
couple shared a love for the outdoors, hiking, scuba-diving, and
rock-climbing, his volatile temper often erupted, alienating her family
and his own. He was estranged from his three sisters and two brothers.
When his wife showed up for work or for social events, she sometimes
sported bruises that she tried to explain away. They were most likely
evidence of his abuse.
In 1994, the couple moved to Cape Cod where Lancaster could work as a
marine mechanic and indulge his passions for boating and fishing. He
began a business repairing diesel engines and another chartering his
fishing boat. In 2001, Lancaster went to work for the Massachusetts
Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, but was reportedly fired in the middle
of the term. The reasons were not given. In the summer of 2006 he
underwent hip replacement surgery. He was also experiencing some loss of
hearing and was wearing a hearing aid. In September he landed a job as a
senior lab technician at the US Merchant Marine Academy on Long Island,
NY. Lancaster stayed in the dormitory there from Monday through Thursday
and headed back to his Barnstable, MA home on Fridays. His boss
complimented his work but said that at first Lancaster was “too
aggressive, very impatient. He wanted things done immediately." A few
months later, in February 2007, he had emergency hip surgery and was on
medical leave, scheduled to return to work on Monday after Easter.
On the Saturday before Easter, he and his wife were babysitting for
their grandson. On their return home from shopping, he turned on his
wife. As she drove, he began punching her repeatedly in the face as
their two-year old grandson sat in the backseat.
On Easter Sunday morning, April 8, 2007, their older son Christopher and
his fiancée came to the house to pick up their baby. Christopher asked
his mother how she obtained the bruises on her face. As she tried to
respond, her husband threw a tape measure at her. Christopher confronted
his father who then backed Christopher into the kitchen, threatening to
slit his throat. When Ann tried to intervene, her husband started for
her. She opened her purse and withdrew a gun that she was licensed to
carry. According to testimony at the trial, Lancaster told her “You're
so dead; you don't know what you started." She then shot him once but he
continued to approach her. She shot him two more times, killing him. Ann
then called 911. Emergency responders found her husband dead of three
gunshot wounds to the side and torso, inflicted at around 12:15 PM. They
also noted that she had swollen lips, blackened eyes and cuts on her
face and arms. Accused of his murder, she pleaded that she shot him in
self-defense after suffering years of verbal and physical abuse at his
hands.
On August 17, 2007, after hearing testimony from 27 people, a grand jury
declined to indict her. They recognized that she had been abused
psychologically, emotionally, and physically for over 20 years and ruled
that her actions were indeed taken in self-defense. Prosecutors dropped
all charges.
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