Penny Arcade Receives Letter From Killer's Stepmother
A few years ago, some Milwaukee teenagers convinced a homeless man to buy them some beers. As they sat around drinking with him, one of the little punks thought it would be fun to beat the guy up, and this ultimately led to the man's death. The kids, having worked up an appetite, went to McDonald's to grab a bite to eat. They ultimately were caught, arrested, and tried for their heinous crime and were each given jail time. You can read a detailed recounting of what happened over at CNN.
According to the police report, one of the kids said that beating the guy to death reminded him of playing a violent video game, which (if I remember right) Jack Thompson latched onto at the the time as yet another example of how Grand Theft Auto was destroying America.
Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik, AKA Gabe, read CNN's story and posted an open letter to the parents of all three teenagers in order to voice his disgust at the fact that video games were probably going to be blamed for their psychotic behavior in lieu of poor parenting. Yesterday, he received a response from one of the teens' stepmother, who wrote a very lengthy and horrifying letter explaining that, at least in this case, neither video games nor bad parenting are to blame:
We were also sick with guilt… “What could we have done differently?” was a constant question in all of our heads. After the kid was sentenced, all the cops, counselors, social workers, and people at the school that had been dealing with him contacted us and his mother and apologized for not taking us seriously. They are all trained to take all accusations of child abuse seriously, and as a part of that they blindly took the kid’s side for everything, and dismissed us as “the lying abusers”. Many of them told us that they wished they would have taken our pleas for help seriously. Everyone thought we were exaggerating about how fucked up this kid was.
The woman's letter itself is both heart-wrenching and terrifying, and my heart goes out to her family. I really recommend that you read the post in its entirety, and then count your blessings that you're not in a situation like the one she had to live through for years.
A Rare Opportunity [Penny Arcade]
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 22 February 2007
· Comments (8)
Other stuff like this: gabe, homeless, killer, penny arcade, stepmother
Out of the many, many reasons I never want children, having a child that ends up like that is pretty close to the top.
She has my sympathy...
*whistles* Good lo'. That kid sounds like a real villain, doesn't he? Nasty, cruel, violent, and smart as heck. I feel incredibly sorry for those people, having to put up with him. And he's 15! Criminy! I know a lot of 15-year-olds, and I can't imagine any of them being as nasty or doing something as freaking INSANE as all this. I feel so sorry for them, and they have my condolences, whatever the pity of a random stranger off the Internet may be worth. I hope that kid, intractable as he is, learns a few good lessons in prison. Sadly, he sounds like one of those people who simply cannot change...
Read that yesterday and its definitely stuck with me. Coincidentally, I'm also reading a section of Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" which talks about how humans could have evolved traits of kindness, altruism, etc. I guess its possible that some kids just don't have it in them to start with.
He sounds like a double chromosome kid.
Ha! I love how later on in the CNN story, another teenager likens beating a man to death as being like "teeing off" yet no one has made the obvious connection that golf turns people into murderous pricks. I mean, look at the Republicans!
The letter smells like truth because I've noticed similar traits between my brother and myself. While my brother has never turned violent, it's true that he suffers from impulse-control problems that have led to a variety of drug addictions and several jail sentences.
I think behavior like this (including random homeless killing) is caused by the neurological inability to associate action with consequence. Most people have parts of their brain that tell them when they're doing bad things.
Some people DON'T have the brain chunks that tell them to stop hurting people, or stop doing drugs, or stop telling lies.
wow, just... wow. im so lost for words about this. im actually..... wow...
I feel terrible for this woman and her family, what a terrible person that kid was.
I also think that the media and crazy idiots like Thompson are absolutely disgusting for using this for their own gain.
It's odd too, when I was younger I went through a lot of trouble and the adults constantly said *I* was the liar and none of them would trust any kid ever.. How is it that they trusted this kid? Especially since he was in trouble all the time.
Even if the counsellors were trained to take child abuse seriously, a kid who is constantly in trouble with the law, school, etc. is probably not very trustworthy.. especially when there is no proof of abuse.
At least the kid is in jail. If someone were to give him a break because of this video game thing, I would be insanely pissed. He deserves to go to jail for killing someone, it doesn't matter what caused him to do it. Bah :(