The Death of a Child

It was in the newspaper today(20 Feb 14) about missing 10-year old Hailey Owens and her killer Craig Michael Wood.

The blogosphere and news media is alive with everyone trying to capture eyeballs to boost revenue by exploiting her murder.  If you’re not aware of the story you’re living under a log somewhere without WiFi.  I sometimes envy you.

I’m a regular reader of Matthew’s  blog Straight Forward in a Crooked World.  Yesterday he posted about a phone call he got from Hailey’s parents and I became aware of the crime slightly ahead of the news media cycle.

I, we, everyone feels for the parents.

Is there a better word than feel?  Emote, sympathize, cry for and with, say prayers for.  No matter how I search, I come up dry.

I feel strangely connected to people I don’t know and I can’t even begin to imagine, understand, appreciate the magnitude of their loss.  We offer words of comfort, but we know these words will never fill the void.

We forget the emotional carnage that police and searchers experience.  Read Matthew’s blog and perhaps you’ll understand why I could never be in law enforcement.  Who do they turn to?

The news of the aftermath makes it pretty clear the right person is locked in cell.  So what do we do now?

There can be no justice for Hailey, her parents and relatives or for the people who searched for her.  It’s beyond us to restore Hailey to life.  Killing Wood simply removes him from any contact with society.  It will cost the government more to turn the wheels of justice to execute him then to keep him in prison the rest of his life.

I've always been an advocate for execution by organ transplant.  A great many people could be saved by Wood’s death.  That might be the only true justice possible.

Would you refuse these organs?  I doubt it.  Given the choice of refusing a pervert’s kidney or living to see your children marry and raise a family, which would you select?  Most would say “Gimme the kidney!”

A suggestion in Straight Forward is to realize evil exists.  Not a metaphysical, intellectual assumption but real, honest-to-God evil does exist and seems to be thriving.  Maybe the response to “I want to do something” is “Do good.”  It’s not a bad answer.

I had a chance to talk to John from Shadow Tech Knives about developing fighting skills in children.  His daughter has taken to the arts and knows which end of the knife goes in and which end to hold.  I may have misunderstood John, but his daughter doesn't carry a knife to school.

“A 14-year old girl against a grown man doesn’t even out so much.”  Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth is right.  A child needs a tool to deal with an adult predator. 

If there’s a shit storm about what follows, fine with me.

If your child has the maturity, get them a Spyderco Delica and find someone to teach them how to use it if you can’t.  Tell them keep it in their pocket and if they flash it around at school or take it out to frighten someone, you’ll whip their little asses red.

Tell ‘em if it falls out while playing or innocently gets discovered, you’ll be on their side and take the heat.

And then tell ‘em if someone tries to pull them into a car or empty room or away from their friends, if someone grabs them or tries to touch them wrongly, your child should cut them like an ocean, wide and deep.

Yeah, I know.  You think I’m full of it.  But I say:  “No more raped dead children.”