Bad Decisions Lead to Chaos and Tragedy

It seems two stories involving the murder of wives/lovers and children by fathers/lovers verify suspicions that our society finds itself infested by moral decay. Both men have been arrested and charged with the murders of their children and in one case a spouse and in the other a female mistress. They are innocent until proven guilty but let's proceed with the discussion from the standpoint of if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is probably a duck.

The body of Jesse Davis was found on Saturday in the remote woods of a park 25 miles from her home in Canton, OH. A married police officer, Bobby Cutts, Jr. is the father of the unborn child in the deceased woman's womb and thus he has been charged with two counts of murder. As I understand it he is also the father of a two year old that apparently watched the murder take place, allegedly at the hands of his own father. Media interviews have rightly captured the tormented family's grief and suffering at wondering to what end their loved one succumbed to. It is simply gruesome to visualize a father killing his lover and unborn child in front of his two year old and then leaving the child in the home. But why did she have not one but two children with a man that apparently was proud of popping out children and walking away from them as if they were unwanted pets? What in the hell was wrong with her? She chose to have children with a deadbeat and the results of her terrible decision making equals death and a lifetime of chaos for her living child. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson rant against bimbo Paris Hilton's special treatment but abandon their own and fail to call for responsibility in what has become a fatherless culture based on selfish moral relativism. The lack of accountability eats us from the inside out yet the media and politicians strive for legislating morals and principles out of daily discourse. I'm telling you, it's the fall of the Roman Empire all over again.

How about the white guy that pulls over on a frontage road and kills his wife and children, leaves the murder weapon at the scene, and flags down a motorist telling them his family just got killed. It wouldn't take a very seasoned investigator to smell a rat in the first 12 seconds of this investigation. They killed your family and left the gun but miracuously you escaped and preserved evidence for us. There shouldn't even be a trial in this case. The only way this idiot escapes justice is if a liberal appeals court throws out his conviction because the cops put his handcuffs on too tight or if the jailer provided him with only one blanket instead of two prior to sentencing. Before a public hanging of this horror of a man, I would recommend the public return of caning so he can feel his flesh burn just like his family felt the searing of the bullets in their bodies. Can you imagine the shock and horror in the children's eyes as they watched their father prepare to murder them? The all-American family with a nice home, income, and life uprooted by sociopathic rage. What do you bet there was another woman involved? I am sure that short of this man being a blood brother to Ted Bundy there was some selfish motive and irresponsible desire that he allowed to consume him.

Nothing that could happen to these two despicable (if found guilty of course and blah, blah, blah after much waste of taxpayer time and money) human beings equals what waits for them beyond their own graves. I hope they like the heat.

Virginia Tech Massacre: Deaths of Sensitivity

The campus of Virginia Tech shall forever be hallowed and haunted ground. On Monday, April 16, 2007, Virgina Tech English major Cho Seung-Hui slaughtered 32 college students and professors in cold blood. Hui came to this country with his parents in 1992 and possessed a green card making him a legal resident. Dorm mates, fellow students, and faculty members described the troubled young man of South Korean descent as aloof, depressed, and uninvolved in the world and activities around him. Hui did make his way into the police blotter on two occassions in 2005. One incident involved a stalking complaint made by a female student and another referral came from a roommate concerned with what can be best described as Hui's suicidal depression. The red flags waved over the campus but apparently the administration and other school officials failed or chose not to recognize the warning signs. One of the professors "informally" expressed concern over the English major's graphic and twisted writings of horrific murder and macabre violence. Two and two started to add up to four but I guess no one felt intervening in the situation matched the risk of violating Hui's civil liberties or interfering with his freedom of expression. I wonder if anybody ever thought about the potential violations and civil deprivations of the now slaughtered students and their families.

Hui left behind an 8 page note describing in detail the real culprits and sources of blame for his rampant homicide spree. Apparently the kids of wealthy heritage and Christ himself maintain culpability in Hui's eyes. One line in the eight page letter of intent stated, "You made me do this." Yes of course we did. Talk about an arrogant outlook on the fundamental social tenet of personal responsibility. I am the product of a lower middle class upbringing and if he knew me I am sure Hui just as easily would have learned to abhor my presence and thoughts as well. Let us call a spade a spade. The kid would make the cover of Psychotic Sociopath magazine each of the twelve months of publication. Freud lives or at least his theories do. Sometimes a bad seed is a bad seed regardless of cultural input. Cho Seung-Hui is like that deformed calf the rancher finds struggling to get to its feet in a snow storm. It's just too bad we can't deal with psychopaths like Hui the same way a rancher does with that calf once the deformity is clear. The importance of his maniacal existence pales in comparison to the innocents murdered by his bloody hands.

The news media still holds much fear and loathing for guns in general. BB guns may get a pass but you can believe those of us that responsibly enjoy firearms and our Second Amendment freedoms will find ourselves ducking for cover in short order. I know that Glock 19 handgun probably took on a life of its own once in Hui's hands. It simply pointed itself at those unsuspecting and innocent students and proceeded to automatically fire while Hui held on for dear life. The coverage will shift in coming days as public mourning subsides and the armies of Rosie amass for an assault on law-abiding handgun owners in America. Hui took on the personna of a cowardly murderer. The pistols used in the commission of his haneous crimes were mere tools and incidental inanimate objects. His personal writings indicated his penchant for hammers and chainsaws. Let's try not to ignorantly personify guns.

I think this tragic incident spotlights major problems in our society and criminal justice system specifically. No you cannot censor the freedom of expression. No you cannot overburden the Constitution's protections of privacy and equal protection. But therein lies the problem. I am a novelist and write about graphic murder from time to time in the context of a fictional story. But I haven't been contacted by the police twice this year for stalking. I have yet to be referred by a friend to a mental health facility out of concern for my suicidal depression. We throw blanket protections on each case failing to analyze the big picture. Each case must be analyzed while keeping all the information in perspective. You cannot jump up and say this killer cannot be investigated after all the warning signs manifested themselves prior to the murders. No, don't censor someone artistically expressing their views and even their violent views in writing. But you damn sure better violate this type of person's civil liberties if the big picture clearly shows that he or she travels a path leading to absolute death and mayhem. Will we ever bring commonsense back into our daily processes or will we continue to provide blanket coverage and protections regardless of the impending doom that hovers above us in plain view?

Andrea Yates Tragedy

It whizzed by in a blur and then I had the chance to focus on it when it recycled itself in the news headlines. A jury in Texas found Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity in the drowning deaths of her five children, none of them older than 6 years if memory serves me right. This was Yates second trial. In the first trial a jury of her peers found her guilty but the verdict was thrown out afterwards based on what legal minds call a "technical glitch, procedural error, or some other such nonsense ." Now she is herded off to a mental facility for "intensive" treatment and counseling sessions. My question is, what for? Can't they just lock her in a room (instead of a cell in this case), throw her a coloring book and some yogurt, and pass her a mop once a week so she can clean up around her accomodations? The woman gets away with murdering her five children including an infant daughter but her actions are rationalized through the time honored defense team practice of basing a case on insanity. And modern juries are still dumb enough to buy it.

Let us attempt to delve into the world of common sense which we know has no business in a court room. Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists constantly feel "beneath" their M.D. counterparts so most are more than willing to be labeled experts in a courtroom and justify their education and professional goals by assisting a defense attorney in convincing the world that the accused is scientifically "insane." Unless bailiffs had to physically shackle Andrea Yates to prevent her from removing her own eyes and eating them or to quell the stench from her bathing in her own wastes, she is NOT insane. Insane is lighting yourself on fire and tossing yourself upon your neighbor's grill because you really believe you are an Oscar Mayer wiener and you hope to get eaten.

OK, so obviously this second "loony" jury in Texas bought the whole "crazy as a craphouse rat" defense put forth in the second trial. A murderer escapes any semblance of real punishment and the taxpayers get to flip her bill (probably anywhere from $80k to $120k per year) for the rest of her natural life so that graduate students can use her as the basis for their thesis and earn their Ph.D's. You have to love the state of modern juris prudence. How ridiculous.