Mystified and Miffed

by Susan Filan

I cannot for the life of me figure out why certain cases capture the media’s attention, and thus the public’s attention, while others do not.

Why aren’t all of the murdered and missing children, and all of the mothers and fathers accused of killing their children, covered by the press? Why isn’t each case newsworthy, a cause in and of itself, a cry for justice? How do the powers that be choose among the murdered and the missing to decide which cases are anointed to celebrity status? Only the chosen few accused or their victims become notorious. For example, the murders of Laci and Connor Peterson, the abduction of Elizabeth Smart, the death of Caylee Anthony, the alleged abduction of Madeleine McCann, became worthy of a nation’s time and attention. And yet other victims go to their silent graves unmarked by a press hell-bent on feeding the public’s voracious appetite for the tragic and the awful.

Does the victim have to be a certain race, economic status, and have a certain “pretty” factor?

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to which cases get chosen and which cases do not, nor does there seem to be any explanation for the public’s fixation over certain cases to the point of national obsession.

I no longer believe the public is following a case to get an up close look into our criminal justice system. Instead, it seems to be more of a voyeuristic feeding frenzy on someone else’s pain, perhaps obviating the need to feel our own. Or perhaps it is a lynch mob mentality that without our system of justice would have people taking to the streets to stone or hang those deemed worthy of loathing. 

I was taken by surprise over the public’s growing fascination with the Casey Anthony case that culminated in an inexplicable fixation. Not only could I not understand the attention this case received, I could not understand why this case, and not another case.

And now that the case is over, the recent offer by Hustler Magazine to pay half a million dollars to an acquitted defendant for a nude photo shoot, is both revolting and baffling. I suppose in our celebrity worshipping culture, it is not surprising that Ms. Anthony would try to cash in on her ill-gotten fame. She has reportedly solicited a million and a half dollars for television interviews. But it is surprising that anyone would actually pay it. I condemn those who would buy Ms. Anthony “story” in order to heap more on an already saturated public.

We have binged enough on Casey Anthony and it is time to stop rewarding her with fortune or even more fame.

I wish that all murdered and missing children receive the same feverish thirst for justice that Caylee Anthony does, and that the public cashes in on their buying power by developing an appetite for the greater good, rather than the lowest common denominator.

We Tell Our Children There Are No Monsters

by Donna Pendergast

We tell our children there are no monsters.
They don't come out at night, they don't hide in the dark.
They don't torture and kill little girls.
This trial will prove beyond any doubt that we delude ourselves...

Those were the words that began my opening statement in a horrific murder trial where two 12-year-old girls were sexually assaulted and stabbed in a park. Their broken bodies were later found stuffed in a hidden culvert, a visual image that haunts me to this day. The pictures were as bad as it gets and remain indelibly engraved in my mind.

With the recent spate of horrific child murders that memory comes back all too often. I am forced to ponder the concept of a society where children are not safe to run and play, and parents live in very real fear of monsters who walk the streets and hide in the shadows or sometimes who don't bother to hide at all.

Leiby Kletsky, 8 years old, was recently murdered in Brooklyn, New York, on the very first time that he was allowed to walk home from a summer day camp. His dismembered body was found in a trash can in Borough Park, a tight-knit and insular community of orthodox Jews which is considered by most to be a "safe" place in the community. In Detroit, the police await the identity of the burned body of a small child found in an abandoned home, while at the same time acknowledging that the description matches that of Mariha Trenice Smith (pictured right), a five-year-old child who disappeared or was abducted from her home this past Sunday morning, a short distance away from the burnt out home where a small body was found. And in Norway, a country mourns the slaughter of at least seventy innocent youths hunted down and murdered last Friday at a wooded retreat accessible only by boat. The shocking details of the brutal massacre are still continuing to emerge.

When a child dies, our sense of comfort and security is turned upside down. In an increasingly violent world we are forced to confront an unfortunate truth; there are monsters out there. So how do we take today's realities and redefine what it means to be a parent? How do we keep our children safe while allowing them to experience the world and become independent? How do we balance our fears and and yet still allow our children to play outside, to ride their bikes and to walk to school. How do we protect our children without clipping their wings and cramping their style?

For a generation of Baby Boomer and Generation X and Y parents the answer is difficult. Many of them grew up in a world where streetlights were the curfew, cell phones were unknown and walking to a friends house alone was a rite of passage. A walk home after dark was nothing to be feared-it was the norm and it was a special occasion when their parents offered or agreed to give them a ride to their friend's house or to an event. Yet they survived and thrived and became increasingly able to spread their wings and fly the coop.

Now they parent a generation of children who only need see the evening news to know that danger lurks outside their very door. They are responsible for keeping their children safe in a world where predators lurk around many corners and sometimes have access to their very homes via gaming technology, the Internet or via bold and sensationalistic crimes. They are tasked with policing their children's every activity while suspecting that every restriction and rule may have a detrimental effect on their children's mental and physical development. Astute parents fear that epidemics like childhood obesity are related to an increasingly restrictive environment where their children's ability to run and play is dependent on parental supervision and the ability of an adult to transport them to limited and well defined locations for safe play. They understand that they are the first line of protection for their children yet fear that such protection is stunting their children's potential and ability to grow and flourish.

Metal detectors can not shut violence out of our children's lives. As parents it is our responsibility to keep them safe. On the other hand it is also our duty to insure that our children don't find themselves unprepared in a world that bears little resemblance to the the restrictive and regulated environment of the family womb. We need to equip our children to flourish on the journey from a protected environment to a world that requires intelligence, insight and the ability to grasp the big picture.

There are no easy answers.

Statements in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General

From Hope Spring Drive to Pear Tree Lane

by Holly Hughes

Google the name Jadon Higganbothan and you might get ten hits or so.  Google Pear Tree Lane in Durham, North Carolina and you’ll probably get even less.  On the other hand, Google Caylee Anthony or Hope Spring Drive and you’ll never be able to read all that has been written concerning those two subjects.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a horrible tragedy what happened to Caylee and we were all right to be indignant over her death.  But the sad truth is there are hundreds of thousands of children who are murdered everyday by the very people who are supposed to love and protect them.  This brings me to the case of Jadon Higganbothan.  Jadon was a brown skinned little cutie with big brown eyes and an infectious smile.  He was living with his mother at Pear Tree Lane when he met his untimely death.  But, they weren’t the only ones living there.  And Jadon wasn’t the only one to “disappear” while living there.

Peter Lucas Moses, 27, was living there and was the leader of a group called The Black Hebrews.  Some have called it a cult, others a religious sect.  The label doesn’t matter to me.  What matters to me are the horrendous acts that allegedly took place there.  And the fact that no one in main stream media seems to have picked up on this tragedy.  

Jadon was four years old when one of the other women... oh, did I mention this was a polygamist sect?  When one of the other women reported to “Lord", yes, that’s what they called Peter Lucas Moses, that Jadon had swatted another child on the bottom.  In response to this childish, playful act, Peter Lucas Moses took little Jadon into the garage, turned on the music of the Lord’s prayer, took a gun, held it to the four year old’s head and pulled the trigger.  

Why? You might ask.  Why, because Jadon was gay, of course. Yes, folks, that is the crazy, illogical conclusion that Moses jumped to after hearing about Jadon’s playing.  If that isn’t horrific enough, not only does he jump to a conclusion that may or may not be true, but then, he murders a four year old in reaction to that conclusion.  The murder isn’t the only obscenity here.  Several women living in the house, including Jadon’s own mother, then cleaned up the bloody body and put it in a suitcase and stored it in the attic.  That is, until Moses began to complain about the stench.  Then his poor little body was stuffed into a garbage bag, just like Caylee, and buried in the back yard of another home the "cult" owned.  

Meanwhile, his mother, Vania Sisk, doesn’t run off and report this to the police.  No, she continuously lies about Jadon’s whereabouts and then goes on to follow in her “Lord’s” footsteps.  Yes, that’s right, she took the gun (which was hers by the way) and shot another member of the “cult” when she tried to escape.  

Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy was 28 when she moved from Washington, D.C. to Durham, North Carolina.  Relatives began to worry about her when she never phoned her mother on her birthday.  An investigation was launched that led straight to the door of Peter Lucas Moses. Antoinetta committed the unforgivable sin of trying to leave.  That is what got her her death sentence.  After the violence and abuse got to be too much, she ran out of the house, banged on a neighbor’s door and begged to use her cell phone.  The neighbor told police later she thought Antoinetta was just a mental patient and never called anyone.  This, despite the fact that two other women ran after Antoinetta and dragged her back into the house, kicking and screaming.  Once inside, the two women began to beat her mercilessly and even tried to strangle her with an extension cord.  When that didn’t work, Moses got out Vania’s gun, handed it to her and pronounced the sentence.  She too, must die.  So Vania Sisk, instead of turning the gun that she now had in her own hands on the man who murdered her child, simply followed his commands and shot the 28 year old young woman in front of her.  Antoinetta was then unceremoniously dumped into garbage bags, and eventually her and Jadon were buried together behind a house on Ashe street.  

In June 2011, seven months after anyone had seen Jadon alive and six months after Antoinetta, a plumber working in the backyard uncovered the remains and called police. Moses and six others are now facing charges.  Moses is facing the same sentence he imposed on little Jadon and ordered carried out on Antoinetta.