Laughing, 48-year-old Berlinah Wallace threw sulfuric acid on her ex-partner while he slept in his Bristol apartment in September 2015. As the liquid fell on 29-year-old Mark van Dongen, she said: “If I can’t have you, no one will”. They had separated just a month earlier.
Van Dongen, a Dutch engineer, spent four months in a coma and more than a year hospitalized. He was left paralyzed from the neck down and lost an eye and a leg. In 2017, unable to bear the aftermath, he turned to euthanasia in Belgium, where it is legal. He was 29 years old.
On May 23, 2018, Judge Nicola Davies sentenced Wallace to life imprisonment — eligible for review after 12 years — and described the act as “pure evil”. She was acquitted of murder, but found guilty of intentionally throwing a corrosive substance. The intention, according to the prosecution, was to disfigure him so that no other woman would find him attractive. 😶
