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Man Asks Court to Let Him Settle Divorce Dispute With Swords

He wants to meet ex-wife 'on field of battle'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 15, 2020 4:07 AM CST
Man Asks to Court to Let Him Settle Dispute in 'Trial by Combat'
Ostrom wants 12 weeks to find or make the swords.   (Getty Images/Bulgnn)

A divorced Kansas man who wants to talk to his children more often probably hasn't helped his cause by asking a court to let him kill his ex-wife and her attorney with a sword. According to court records seen by the Carroll Times Herald, 40-year-old David Ostrom asked a court in Iowa, where ex-wife Bridgette Ostrom, 38, lives, to allow him to settle a dispute over his ability to communicate with their two children with a "trial by combat." He said he had been "destroyed" legally and asked to be allowed to meet his ex-wife and her attorney, Matthew Hudson "on the field of battle where (he) will rend their souls from their corporal bodies." He also asked for 12 weeks to source or forge katana and wakizashi swords—the long and short swords used by samurai warriors.

Ostrom tells the Des Moines Register that he got the idea after reading about a case in which a judge on New York's Supreme Court acknowledged that duels had not been officially abolished. He says he filed the request out of frustration with Hudson. "I think I've met Mr. Hudson's absurdity with my own absurdity," he says, adding that he will allow the lawyer to serve as his ex-wife's "champion." In a motion filed against the request, Hudson corrected Ostrom's spelling, saying he must have "meant 'corporeal' bodies which Merriam Webster defines as having, consisting of, or relating to, a physical material body." Hudson also asked the court to suspend Ostrom's visitation rights and order a mental health evaluation. (More Iowa stories.)

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