posted
So, instead of picking up your 8-year-old and carrying her home with you, punching, kicking and stabbing her and her friend is the option you chose? The mind boggles, indeed....
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
This happened not that far from here, in Zion. It's just awful. He had only been in town for a couple of weeks, having just been released from prison in Texas (domestic abuse, I think, and something about threatening people with a chainsaw).
I hadn't seen yet that he'd confessed. Thank you for the link, Olivia.
Posts: 3214 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I heard about it on the radio. It was strange. He seemed to think that having a 60 lb. little girl pull a knife on him mitigates what he did somehow? Not that it seems likely that she did.
Usually, even with shocking, front-page crimes, I can see something of why it happened. Like that Nichols guy, who shot up the courthouse and killed several people over WenchCon weekend? I could see how, mentally, he could arrive at that place, do those things and then suffer from the crushing weight of his actions and guilt, etc.
This is just totally alien to me. I can't wrap my brain around it.
Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Livvy, hon, it's called sick in the head. There's no way you can understand it, becuase he doesn't function the same way you do.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Personally, I think John Kass, a Chicago Tribune columnist, has come closest to expressing my feelings on this. (Kass is a favorite writer of mine, although we don't have a lot in common politically.)
quote:We once had a name for what happened to those little girls as they rode their bikes in that wooded lot in Zion.
It was always available, always lingering. There was no real protection from it, at least not on this earth.
We called it evil.
These days, another word is being used to explain what happened to the 2nd graders, allegedly at the hands of Jerry Branton Hobbs III, the father of one of the girls:
posted
The thread title combined with the link to the Baltimore Sun stopped my heart because a few years ago something similar happened to the sister and mother of a friend of mine in Baltimore.
I think I need to go back to bed and curl up in a ball for awhile...
Posts: 959 | Registered: Jan 2002
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Spider Robinson says "Fear turned inword is depression. Fear turned out-word is violence." Some how I can imagine that this...I can't call him father, man, person,...this guy was afraid of his daughter. Oh, not of the knife, but of her as a person separate and independent of his control.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:This is one of those cases that seems to call so clearly for the death penalty-- and so of course, since it's so clear, I have to question it.
What will we gain from this man's death, as opposed to his lifelong incarceration?
What if he really isn't responsible for his actions? Are we justified in killing him? How do we determine responsability?
Does responsability even matter?
I can't answer definitely, even of my own feelings, but my gut response is "we get rid of him."
I am against the death penalty in just about all ways. I think it's useless as a deterrant and dangerous when the innocent are wrongfully convicted. 9 times out of 10 I will tell you that I do not favor the death penalty. And then I read about things like this.
I don't want this person in the world. It's not vengeance, it's not justice. It's the same feeling I have when I see a rabid dog. I'm sad it happened, I know there are circumstances involved and that the dog can't help what's happening, but I will put the dog down. With sorrow, and without anger. I'm not mad at the dog.
Of course, it's hardly a fair analogy since we haven't proven this guy is irretrievably dangerous. Unless there is an untreatable chemical/genetic reason he acts this way, there is always the chance he could be rehabilitated. In this case he'd be more like a dog who has been trained to attack everyone. Dangerous, but time and care could encourage the dog into civility again.
Obviously, I'm conflicted. My first reaction is to get this guy out of the gene pool.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
This guy won't last a minute in gen. pop. .. he will spend the rest of his life in a solitary cell...which is much greater punishment than death....or we kill him...either way....
Posts: 54 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
And someone, somewhere actually let this guy out of prison on parole? Someone actually said, "He's not a risk for early release."???
And he killed, murdered, two little girls, one his daughter, and tried to blame it on self defense against a nine-year old girl.
Someone let evil walk out of a prison to do this. Someone that we trusted to be able to spot such a person and keep them away from us.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Oh, so now we trust them? I don't know about you, but I lost faith in many parts of the system a long time ago. We ruin the lives of innocent people and, in my opinion, over punish some for minor crimes, but then people do majorly bad things, and get a slap on the wrist or get out. It happens all the time, especially in domestic abuse and rape cases. This is another instance, maybe one we notice more, of something that goes on a lot. I mean, there are many, many cases each year of men who are released after serving 3 months on domestic abuse convictions, get out, and kill a woman, often the one who finally pressed charges and testified against them and/or her relatives. I'm not saying it's wrong to be upset about this case; it's not. But maybe we should be more aware of the others. Do you know that homicide, often by a spouse or partner, is the number one cause of death among pregnant women in the United States, according to a study reported in the March 21, 2001 JAMA, accounting for 20% of deaths during pregnancy?
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Most rape is by someone known to the victim, and murder is mostly spousal and then other family members after that. It's not something that people want to think about, but there ya go.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I would be interested to find out whether prison helped him become the sterling individual we see today.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I'm really more interested in what happened to this guy specifically that made him hack his daughter and her friend to death in a particularly violent manner. You can't get to 34, with only an incident of running around with a chainsaw chasing people, and then do something like this horror without some reason, something happening to you.
That study is interesting, though. Thanks.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:You can't get to 34, with only an incident of running around with a chainsaw chasing people, and then do something like this horror without some reason, something happening to you.
That we know about.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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For a brief moment, I'd considered a major in CJ.
Was this offender "born" broken? Can we trace a pattern of behaviors to a specific incident or a set of incidents that either created or contributed to the behavior patterns of this offender?
As Quid so eloquently noted, we have a very limited case history of this patient and even with a complete and accurate history, debate rages about "nurture versus nature" and similar schools of thought which would complicate any effort to provide you with a meaningful or even completely factual answer.
posted
I keep wondering what his wife was thinking. Was she worried or scared when he got out of jail? Did she worry about her family's safety? Did she suspect her husband when her daughter disappeared and was found dead?
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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My understanding from the various stories I've seen/heard is that Laura's mother was not married to the father, and that the father had no knowledge of her existence until the mother sued for child support and paternity testing was ordered, I think while he was in jail.
Personally, I blame Mom somewhat in this as well. Knowing that this man was as violent as he was (to have chased some guy around with a chainsaw - allegedly in self defense? come on!) and after the repeated beatings she apparently suffered, WHY would she have willingly allowed her child to have any exposure to him? Why didn't she pursue a restraining order?
The only good thing I can say about this whole thing is that now Laura is free from her father. Too bad it had to come at such a cost.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I just read this very interesting book called Freakonomics, and it showed really good evidence for the fact that the tremendous drop in violent crime in the U.S. in the last decade is mainly a result of legalized abortion 18 years earlier. For instance, the states that legalized abortion a couple of years before the U.S. as a whole did, also had an early drop in their violent crime. Also, they keep records by age, and the big violent crime drop has been among the young, while the rates for older criminals have remained about the same.
That is a connection that makes everyone upset or mad, but apparently it's true.
I've been thinking about that for a week or so and digesting the fact that violent crime is disproportionally committed by people who were unwanted as children. I'm not thinking to minimize the role of personal choice. Certainly it is paramount.
But what if it's really possible that the biggest difference between me and that guy who killed those girls is that I was wanted and loved as a child? That my parents had internal and external resources to raise me and at least some initial desire to bring me in the world?
Really accepting the actual truth of that connection between legalized abortion and violent crime 18-25 years later leads me to believe that we can really do something about violent crime, as a society. It means it's a largely preventable social ill.
When we fail to address problems in a humane and loving way up front, they come back in other forms later on. I don't know what the prescription is for the humane and loving up front way to fix the problem of unwanted babies growing up into adults who have a higher tendency to be violent criminals, but it does seem like the answer starts before they're even born. Doesn't it? Every evil hardened vicious criminal was once a newborn baby. What could we do for that baby, even before it's born, that we aren't doing now? I'm not sure, but it sure seems like there must be something.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Nope, it's plausible, all right. If children aren't loved, all sorts of bad things happen, and even if the parents don't outright abuse the child, I sincerely doubt that the child is too stupid to know that they aren't loved.
I think I want to read that book. Or would it just depress me?
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Tatiana, it's great to see you posting again! That's an interesting thesis, that legalized abortion is a cause for lower crime, but I'm unconvinced. Note that I'm pro-choice, so I don't have an agenda against abortion arguments.
If it's true, why has the murder rate for 14 to 17-year-olds nearly doubled in the post-Roe time frame, i.e. in 1984 a kid from 1973, the year abortion became legal throughout US, would have been 11, too young to commit murder except in very rare cases. 1997 is well into the post-Roe time frame.
quote: In addition, statistics show that much of the drop in crime isn't within the "post-Roe" age range. For instance, according to FBI statistics, the murder rate for 14 to 17-year-olds in 1997 was 94 percent higher than it was for 14 to 17-year-olds in 1984. Yet, during that same time period, the murder rate for 25 to 34-year-olds (those born prior to Roe) has dropped 27 percent. (source: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/oage.txt)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=270126 A paper refuting the thesis. Specifically, the paper claims Levitt, the author of Freakonomics and an earlier paper on abortion and crime, fails to separate age groups sufficiently when considering crime rates, thus lumping older criminals in with younger, post-Roe criminals.
quote:Abstract: Abortion may prevent the birth of "unwanted" children, who would have relatively small investments in human capital and a higher probability of crime. On the other hand, some research suggests that legalizing abortion increases out-of-wedlock births and single parent families, which implies the opposite impact on investments in human capital and thus crime. The question is: what is the net impact? We find evidence that legalizing abortion increased murder rates by around about 0.5 to 7 percent. Previous estimates are shown to suffer from not directly linking the cohorts who are committing crime with whether they had been born before or after abortion was legal.
posted
Oh, it was an extremely interesting book with lots of odd novel thoughts that came from looking closely at data we have. I highly recommend it. It's a very quick read, a page turner. Linkage.
It wasn't depressing at all to me. I found it fascinating and uplifting. The idea that we might actually shed light on some age old questions was exhilarating. When we really understand things then we can know how to go about making them better. It had some fascinating things to say about parenting as well, based on analysis of test scores and infant death statistics.
Morbo, hi and thanks! Though there's far from a total consensus on the question, his numbers were quite convincing to me, as were all his various cross-checks of the conclusion. How do they explain the early drop in crime rates for exactly those states that legalized abortion the earliest, for instance?
I don't take such a connection (if it exists) as an argument either for or against legalized abortion. The author himself said that it shouldn't change anyone's opinion on that question. What it does suggest to me is that there may be something we can do about violent crime. There may be loving ways to address the problem, beginning in earliest childhood, that could really work.
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Though there's far from a total consensus on the question, his numbers were quite convincing to me, as were all his various cross-checks of the conclusion. How do they explain the early drop in crime rates for exactly those states that legalized abortion the earliest, for instance?
