Donna Osborn is guilty of murder in the second degree.

Pathos

Donna Osborn’s manipulative strategy to distract the court was to utilize her injuries to bring sympathy on her behalf. No other source holds record of these injuries in the way she, herself, described them except the Battered Women’s hotline, but the information gathered through the hotline is also from Donna’s point of view. Donna claimed that Clinton “had pushed her down a few times while she was pregnant,” and that in an act of jealousy “he threw a baseball at [her] head” (Pappas 90). Donna’s explanation of her injuries was in a manner of which made Clinton Osborn appear to be a criminally abusive husband. She portrayed herself as an innocent bystander who was wrongfully abused, but when questioned she never admitted to any form of abuse.

Ethos

In the Donna Osborn case, only two people testified on the side of Mrs. Osborn. Her supporters, however, were not reliable sources. Witness Jack Matthews was an unmarried man who worked with Donna. He is confessed to have offered to “take care of her” when he felt that she was having problems with her marriage (Pappas 15). While the depth of Jack’s feelings for Mrs. Osborn are unknown, it is evident that Jack Matthews was biased toward Donna’s side of the marriage, seeing as how Jack was present when Clinton “rushed into the room [and] grabbed Donna by the arm”(Pappas 14). Jack never was informed of the reasoning for this abrupt entrance of Clinton and therefore does not know the entirety of the story. Donna’s other witness was Kim Lenore. Kim Lenore stated that she has “a standard fee of $2500” (Pappas 16). Given a monetary bride, the human race is known to commit almost anything. The testimony of Ms. Lenore may or may not be truthful given that she was paid to give a statement on Donna Osborn’s behalf. The testimonies of Leslie Crown and Chris Powell are reliable, on the other hand, because they are unbiased people from the local community who happened to be involved in this case. As Leslie crown stated in her witness statement, “Donna would have had ample chance to tell [Ms. Crown] if he was abusive to her, but she never did,” therefore leaving reason to be suspicious of Osborn's real situation (Pappas 7).

Logos

Donna Osborn, after being brutally beaten by her husband, on several occasions, called the Battered women’s hotline. She explained her side of the story to the operator and multiple times, she was offered “permanent or safe housing” for a period of time to receive an escape from her abusive husband (Pappas 12). Donna Osborn repeatedly declined offers for a safe withdraw from her home. She was reported to be “in fear of her life” but continued to decline any offers from the hotline (Pappas 12). The fact that Donna Osborn called into a hotline to explain her experiences of an abusive husband but refuses an outlet arouses suspicion that her reported injuries could have been falsely reported in order to get away with the murder of her husband. Furthermore, in Sheriff Chris Powell’s testimony, he reported that ‘the door leading from the den to the back deck was open,” “clothes were strewn everywhere,” and “ a large oil painting of the Osborn family above the fireplace was slashed and destroyed” (Pappas 4). These details were not included in Donna Osborn’s explanation of the night she killed her husband. Donna was evidently hiding a part of the story that is crucial to the court’s decision of the case.