Bodies of 2 girls founds in Illinois woods

[xultar]

ZION, Illinois (AP) -- The bodies of two young girls were found in woods Monday morning, not long after two 8-year-olds were reported missing, authorities said.

The girls were discovered by a resident walking through the area near Beulah Park in this town north of Chicago, Deputy Chief Clyde Watkins said. A bike path and a ravine run through the area.

"We had a complaint of two missing 8-year-olds earlier," Watkins said. But he said authorities had not confirmed whether the dead children were the ones who had been reported missing.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/09/dead.girls.ap/index.html?section=cnn_us

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

1. So sad...

It's hard in cases like this not to support the death penalty.

[RandomKoolzip]

2. I will never support state-sponsored murder, but...

If this twisted shit took one of MY family, I'd take it upon myself to fuck him up.

[bennywhale]

4. Well said

It would be your perogative to take revenge and let society and the law judge you and accept any punishment.

But the state does not have the right to murder its own citizens.

[oneold1-4u]

17. This area highly distorted!

When near 99% of all convicted killers have been found guilty and sentenced by a jury, I have to have the confidence in the people making the choices. When the horrible atrocities committed on humanity for personal purposes go unpunished and the person lives for the rest of their lives in more comfort than thousand of people in the 1930s, something is wrong in the system. Guess I will figure a way to get all free medical care in waning years of life!

[bennywhale]

18. Being deprived of liberty

is the worst punishment there is. Your freedom is the most precious thing you have you'll only realise that if its ever taken away. Do you suggest we turn prisons deliberately into cesspits as extra punishment.

"You can judge how civilised a society is by the way it treats its prisoners"
Whinston Churchill

[Book Lover]

27. I have to say it yet again

Give the government the power to kill criminals, and you end up hanging horse thieves. I understand the rage for revenge (believe me, I do), but giving government capital authority is unwise in *any* instance.

[reprobate]

6. Your feelings are understandable. The trouble comes in determining just...

WHICH twisted shit is responsible. IIRC, a recent study of convicted murderers showed that one third of them were not only innocent, but could not have done what they were accussed of.

My opposition to the death penalty is based not on any moral grounds, but on the inate innacuracies in the justice system. Consider the injustice involved when the courts decreed that (and I paraphrase) proof of innocence is not grounds to negate a duly arrived at 'guilty' judgement or death sentance.

The mistake we all make is thinking that the 'justice system' has anything to do with justice. The justice system is only about one side winning and the other losing. It is innately unfair when the prosecution has essentially unlimited resources, while the accused has only what he can dig up to defend himself.

[RandomKoolzip]

7. And that's exactly why I do NOT support the death penalty as well.

Wasn't it Scalia who said that "facts shouldn't be a deterrent to a sentence duly arrived at" or some such numbskull turn of phrase?

[NYC]

28. Yes, it was Scalia.

Can't find the quote right now.

[Mythsaje]

23. Yep

This is why I too am very skeptical of the death penalty.

[davsand]

9. Yep. I'd want blood.

Call me a hick, call me a redneck-- but I would most certainly want to kill anybody that messed with my kid.

I've seen enough of the criminal justice system and how screwed up it is (especially here in Illinois) not to support state sanctioned killing. I also know myself well enough to say that I'd be willing to go to jail forever or even die in the pursuit of "justice."

My heart goes out to those families.


Laura

[Pithlet]

20. Me, too.

I understand that feeling completely. I'm also against the death penalty, as well. I don't know that I'd act on those feelings. I don't think it's possible to know what it's like to go through something like that unless it happens to you. But, I understand them.

[bennywhale]

3. Bastards

I've just seen on BBC that an eight year old girl was just saved from being murdered by her Aunt and Mother.

She was being killed for being a witch. They'd tortured her put her in a bag and were about to through her into the Thames when they were stopped.

A WITCH?

They were angolan immigrants.

Does anyone know anything about this part of Afrioca in terms of Witchcraft?

[paula777]

8. Here's an article about it from a year or so again ... it's rampant

http://mzansiafrika.blogspot.com/2004/03/angolan-children-being-tortured-as.html

Angolan Children Being Tortured As Witches
Families in rural Angola are accusing their children of witchcraft and then abusing, abandoning and sometimes killing them, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday.

Human rights workers in the war-ravaged country say they are baffled by the upswing in both the number and viciousness of attacks against accused child sorcerers, calling it one of the most disturbing outbreaks of domestic violence in Africa in recent years.

"Many of the thousands of street children across Angola are probably victims of this trend," said Matondo Alexandre, a child-protection expert with UNICEF in Angola.

"This is something new to us," he added. "In African culture, it is usually the older people who are accused of practicing witchcraft. Now we're even seeing cases popping up involving babies."

According to rights advocates, children as young as 5 have been raped, stoned to death, hanged and drowned in rivers after accusations of sorcery are leveled against them.

There is no easy explanation for the surge in witchcraft fears, with some experts citing the recent proliferation of evangelical churches in Angola or the spread of black magic from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the phenomenon of child sorcerers has also taken root.

Most experts agree, however, that Angola's 27-year conflict that ended barely two years ago has thrust the country into a post-trauma situation, destroying its social fabric and parental bonds.

"Witchcraft fears have broken out in many societies during times of distress," said Francisco de Mata Mourisca, the Roman Catholic bishop of Uige, where many of the witchcraft cases have been reported. "But you have to ask yourself, why our children? The answer in Angola is simple. Because war has brutalized our families in the same way it haunted and destroyed our homes and streets."

Although the government has rarely acted against child abusers, one woman, Carolina Jorge, was imprisoned for five days after abusing her grandchildren and imprisoning them in an animal pen. She lashed out at the children, aged 10 and 7, after their parents died of an undetermined illness, possibly AIDS, according to the Tribune.

"Those children weren't normal," said Jorge. "They had a suitcase that made a singing noise. And the boy messed his bed every night. He was possessed."

A few Angolans are even exploiting the sorcery fears for profit, the Tribune says. Papa Matumona, the most powerful faith healer in Uige, runs an evangelical treatment center for child witches.

"He forces them to jump and dance for hours during the hottest part of the day" in order to cleanse them, said Leopoldina Neto, a UNICEF child-protection officer in the town. "He beats them. He puts chili powder in their eyes and drips boiling palm oil in their ears."

U.N. aid workers are launching parent education campaigns designed to halt the abuses, but their efforts are already facing significant challenges. The Tribune reports that an internationally funded study of the problem was abandoned after its chief Angolan researcher concluded that the witchcraft was real, a belief held by most police responsible for protecting child's rights (Paul Salopek, Chicago Tribune, March 28).

Posted by Bronwyn | 3/31/2004 09:23:29 AM | Comment (0) | Trackback (0)

[ewagner]

5. This brings

conflicting emotions of sadness for the victims and their families and absolute rage against whoever is responsible......

Does this make me bi-polar?

[funflower]

10. Does this stuff happen more often nowadays?

When I was 8 years old, I spent my days running around wooded areas and fields near my home or biking for miles around our community. Now, parents in my neighborhood are afraid to let their kids walk to a neighbor's house or wait for the school bus without watching them.

[LostinVA]

11. No, I just think we hear more about it now

Because of the internet, cable news, etc. These cases aren't just local anymore.

[MissMarple]

12. I think you're right.

We were always told to be careful by my grandmother in the 50's, especially around "dirty old men". Bad things happen everywhere and in every time. Kids have to be looked after. I know some folks think that living in a small town, oh, say in Kansas, and going to church every Sunday, insulates them from evil. But that is far from the case.

[LostinVA]

14. I grew up in a rural area

And we were always either supposed to stay in the yard, or ride our bikes with at least TWO other kids, and to never, ever talk to any adult we didn't know. We were taught to ride/run to a neighbor's house if we thought something funny was going on, and we were never allowed to go into the woods without a grownup with us. I did that ONCE, and I was severely punished. I'm 40, so was born in 1964. Friends of mine brought up in the country, towns, suburbs, and cities all say the same.

[funflower]

15. We ran around the woods all day long

far from earshot of any of our parents. The main thing anyone worried about was bee stings and falling out of a tree.

[eissa]

24. I'm one of those parents

I feel so sorry for my kids (9 and 6), but they are rarely allowed in the front yard by themselves. The older one begs me to go ride his bike and when I do give in (which is rare), he's given a watch and told to check in every 15 minutes. Even then he's only allowed to ride up and down our little street. Paranoid? Smothering? Yeah, ok. But I want them home alive.

[funflower]

29. I don't blame you a bit.

I just wonder what's happened to us? Has society changed that much, or are we just more aware of the dangers or what?

[Nickster]

13. Oh man, this is right in my neck of the woods.

That area they talk about is very poor and crime ridden, not somewhere you'd go at night.

[AP]

16. Depending on who did this, the runaway bride might get some relief.

Let's see if the media circus pulls up stakes and heads to Illinois.

[Bluebear]

19. FOX already took the liberty of running names of sex predators..

in the area....

Question, do we know this was a murder at all yet? There is a ravine there, do people know that this was not accidental yet, that the girls might have fallen into the ravine? Just askin'.

[candy]

21. They were stabbed and NO sign of sexual assault.

[wakeme2008]

22. No sign of sexual assault TODAY

But this smells of somebody trying to cover up sex in the past. Just IMHO

[LisaL]

26. Some serial killers do not rape their victims.

[Career Prole]

25. The victims..."best friends" Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/09/dead.girls/index.html

[harpo]

31. You think they would be talking about this if no white girls were involved

How many kids are found dead each year? How many get the media coverage (CNN, MSNBC, FOXNEWS, note I did NOT say news) that are not white?

[ovidsen]

30. What about this death penalty proposal?

For starters, I oppose capitol punishment, period. But the governor of Massechusetts (a state not known for vengeance prone Neanderthals) is asking that jurys have the right to execute killers if the jurors are REALLY REALLY sure the killer committed a particularly brutal murder.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/12/28/romney_prepares_to_file_scientific_death_penalty_bill/

Maybe if this was the law in Illinois, the killer of those girls in Zion would have thought twice? Maybe?? :shrug: