The China Syndrome

by Lisa R. Cohen

Over the last six weeks, a spate of horrific crimes, mostly against children, have stunned the Chinese public, cast a pall over schoolrooms there, and opened the window a sliver onto the disparities between crime - and punishment - between our two cultures.

To begin with, violent crime is rare in China. Also, none of these incidents involved the American weapon of choice - a gun. Few Chinese own guns, and instead the rampages were committed by knife- or hammer-wielding madmen.

The crime spree began on March 23rd, when eight children were stabbed to death while waiting to go inside their school in the southeastern province of Fujian. Four died immediately, four more in the hospital. They were mostly first graders. The mother above left grieved for her murdered child.

Just three weeks later, a man brandished a meat cleaver at children and bystanders outside another school, this time in southern Guangxi province. He hacked to death a student and an elderly woman, and injured five others, chasing his victims through their village before being detained by police.

Then, in the space of ONE WEEK, three more incidents seemed to turn the attacks into a sociological phenomenon. In the first, the killer entered the school itself, and stabbed an astounding 17 children, along with a teacher, as the assailant bolted from room to room. The very next day, another knife wielding attacker slashed his way past a school security guard and two teachers to injure 28 children, five of them critically.

But amazingly, that wasn't the worst of it. Less than 24 hours later, a crazed man also walked into a school, also with an 8 inch blade, evaded the elderly porter at the front door, barricaded himself inside a ground floor first grade classroom, and turned on the class of 37 students.

Only seven of the children were left unharmed. Government officials didn't report any deaths, but bystanders said otherwise, citing at least four of them. They described scenes of gore and carnage that will haunt them forever.

And finally, this past weekend, a man stabbed eight more people to death, including his mother, wife, and daughter. This one wasn't school related, but the knife wielding slasher image is all too vividly imprinted here as well.

They say that guns are so much worse than other weapons because they so neatly and easily dispatch their victims. When you lose your temper with a loaded gun in your hand, you don't have time to calm down in the split second between the pull of the trigger and the bullet leaving the chamber. But there's something about the gore of knife violence, the insanity that must be in play for someone to swing a blade around, to get that close to other humans in order to inflict your damage. Especially such young ones.

The victims' tender years are an especial affront to the Chinese public. The government's official 'one child' policy means a society where parents who lose a child...lose their whole family.

What is going on??? According to news reports out of China, including one by fellow journalist and friend Barbara Demick, the LA Times Beijing bureau chief, China's social structures are also under attack. Chinese internet forums are jammed with opinions. The assailants were an unemployed teacher, an unemployed health professional, an unemployed insurance salesman. You get the pattern. Two of the schools were known for catering to wealthy and privileged parents.

"We should think about these cases from a deeper side," read one post. "The voices of weak people were ignored, and then they took revenge on society."

Such critics posit that Chinese society has changed so fast, traditional infrastructure is collapsing, giving way to commercial free-fall. One Chinese newspaper featured an online poll citing that 64% of respondents believed the first attack, the one that started the series, was due to social inequalities - "the widening gap between rich and poor in China." In a (very expedient) trial, the assailant, Zheng Minsheng (he's the unemployed health professional), said he was angry after being jilted by a wealthier woman.

And that's another big difference between our two cultures. Zheng's trial disposed of, he was too, executed on April 28th, a little over a month after the attack took place, just a few days after the death sentence was approved by the People's Supreme Court. One month from the crime to the punishment. In this country, Mr. Zheng wouldn't have gotten much past an arraignment.

Will such swift justice deter the next in this crime wave? Maybe, but the two most recent acts of carnage occurred after Zheng was put to death, so it's doubtful. Some in China fear their culture will have to take more far reaching, global steps to curb the violence. For future generations.

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20 Years Later: Will There Be Justice for Amy?

by Stacy Dittrich

You may remember her or you may not, but in the age of media-frenzied cases like Caylee Anthony and JonBenet Ramsey, there is one name not to be forgotten—Amy Mihaljevic.

On October 27, 1989, 10-year old Amy Renee Mihaljevic (pictured left) spent a typical day in her fifth-grade class before walking the short distance to her home in Bay Village, Ohio, an upscale Cleveland suburb on Lake Erie. (Bay Village was also the home of Dr. Sam Sheppard, a doctor accused of killing his wife in the 1950’s. His sentence was later overturned—a case that spawned the movie, “The Fugitive,” with Harrison Ford).

Each day, Amy found herself alone for an hour after school; both her parents worked, and her older brother Jason’s school didn’t let out until an hour after hers. At the beginning of that week, Amy received a phone call from a stranger (sketch artist depiction of suspect, right). He claimed he worked with Amy’s mother, Margaret, and that she had just received a big promotion. The man told Amy it would make her mother really happy if he picked her up so the two of them could buy her mother a gift. Of course, the man told Amy it was “their” secret and would be a surprise for Margaret. Amy was excited at the notion of surprising her mother and even broke her promise to the stranger that she wouldn’t tell anyone. Like most 10-year-olds, Amy couldn’t help but confide the plans to friends.

On October 27th, Amy hurried home and dropped off some of her things before joining a group of friends walking to the nearest ice cream shop. Amy had arranged to meet the stranger there.

When Jason Mihaljevic got home and found his sister gone, he immediately called Margaret. Feeling somewhat panicky, Margaret began to gather up her things and start for home when the phone in her office rang. It was Amy. Breathing a sigh of relief, Margaret asked her where she was. Amy claimed she was at choir practice before hanging up. That was the last time she would ever hear her daughter’s voice.

To this day, it has never been determined where Amy made the phone call from.

Margaret, who still felt unsettled by the situation, started for home. By evening, the Mihaljevics contacted the police to report Amy missing, launching an unprecedented search. The abduction of Amy Mihaljevic was one of the first child abductions featured by John Walsh in his first year as host of America’s Most Wanted.

Sadly, on February 8, 1990, a jogger discovered the remains of Amy Mihaljevic in a cornfield in rural Ashland County—less than 50 miles from Bay Village. Based on the autopsy report, Amy died horribly. Her skull was fractured; she'd been stabbed in the neck repeatedly and sexually assaulted. The coroner determined it could have taken as long as 30 minutes for Amy to die. Her killer has never been found.

In 1992, Margaret Mihaljevic made an emotional appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show, speaking about the search for her daughter’s murderer. The toll was too much for Margaret. She and her husband divorced shortly after Amy’s body was discovered, and she spent the next several years slowing drinking herself to death. Margaret Mihaljevic died of alcoholism in Las Vegas in 2001.

In 2005, Cleveland reporter James Renner launched a massive investigation into Amy’s murder—turning up many questionable suspects. Renner’s book, “Amy: My Search for Her Killer,” gives an inside view of his findings. He also maintains a fascinating blog on the Amy Mihaljevic case, and updates it almost weekly with new information.

In 2007, the Bay Village police department reopened the case based on newly discovered information. Several other girls in the area had received phone calls similar to Amy’s in the month before her abduction. Authorities hope that in their vast sea of suspects, the one responsible will emerge. Authorities seem confident that the killer is still alive and living in the Bay Village or Ashland area. It is utterly frightening to think that a man capable of murdering an innocent young girl in such a violent and vicious manner is still among society.

Regardless, last month marks the 20-year anniversary of the discovery of Amy Mihaljevic’s body. New billboards (pictured right) are now being erected all over the state of Ohio in hopes they will bring forth new information.

Let’s not forget that even though it was two decades ago, Amy Mihaljevic and her surviving family members deserve some justice.

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Somer Thompson: Is Justice Coming?

By Susan Murphy Milano

On October 19, 2009, during the half-mile walk home from school, seven-year-old Somer Thompson got into a fight with her sister and ran ahead. Within minutes, she was nowhere to be found. Diena Thompson, Somer's mother, called home from work to check on her kids around 4:00 PM. When she learned Somer was missing, she went home to look for her daughter. According to reports, Diena ran home, and various members of the family searched the immediate area. Because Somer had a pattern of taking off on her own, her mother didn't call police for about three hours.

By nine that evening, there were helicopters and law enforcement searching the creeks alleys and wooded area within a two-mile radius.

In a news conference later that evening, police announced that deputies were contacting the 53 sexual offenders who lived in the area as part of their investigation. At the time of the abduction, 10 registered sex offenders lived within a mile, 39 within two miles, 74 within three miles, and 132 within five miles of Somer's house.

Two days later, authorities found the body of a white child in a Georgia landfill -- the landfill where the trash from Somer's neighborhood went every week. Crime-scene investigation units started working the site immediately.

The decision to search the town trash came from a detective. Authorities assigned an officer for each truck carrying trash, to watch as the refuse poured out. The little girl's body was in one of the trucks. If not for the quick thinking of one hell of a cop, Somer's body would never have been found. Makes me wonder: just how many bodies go undetected once they reach a landfill?

In the town where Somer lived with her family, children no longer play in the parks. More parents, I am told, send their children to after-school care. Out of fear, the community has come together to keep a watchful eye on anything suspicious. No child is left to walk alone. Drive through the neighborhood surrounding the Thompson home, and you'll see what looks and feels like a ghost town. You won't see children riding bikes or playing baseball in a nearby vacant lot.

In my opinion, this three-month-old case seems to have gone somewhat cold. No new developments keep this horrific case in the headlines. No one seems to be asking for the public to come forward with any tips or information that will lead to the killer -- except for Diena Thompson. In a recent interview on NBC, Diena discussed the case and the $65,000 reward offered to bring this murderer to justice.

The community and family of Somer Thompson were spared the gruesome details of how this child, this precious gift of life, was murdered. Perhaps they need to be told. Maybe the community needs to demand answers. And maybe, by informing the community and the media, police can remove a predator from society so another child does not have to die!

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The Lovely Bones: Read it Before You See it

by Stacy Dittrich

In August 2009, I was vacationing on the beautiful Cape Fear coast of North Carolina. I'd sworn a personal oath that I'd simply enjoy the time with my family and do absolutely no work. I had just completed a more difficult than usual manuscript and found myself wandering around our rented condo, scanning the book shelves in search of the perfect book to read on the beach. An avid reader, I couldn’t remember the last time I actually curled up and read a book instead of writing one. Glimpsing the back covers, I came across one book in particular that caught my attention: the story of a young girl who was murdered and watches her family from heaven. In my own twisted mind, the novel seemed right up my alley. I flipped it open to the first page and read the first line:

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

I was hooked immediately, (The first line is a publisher’s dream). In fact, I walked away continuing to read, and spent the next two days so engrossed in the novel, I lost precious vacation time. While the kids and my husband played in the sand and water, I holed up under the umbrella with my big floppy hat on and my nose stuck in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. In fact, even when I wasn’t reading it in the evening, the storyline continued to linger in the back of my mind. Yes, it’s one of those books that will stay with you for weeks after you’ve read the last page. If an author can accomplish this, it's the sign of a true literary genius. 

In my normal behind-the-eight-ball life, I'd never heard of The Lovely Bones and had no clue what a huge success it was. Now I understand why. Writing a dark storyline like the murder of a teenage girl, Sebold uses a matter-of-fact voice. Even when Susie (actress Saoirse Ronan, pictured right) describes her detailed, disturbing, and gruesome rape and murder, the reader gets through it easily. Why? Because Susie tells it simply; she is, after all, dead. There's a lack of emotion and grief, since she's had no choice but to come to terms with her fate. 

However, the reader (at least I did) feels a continuous sense of sadness as we follow Susie through her “personal heaven,” a heaven she describes as less than pleasurable. We follow her as she watches her family fall apart after the news of her death, as they grow up, and as she eventually watches the man responsible for her murder, George Harvey, who got away with it, spoiler alert! die by an icicle to the head. Susie’s own redemption.

In a time when society is plagued by true stories of murdered children shown on TVs, in newspapers, and in books, Sebold flips the coin to the child’s point of view.

Her storyline is absolutely brilliant.

Yes, it's fiction, but it deals with a horrific crime that we are all too used to hearing about. I was shocked when I Googled the book to find it was currently being made into a major motion picture with bigwig director Peter Jackson at the helm. I’ve read many books that have been made into movies, and many of them I’ve wrinkled my nose at — the book and movie both. With other books I’ve enjoyed, I found myself shaking my head that no one picked it up to make it into a movie. This time, I found myself cheering at the prospect: Finally, someone appreciates a true literary creation!

The Lovely Bones didn’t start off as a smash. In fact, it took some time to get off the ground -- until Anna Quindlen, a Book of the Month Club judge, endorsed the book on NBC's Today Show. In the weeks that followed, it became a bestseller. I love this story; I’m all for the underdog author and, frankly, it gives me hope. No one deserved this success more than Alice Sebold.

Since the announcement of the movie, the book has attracted a new, teenage audience. I was shocked when my 13-year old daughter told me everyone at school was reading it; she wanted to read the book and see the movie. I had some reservations, only because if I'd read this book when I was 13, I'd probably have had nightmares for a month. Parents, I leave it up to you to decide if it's appropriate for your teen. In my case, I finally relented and told her she could see the movie -- but only if she read the book first.

I believe that pertains to everyone, actually. The movie looks amazing, but you’ll never really get the true emotions, sadness, grief and acceptance from the movie that you get from the book. I believe reading the book first will make the movie that much better.

“The Lovely Bones” is now in theaters and the book, of course, is on bookshelves and on line everywhere. Read it first!

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Baby Grace: A Postmortem

by Kathryn Casey

Some news stories touch the heart, staying with us long after they've disappeared from the headlines. The ones that never leave me are those involving children. There's a reason I haven't written about murdered kids. I've considered it off and on, but some crime scene photos I don't want imprinted on my brain, invading my sleep and keeping me awake at four a.m.

Every once in a while, I reconsider my situation, wondering if it's time to make an exception. For instance, when her body was found in July 2007, I thought about writing a book on Houston's Baby Grace case. Something about the original sketch of the two-year-old pulled at me. Those wide set eyes, the baby teeth visible through her smiling lips, the long blond hair that fell in waves. Even after a couple of decades writing about crime, I have a tough time understanding how some murders are possible, why someone would kill a small child.

When Baby Grace was found in Galveston Bay and the drawing of her face proliferated across the nation, I wanted to turn away from the images flashed on television and front-page in the newspapers. It all seemed too awful. Another child brutally murdered, this one beaten to death, then left to rot in a box thrown into the water, callously discarded like so much garbage. More evidence that mankind is capable of the worst acts.

Of course, before long we slowly learned the truth. Sheryl Sawyers from Ohio came forward and claimed Baby Grace, introducing her to us as her granddaughter, little Riley Ann Sawyers. Since that day, Riley Ann's mother, and I do use the word very loosely, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, have been found guilty of the child's murder. According to a statement by Trenor, Riley Ann died during a day-long session in which Zeigler stayed home from work in order to make sure his stepdaughter was properly disciplined. Throughout that horrific day, Riley Ann was repeatedly beaten with leather belts and her head held underwater. The autopsy pegged the fatal blow as any one of those resulting in three skull fractures.

Once the child was dead, Zeigler and Trenor went to Wal-mart, where they bought the plastic container the body was found in. They then wrapped Riley Ann's small corpse in garbage bags. For the next two months, before throwing it in Galveston Bay, the container with the body inside sat in their garage.

Earlier this month, on November 6th, the Baby Grace case officially ended. That was the day that Zeigler, like Trenor before him, was sentenced to life in a Texas prison. There may be appeals ahead, since Zeigler is maintaining that he's really a nice guy, and it was Trenor who beat her daughter to death, not him. But the likelihood is that the case is over. There seems little left to say, except to trust that Riley Ann is now in a better place. For her, the nightmare has ended.

We now know why and how Riley Ann died, but I'm left wondering if there's anything to be learned from this horrible case. It seems that something good should come from all this, that we should learn something about the human condition, why these horrible tragedies happen and how to prevent them. Yet, as often as I've considered this case, it has given me absolutely no sense of redemption, no hope that it has revealed anything that could save another child's life.

I wonder at times if there's anything to be done, or if we simply have to learn to accept the fact that there will always be those who don't appreciate the great gift of a daughter or son, and a small percentage who will commit the ultimate crime, murdering a vulnerable child who looks at them with love.

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