September 30, 2007
Murder and Remorse
I was just reading about a Queens case the NYPD's Cold Case Squad recently solved where the murderer said he was sorry. Not surprisingly, the family did not accept the apology. Now, I wasn't there, I don't know the man, so I don't know how genuine his apology was. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I can understand how that might be immaterial to the family.
It's just that I was recently posting online about this. I don't think I have ever seen a murderer express genuine remorse. Except, I haven't seen a lot of murderers. Maybe it happens.
I'd been googling Willie McGee. He was executed in 1951 in Mississippi for raping a white woman, although it was said that they were in a consensual relationship and she cried rape when he broke it off.
I was curious if the woman who accused him, Willamette Hawkins (aka Willette, sometimes Wilmetta) ever expressed remorse for what she had done. I fantasized calling her up, but she is dead now.
It made me wonder if anyone ever expresses remorse later. I was thinking mostly about civil rights because of my search. I specifically asked if anyone ever expressed regret later for spitting or jeering or screaming at the Little Rock Nine. Well, I just found this story on Vanity Fair about the woman in the famous Will Counts photograph (shown above). Hazel Bryan, the girl in the white dress, apologized later to Elizabeth.
It's not murder, but this is an extremely interesting article. With a very depressing ending, mostly because of the other people who didn't apologize and to this day don't seem to think they have anything to apologize for. But I'm glad Hazel apologized. I'm for accepting apologies if they are genuine. If we don't accept apologies it means we're not accepting that people can become better people, and that's like saying society will never change, never get better, so why bother? But again, when it's someone you care for who is murdered, I can certainly understand feeling differently.
September 14, 2007
A Beastly Kind of Cruelty
As someone who loves my pets I can never understand this kind of behavior. So it makes sense to me that the kind of person capable of this is the kind of person capable of murdering people. Thank you to Mike Bosak who included this piece and the excerpts in his daily email.
A Beastly Kind of Cruelty: Mass Murderers Often Prey on Animals before Turning on People, By John M. Glionna - Friday, August 17, 2007, The Los Angeles Times.
Excerpts from the piece:
Studies suggest that youths who engage in animal cruelty often commit violent criminal behavior as adults. Among those who preyed on animals before turning on people were mass killers Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler.
Nationwide, an increasing number of animal cruelty cases are being reported outside city limits: Horses, cows, goats and other farm animals are being killed, authorities say, often by angry, reckless youths, perhaps acting on dares.
Although there are no statistics on such crimes, newspapers detail scores of cases. Two Texas college students were indicted last fall for slashing a horse's neck before stabbing it in the heart with a broken golf club handle. In Pennsylvania in 2005, three joy-riding men killed a pony named Ted E. Bear that belonged to a 4-year-old boy.
Last year, two Tennessee teens shot and killed 24 cows, many of them pregnant. "They just wanted to see what shooting cattle was like," said Hickman County Sheriff Randal Ward.
California has also seen its share of the rural violence. In addition to the Northern California cattle shootings, Oakland police are investigating the May killing of 15 goats, each shot in the face as they huddled in a portable pen. Officers said residents had called in to report the sound of "babies crying."
Fresno County detectives arrested two groups of teens in 2005 in the shooting of two dozen cows and horses. In 2003, two Sonoma County men used their cars to ram to death a horse named Gentle Song.
Still, the killing of large farm animals garners little attention in the United States, where the loudest outcry is reserved for the killing of suburban pets or other domesticated animals. Recently, pro football quarterback Michael Vick made front-page news, charged in connection with operating a dog-fighting farm.
Although 43 states have passed felony animal cruelty laws, they rarely apply to livestock -- thanks in part to a strong cattleman's lobby -- as long as ranchers follow "accepted husbandry practices."
"Animals raised commercially for food have little legal protection against cruelty," said Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, a group that campaigns against cruelty to farm animals. "It speaks to a prejudice against certain animals, not based on a rational assessment of their ability to feel pain but on our intended use for them."
Studies suggest that youths who engage in animal cruelty often commit violent criminal behavior as adults. Among those who preyed on animals before turning on people were mass killers Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler.
The random killing of larger animals signals a troubling psychology that experts are only beginning to understand. Even when caught, most youths refuse to talk about their crimes.
Researchers are developing a personality profile of those who kill large animals outside the context of legal hunting. Abusers who target livestock act out of a different motivation than those who pick on smaller creatures, said Mary Lou Randour, national director of human-animal relations for the Humane Society. "Driving around in search of animals to kill is very planned and methodical, which could make it more pathological and dangerous. These animals could be standbys for the real thing: a human being."
For the complete piece, click here.
The picture was from http://www.hallwoodranch.com.