Monday, January 14, 2008

This is What Murderers Are Like?

While searching for stuff on parents murdering disabled children, I found a different case. Three eight year olds were murdered. When they asked a probation officer who he suspected, he named a bipolar 18 year old because 'he wore a black leather coat in all weather and listened to "devil music" such as Pink Floyd and Metallica.'
They questioned that boy and his developmentally disabled 17 year old friend, and the 17 year old confessed that he, the 18 year old and another friend had stabbed and raped the three boys. The problem: the victims had been beaten instead of stabbed (they had what appeared to be stab wounds, but were actually from wildlife), and had not been sexually assaulted.
Despite the evidence against their guilt, they were convicted. The 18 year old and 17 year old were convicted to life in prison, their friend to the death sentence (this was in US). Luckily, before the last sentence could be carried out, the case 'fell apart' and the three teens were declared innocent.
My question is: how much of this is related to the disabilities that at least two of the suspects had? I know of a bipolar man who was shot as a suspected terrorist, and it seems bipolar people often seem similar to the stereotype of a murderer. Was the fact that the one boy was bipolar related to this?

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2 Comments:

Blogger Andrea Shettle, MSW said...

Possibly their disabilities could have been factors too. But I found it interesting that, at least in the quote you use here, the police was actually commenting on one suspect's choice of clothing and taste in music.

As a vegetarian, I'm not overly fond of some people's choice to wear leather either, nor am I enthralled with any form of so-called "music" whose appeal seems intended to reside primarily in the sheer volume combined with visual trappings that have nothing to do directly with music such as weird costumes and elaborate stage effects. But on the other hand, I don't go around presuming that people who DO like these things are necessarily any more likely to murder people than anyone else. In most cases, I assume the most harm they're likely to do me is possibly a headache and the sudden need for ear plugs. And even that assumes that they would necessarily try to inflict their musical tastes upon me at top volume. Which they might not.

5:16 PM  
Blogger macskadĂ©k said...

NTs... relying on their almighty superficial signs...

Murderers are those who DON'T look like that. Do you know the story of Anne Sweet? She was a household servant in the 1920s, who received lots of abuse from her owners. They ripped her away from the peaceful village she was born in, and made her work hard, with lots of stress and an obligation to have sex with a young relative of the owners and don't say a word about that. It was customary at that time to treat household servants that way. Anne was a "good girl" in the first years, suffering silently, doing everything right, deemed exceptionally obedient... adn then suddenly killed both of her owners. When questioned, she didn't even remember what she did.

Murder is the most extreme thing a human being can do, and most human beings resort to it only if the circumstances are extreme as well.

Bipolar people experience their emotions more intensively, but not THAT intensively. Muder has to have a cause.

11:24 AM  

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