Obituaries : * Cynthia Gillespie; Author of Book on Battered Women

Cynthia Gillespie, 51, attorney, co-founder of a women’s law center and author of a nationally acclaimed book on battered women. Her 1989 book, “Justifiable Homicides: Battered Women, Self-Defense and the Law,” has been used in trials nationwide and was read by Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste before he granted clemency to 26 women serving time for killing their abusive husbands or boyfriends. Gillespie, who co-founded the Northwest Women’s Law Center in Seattle in 1978, contended that English-based U.S. law was designed for men and lacks protections for women dealing with abusive partners. On Jan. 29 in Seattle of breast cancer.