Hate Wins and Love Loses

Arm Kids.

My criticism of all forms of paternalism extends to the issue of weapons, for the displeasure of many people who call themselves youth liber

Alba's Thoughts.

My criticism of all forms of paternalism extends to the issue of weapons, for the displeasure of many people who call themselves youth liberationists but cannot bear the discomfort of examining their biases.

In anarchist circles, the centrality of weapons for trans liberation has been discussed recently because of the stochastic terrorism of the right in these months. So much so that “Arm Trans Kids” has become a slogan. Certainly an unappealing one for a still deeply adultist left.

Guns have been called “the great equalizer”… for adults. Logically, small adolescents still have to feel unprotected, or how would they be kept apart from the public space? How could the control over them by the family and the school still be kept?

One “weapon” adults have used to make sure they will maintain a monopoly over guns is moral panic. Only recently, a 6 year old who accidentally shot his teacher was painted as a “young man” by the newspapers. But young men have a right to own weapons.

Yes, the media still cares a lot about depicting mass shootings as youth crime. A “youth” crime of which the perpetrators are 87% over 21 (Duwe).

This evidence should tell us that maybe some of the guns owned by abusive white men in the US, that they often pull on their children for that matter, should be redistributed to young people so that they might feel safe roaming the adult owned public space.

This outrages you? Good. 450 children are murdered by their parents directly every year (FBI). A lot of them wouldn’t even try if they didn’t have a gun. Adults are a failure in the protection of children, because they are their abusers. It’s time for them to protect themselves.

But an adultist state has a vested interest in keeping the weapons in the hands of the powerful. Hence why this will never happen under one, justified by adultist fictions like developmentalism and the like.

But there are still ways for young people to take hold of this power. The youth liberation movement is still not big enough for us to reasonably think of this, but it is to be able to dream it which the first step for any successful revolution.

John is a 17-year-old boy who was raised in a rural area and attended school in a small nearby town. He had had a great deal of difficulty in school and had been suspended. For his rebellious behavior, John had been restricted almost consistently to his room for three to four years prior to shooting his mother.

On the day of the killing he returned home early on suspension from school. His mother scolded him, threatened him, and said she would not care if his father killed him when he came home. He saw his father’s gun on the shelf and the shells nearby. Without saying anything he picked up the gun, loaded it, and began firing at his mother, who was standing at the top of the stairs. He next recalled finding himself outside with the gun in his hands and hearing his mother screaming. He hurried up the stairs to see her lying in a pool of blood. He claims he was not aware that his mother was dead, but had some awareness that he must have shot her because the gun was in his hands.

His immediate reaction was one of relief, with no guilt or remorse. Following his relief, he felt depression for his behavior.

Past History reveals that John was the older of two children, having a younger sister who was always favored by the mother. He describes having to work all day for little money, which he had to give to his mother for safe-keeping. When he wanted money to spend, his mother would tell him the money was gone. However, the non-working sister would always have money available to her when she wished. Naturally, he grew up feeling that his mother was unfair to him, and this frustration was compounded by the fact that his mother took in from 12 to 15 foster children at a time, with four or five boys under the age of five sharing John’s bedroom. It was his duty in the mornings to change the boys’ diapers and give them breakfast before he went to school. He had no privacy in his home; he was restricted at home and not allowed to have treats at school. He began to steal and to save money that he had earned to put in his locker in school. John indicated that he got along fairly well with his father, who he felt was trying to be fair to him, but who was dominated by his mother. He had tried to run away from home on several occasions but was unsuccessful, once because he became ill and another time when there was a heavy snowfall.

Why Kids Kill Parents

Tragedy in the family: When kids murder their parents.

Psychology Today

I have conducted assessment interviews with approximately 75 adolescents charged with murder or attempted murder. Seven involved youths who killed parents. … They ranged in age from 12 to 17. Two killed both parents. As a group, they killed six fathers, three mothers, and one brother. The murder weapon, in every case, was a gun, and it was readily available in the house. … Although seven may appear to be a small number of cases from which to draw conclusions, it is valuable for demonstrating the characteristics of kids who kill. Among the findings:

…

THEY ARE ABUSED. Child maltreatment, particularly verbal and psychological abuse, was readily apparent in these six cases; severe psychological abuse was present in five. The one girl, in addition to being physically, verbally, and psychologically abused by her father, was also sexually abused and raped by him as well. Six youths had been emotionally and physically neglected by their parents. Two had virtually no supervision at all because both of their parents were alcoholics. None of the six had been protected from harm by their parents. At least one of the youths had been medically neglected.

…

THEY ARE ISOLATED. These families tend to be relatively isolated because of problems in the home. The six teenagers had fewer outlets than other youths because they were expected to assume responsibilities typically performed by parents, such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of younger children. One, too young to be a licensed driver, even drove his brother to school every day. These children were isolated not merely by the burden of chores but by a burden of shame. They knew their family was not the Brady Bunch. And parents had often not been hospitable to friends they had brought home.

Over the course of the years, the youths had made attempts to get help—from teachers, relatives, or even the non-abusing adult in the house—but they were either ignored or unsuccessful. Increasingly, the children’s goals centered on escaping the family either through running away or suicide. Over time they felt increasingly overwhelmed by the home environment, which continued to deteriorate and diminished whatever support had been available. Then, already stressed to the limit, their inability to cope eventually led them to lose control or to contemplate murder in response to some new overt or perceived threat.

THEY KILL ONLY WHEN THEY FEEL THERE IS NO ONE TO HELP THEM. Just prior to the murder, life had become increasingly intolerable. In the four cases where only the abusive father was killed, the mother was not living at home at the time. In one case, the common-law stepmother did the same thing the boy’s mother had done several years before: She walked out. That was one month before the homicide. In a second case, the mother was chronically ill and had been hospitalized for several weeks at the time of the murder. In each of the two other cases, the mother had divorced her husband on the grounds of physical and psychological abuse, and then allowed the children to live with the father more than a thousand miles away. One boy killed his father within a year of being left alone with him; the girl in the other case killed her father within 16 months of his common-law wife’s departure.

…

THEY SEE NO OTHER CHOICE. The youths killed a parent or parents in response to a perception of being trapped. In two of the five cases in which there was severe physical abuse, both were reacting to a perceived threat of imminent death or serious physical injury. In the three others, the children were experiencing terror and horror even though death and physical injury were not imminent. Interestingly, in these cases, the victims were defenseless: two were shot as they lay sleeping, the third as he sat watching television, his back to his son.

IF THOUGHTS COULD KILL

It is disturbing but true. Parricidal thoughts are far more common than any of us may have dreamed, as my colleague, Dr. Eldra Soloman, and I recently discovered in a survey I conducted of 40 adult women who had been sexually abused as children. The questionnaire, filled out anonymously, contained 200 items about abuse and neglect. Because many people do not recognize as abuse what happened to them at the hands of a parent, the questionnaire did not label any behavior as abuse or neglect; it merely described behaviors and asked whether they had occurred.

One question asked, prior to age 18, did you ever consider killing the abusive parent. Fully 50 percent—20 of the women—said yes, as an adolescent. Some reported they had even gone so far as to make plans.

We know that women are nowhere near as violent as men, yet fully 50 percent reported thoughts of murdering a parent. The interesting question is, would the incidence of thoughts be even higher among men?

These findings attest to the depth of feelings that abuse creates. It generates pain, fear, anger, and shame that many people spend a great deal of energy to contain over the course of their lives. Given the strength of the feelings abuse generates in its victims, the real question should be not why do kids kill their parents, but why don’t more of them do it?

THE CASE OF SCOTT ANDERS

Scott Anders, a white boy from a lower-middle class neighborhood, was 15 when he killed his 36-year-old father. On the afternoon of the homicide, Scott confided to a friend that things at home had been “building up.” His father, Scott said, would come home “real buzzed” on marijuana and cocaine. He would yell and threaten his son, even talk about killing him, and had done so for some time. Later that day, Mr. Anders smoked marijuana and screamed at the boy. Scott fled the house, telling his father he’d return, hoping he’d feel better. When Scott walked back through the front door, he saw that his father’s 12-gauge shotgun was propped against the couch.

“When I got back, I walked in the door and he looked at me and started yelling at me, cussing me and everything, and telling me he was going to beat my ass, and that was the last thing I remember. He was just getting ready to light another joint when I grabbed the gun. I shot him. He went back and rolled over and blood poured out of his mouth. He blinked his eyes. I shot him again. Then I freaked out.”

…

Mr. Anders was an explosive man who had a history of both physically and verbally abusing women. Scott remembers his father referring to women as “sluts. He beat the shit out of them. No reason. He’d wake up grumpy and go to bed grumpy. Make the coffee wrong, he’d throw it in your face. You spent too much money at the store, he’d… he’d show you not to do it anymore.” Scott maintained that his father threatened Marytwo [his second wife] with a gun several times and beat her more than a hundred times.

Scott’s own daily beatings happened from the time he could remember. Sometimes they had a “reason” (Marytwo would often not do her chores and blame it on Scott), sometimes not (“I’d fall down and he’d get mad”). His father’s drinking played a large part in their severity. “When he was sober he would hit you, but when he was drinking… that's when he really started swingin’.”

…

Weekends were unmitigated hell. On an average day his father would start drinking at one and not stop until he passed out. On Saturdays and Sundays, the father and Marytwo “partied” and went to bars, leaving Scott in the car. When he was younger, he was scared by being left alone. As he got older, he resented all the time it took away from him. Scott considered being beaten better than being left alone.

The most severe beating took place when Scott tried to run away but returned home when he became concerned that his parents would be worried. When he walked in, they were both asleep. Upon awaking, “Marytwo beat the shit out of me until one o’clock that morning. She was swingin’ and punchin’ and slappin’ me and everything else.” The following morning, Scott’s father took his turn. “He beat the shit out of me, too. He hit me in the stomach, face, everywhere.” The beating was so severe that Scott’s father wouldn’t let him go to school for a few days because the boy had “knots” on his head.

A month before the homicide, Marytwo “ran off” with one of Mr. Anders’s male friends. Scott’s father blamed his son for Marytwo’s flight and told him, “Things are going to get a lot worse.” With Marytwo gone, Scott was expected to do all the cooking and cleaning. Mr. Anders was unable to work because of a physical disability. No longer able to tolerate drink, the father turned increasingly to drugs. He also became a lot more violent. “My father started to tell me he was going to kill me.”

The night of the homicide, Scott and his father argued about Scott’s not being able to be in the house alone (he had to wait outside until his father returned). He kept “yelling and yelling and when I tried to run out he said, ‘You better not go nowhere.’ I was scared, and I just hauled ass. When I came back I saw the gun.”

While there was no immediate threat, the parricide was the end of a long build-up. Scott remembers firing the second shot because he was afraid “what his father might do to him” after he fired the first.

When Kids Kill Abusive Parents

Once seen as evil or ill, these desperate youngsters are gaining new sympathy

TIME.com

In the tiny community of Cement, Oklahoma, trees and telephone poles are festooned with pink ribbons. People work tirelessly to collect signatures on petitions. The activity is in support of Billie Joe Powell, a 16-year-old girl charged with fatally shooting her father, who had allegedly abused her. Townspeople hope their efforts will help persuade the court to try the high school sophomore not as an adult but as a juvenile, so that she will receive more lenient treatment.

A few years ago, such sympathy would have been unheard of. Children who killed their parents were the ultimate pariahs. Regarded as evil or mentally ill “bad seeds,” they virtually always earned the harshest judgment of the public and the courts. Says psychologist and attorney Charles Patrick Ewing of the State University of New York at Buffalo: “We take the commandment to ‘honor thy father and thy mother’ very seriously. The implication is that you’re supposed to honor your parents even if they abuse you.”

That attitude is slowly starting to change. Today youngsters who slay abusive parents are drawing more understanding from a public that has awakened to the national nightmare of child abuse. Last year an estimated 2.7 million youngsters were physically, mentally and sexually assaulted by their parents, % according to the National Center for Prevention of Child Abuse. Despite the prevalence of abuse, parricide remains rare. It accounts for about 2% of all homicides, around 300 cases a year. Most of those involve teenagers who kill abusive parents. Though the numbers are small, these youngsters “open a window on our understanding of child abuse in a way that no one else can,” says Los Angeles lawyer Paul Mones, whose practice is devoted to defending children accused of parricide. “They allow us to understand how abuse is incubated.”

On the night of November 16, 1982, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Richard Jahnke, Sr. stepped out of his car and into the range of the 12-gauge shotgun held by his sixteen-year-old son. Richard, Jr. fired six times; four of his shots hit his father in the chest. Inside the house, his seventeen-year-old sister Deborah waited in the living room with a semiautomatic .30 caliber M-1 carbine. She did not have to shoot. One hour after the shooting, Richard Jahnke, Sr. died from the gunshot wounds inflicted by his son.

Richard was charged with first degree murder and with conspiring with his sister Deborah to commit first degree murder. At trial, the children relied on the defense that they had been protecting themselves from abusive acts by their father. Richard Jahnke testified about years of violent abuse. He told the jury that his father had been beating his mother and him and sexually abusing and beating his sister for as long as he could remember. Richard and Deborah testified to repeated unsuccessful attempts to obtain help from local child protection agencies. Richard’s attorney also attempted to have a forensic psychiatrist testify to the effects of this history of abuse on Richard’s perception of danger on the night of the killing. The trial court, however, excluded this testimony. The jury found Richard guilty of first degree manslaughter and sentenced him to five to fifteen years in prison.

When Dawn Maria Cruickshank’s parents were separated, she and her sister Theresa pleaded with the lawyers to prevent their father from visiting them. Despite their efforts, he was granted limited visitation rights. The court recognized, however, the tension that existed between G. Alan Cruickshank and his estranged wife, and it restricted his visits with their daughters to Monday nights from 7:00 P.M. until 8:00 P.M. These visits were confined to the garage of the upstate New York home that the girls shared with their mother. On the evening of Monday, November 15, 1982, Mr. Cruickshank arrived for one of his visits to find only his daughter Dawn at home. According to Dawn, her father told her that he “was going into the basement because he was cold.” This led to an argument between Dawn and her father. Dawn later said that “she did not want her father to go into the basement and that she told him he was not supposed to do so.” Dawn’s father then grabbed her, but she “pulled away and ran back into the house. … She then took a .22 caliber rifle from under her bed, loaded it and returned to the garage.” Dawn could not recall how many times she fired the rifle, but evidence introduced during her trial established that she fired eleven times, with nine bullets striking her father in the back of the head. Dawn then put down the rifle and returned to the house to call the police.

Dawn was charged with second degree murder. At trial, Dawn testified to numerous sexual assaults by her father. She told the jury “that she feared her father would sexually abuse her on the night of the shooting.” Ms. Cruickshank’s attorneys argued, among other things, that she had killed her father in self-defense. “She had been repeatedly raped by her father, and the night she shot him she believed he was about to attack her again.”

On February 5, 1987, Cheryl Pierson discovered her father’s body lying in a pool of blood on the driveway in front of her house. She realized that he had been shot and knew that Sean Pica, the high school classmate she had hired to kill her father for $1000, had done his job.

Cheryl Pierson pled guilty to manslaughter. At sentencing, Cheryl testified that she had often been forced to have sexual relations with her father. The sexual abuse began when she was twelve years old. When questioned by her attorney about the frequency of her father’s assaults during the two months during which Cheryl had planned her father’s murder, she told the court that she and her father were having “[s]exual intercourse. … [t]wo to three times a day.” Cheryl testified that, although she realized that her father’s behavior towards her was wrong, she “acquiesced so he would not take his frustrations out on the rest of the family.” She stated that she arranged to kill her father because she believed he would start to sexually abuse her seven year old sister JoAnn.

Sociz “Johnny” Junatanov tried very hard to kill his father. He was unsuccessful and was finally arrested and charged with attempted murder. During the trial, the jurors learned that, from early childhood, the defendant’s father had “kept him in handcuffs and chained him… [and] when he was a teenager his father raped him.” In the spring of 1986, after six weeks of testimony, the jury found him not guilty.

After convicting Joeri DeBeer of manslaughter for the killing of his legal guardian, the jury asked the judge for leniency in his sentencing. He was sentenced to three years probation and fined $1,000. Ten of the twelve jurors who had convicted DeBeer testified on his behalf during the sentencing proceedings. “They said they realized he was a ‘normal’ and ‘obedient’ young man ‘already punished enough’ and driven to murder by four years of nearly daily sexual abuse at the hands of his adoptive father, a convicted child molester.”

DeBeer was 13 years old and living with his mother and stepfather in Saudi Arabia when he met Philip A. Parsons, a Bechtel Corp. engineer who promised to sponsor the boy’s promising motocross career if he could take him back to the United States.

Unaware that Parsons had a 30-year history of sexually abusing young boys, DeBeer’s mother let her son go. Once back in the United States, Parsons drove the boy mercilessly, becoming infuriated when he did not win a race and sometimes ordering him back onto the track before he was fully recovered from injuries.

He also forced DeBeer to have sex with him on a regular basis, sometimes before DeBeer left for school in the morning.

On April 9, 1985, after DeBeer and Parsons had argued over Parsons’ sexual demands, DeBeer shot his tormentor in the head with a borrowed revolver. He then set their Dana Point condominium on fire, took Parsons’ body out to Riverside County and set it ablaze as well.

17-year-old Andy Janes was convicted of second degree murder for the shooting death of his stepfather, Walter Jaloveckas. Walter had abused him since he was a young child. Once when Andy was doing dishes, Walter struck him in the head without warning, rendering him unconsciousness. On another occasion, Walter hit Andy with a piece of firewood, again knocking him unconscious. During the years of abuse, Walter had threatened to nail Andy’s hands to a tree, brand his forehead, break his fingers with a hammer, and wrap a crowbar around his head.

State v. Janes: Landmark Case

State courts have only recently begun to recognize and accept testimony regarding Battered Child Syndrome in parricide cases. The Washington Supreme Court, in State v. Janes, wrote the first judicial decision validating expert testimony on Battered Child Syndrome in 1993. Seventeen-year-old Andrew Janes killed his mother’s boyfriend, Walter Jaloveckas, in 1988. Andrew shot Walter with a pistol as Walter walked in the door of their home after returning from work. At trial, evidence was presented that Walter physically and emotionally abused Andrew for over ten years, and Andrew witnessed Walter abuse both his mother and younger brother. Witnesses to Walter’s abuse of Andrew called Child Protective Services numerous times, but no action was ever taken. On the night before the murder, Walter yelled at Andrew’s mother for a long period of time, then leaned his head into Andrew’s room and spoke to him in a threatening voice. The next day, Andrew videotaped himself and left a message including the statement: “I don’t want this life anymore. So I shall take care of the problem myself. Mom, if you find this, I hope you will forgive me. I’m doing this in your best wishes.”

V. A Changing Attitude Toward Children Who Kill Their Parents

Public anger at abusive parents may be responsible for legislative and judicial sympathy toward children who commit parricide. For example, seventeen-year-old Donna Marie Wisener was acquitted under a new Texas law that permits a person accused of killing a family member to introduce evidence of prior abuse, as well as expert testimony on the psychologies of victims of battering. Since she was two or three years old, she had been physically and sexually abused by her father. Her father had once handcuffed her to a chair for his amusement, and beat her unconscious when she had brought home an unsatisfactory report card. Additionally, she was emotionally abused, especially because she was aware that her mother was also being abused. Donna shot her father in the head, hip, hand, back, and side.

Texas is one of six states that permits a battering defense by law, although it is the only state that does not limit its application to women. The state permits psychological testimony and evidence of prior abuse to prove that the defendant’s fear was reasonable. This law reflects the evolving attitude of compassion and understanding toward children who murder their parents.

The Washington Court of Appeals was the first appellate court in the United States to hold specifically that the battered child syndrome applies to cases where an abused child kills a parent. The court held that the trial judge erroneously refused to admit testimony regarding battered child syndrome after failing to acknowledge its well-developed scientific basis. The court noted that since Washington courts have admitted expert testimony on battered woman syndrome to explain a woman’s perception, the same allowance should be made for battered child syndrome testimony, especially since “children are both objectively and subjectively more vulnerable to the effects of violence than are adults.” The rationale for admitting battered child syndrome testimony was found to be “as compelling, if not more so, when applied to children.”

Jeffrey Russell “Jeff” Hall was a plumber in Riverside, California, and the regional leader of the National Socialist Movement (Nazi Party). On May 1, 2011, he was shot to death with his own gun by his 10-year-old son Joseph. The murder took place at 4 a.m. as Hall slept on his couch.

Hall was a neo-Nazi who believed in fighting for an all-white society and had said that he would die for the cause.

According to the boy, the motive for the murder was that he was tired of his father hitting him and his stepmother.

Ohio Girl Allegedly Killed Abusive Father to Protect Mom and Siblings

The girl's attorney, Ian Friedman, tells PEOPLE she "lived in a perpetual state of fear for her mother, her siblings and herself"

Peoplemag

A 14-year-old Ohio girl accused of fatally shooting her father in the head is being hailed as a “hero” by her mother—for allegedly saving the family from years of physical abuse, PEOPLE confirms.

Bresha Meadows is charged with one count of murder for her alleged role in the death of her 41-year-old father, Jonathan Meadows, according to her arrest report. She is accused of shooting him in the head with his own gun at the family’s home early July 28, police said.

But Bresha’s mom has called her a “hero,” telling local media her daughter’s alleged actions ended the years of physical abuse she was forced to suffer at her own husband’s hands. (It was Bresha’s mom who first called 911, records show.)

“She is my hero. I wasn’t strong enough to get out and she helped me,” Brandi Meadows told Fox 8 in Cleveland. “I am so sorry she had to go through this. She is my hero.”

Bresha “helped me,” Brandi told Fox 8. “She helped all of us so we could have a better life.”

A Trove search of the terms “defended mother/patricide/killed father” reveals a surprising amount of newspaper reporting on children accused of killing their mother’s partners or ex-partners throughout the twentieth century. For the analysis presented here, I selected thirteen cases based on reports of children killing men in defence of mothers or where there was a history of domestic violence. The children included nine sons and four daughters aged fifteen to twenty-one. The offences occurred between 1909 and 1954.

Most of the victims were fathers (ten cases), alongside two boyfriends and one step-father. I use the word “victim” loosely. It is distressing to read the degree of violence perpetrated by these men against the women and their children. Most of the children had experienced family violence throughout their lives. Defendants, mothers, brothers, and sisters testified to violence consisting of frequent verbal abuse, beatings, and numerous attacks with weapons. In many cases defendants and their siblings told the court about their own physical and emotional victimisation. As one defendant stated, “Our life has been hell for a long time but it will be better now.”

Mothers commonly testified to the men’s threats to kill them. Alarmingly, many of these threats were directed at the children. In 1931, a mother told the court that her husband had previously threatened to kill her, in front of the girls, then kill himself and leave the girls in State care. Her 16-year-old daughter was charged with manslaughter for shooting her father when he assaulted her and threatened to “do them all in.”

There appears to have been little formal intervention prior to these homicides. Only two of the men were held accountable for their violent behaviour by the state. One of the fathers was on a six-month probation bond when his daughter shot him while he was choking her mother. His probation related to a previous attempt on the woman’s life. One mother’s boyfriend served two months imprisonment for assaulting her, and was only recently released in 1920 when her fifteen-year-old son killed him with a service revolver.

The primary cause of death in most cases (eleven of thirteen) was due to gunshot wounds. Many of these guns were ex-service weapons. A nineteen-year-old married daughter told a 1946 court that she shot her father with a pistol given her by an American whilst she was in Brisbane. Guns were used in all the killings committed by girls. Sometimes children used whatever was close to hand. One sixteen-year-old boy threw a large stone at his mother’s boyfriend when she was attacked in the front yard. The man fell, and the head injury subsequently killed him. Ironically, many of the sons used weapons that the father or step-father had earlier threatened to use against their mothers.

Almost all the children were charged with murder. Only one girl was charged with manslaughter. However, in two cases charges were dropped following the coroner’s inquiry. For example, in 1931, a sixteen-year-old boy killed his mother’s boyfriend when he attacked her in their front yard in front of onlookers. Sydney coroner, Mr May, ruled that the death was justifiable, noting that case law stipulated that “a child may defend its parent even to the point of taking the life of another, if there is good reason to believe the parent is in danger from this other.” Earlier in 1920, Melbourne deputy-coroner Mr Phillips ruled the death of a father as “misadventure.” He laid the responsibility for the death at the feet of the deceased who “was not worthy to bear the name of father, husband or man.”

Typically though coroners ruled that defendants were answerable for the killings and committed them to stand trial. In 1949, a coroner said he did not believe the son’s story that the gun had discharged accidentally, shooting the father in the back of the head. This was after hearing evidence that on the day of his death, the father had chased the mother with an axe, and later assaulted her physically including choking her. In a 1948 case, the nineteen-year-old killed his stepfather with a German army rifle after being knocked unconscious by the man when he attempted to save his mother. The Coroner, although acknowledging that the son’s actions were “laudable,” committed him for trial because he questioned “whether he was justified in taking the final step.” In both cases, however, the juries decided that the killings were indeed justified, and acquitted both defendants.

In fact, all-male juries acquitted all the defendants who stood trial, even though an indictment for murder meant a jury could also deliver an alternative verdict of manslaughter. In one summing-up, Justice Macfarlan reminded the jury that “a judge might think she deserves no punishment at all but she might still be guilty of manslaughter.” Yet none of the juries in these cases took that action. In the case of the married woman who shot her father, the jury was reported to have acquitted her of both murder and manslaughter. Acquittals were sometimes quick; five minutes in one case, ten minutes in another. Newspapers referred to these acquittals as “sympathetic” verdicts.

This raises questions about the two cases where children pleaded guilty because a guilty plea effectively deprived them of a possible acquittal. One boy pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter, and was subsequently released on a three-year bond. This was, the judge admitted, an exceptional outcome in an offence involving a firearm, yet he was clearly swayed by the sentencing reports, including the investigating police detective’s claim that it was the father’s ongoing violence towards the mother and children that triggered the shooting.

State v. Crabtree

State v. Crabtree - 248 Kan. 33, 805 P.2d 1

Justia Law

This is a direct appeal by Tommy Joe Crabtree from his conviction by a jury of second-degree murder (K.S.A. 21-3402). He was convicted for the shotgun slaying of his stepfather, Marion Clay. … Tommy’s mother, Esta Clay, married Marion Clay soon after she met Marion in 1981. Marion moved in with Esta and her three children. At the time, Tommy was 11, his sister was 10, and his brother, Paul, was 4. Within weeks, Marion was beating Esta and the children. Within a year, Marion was having sexual intercourse with Tommy’s sister on a regular basis.

It is not necessary to recount all the instances of violence in the record. Suffice it to say, Marion… was often violent to family members and his acts were brutal in nature. The shooting took place some seven years after the last physical violence to Tommy by Marion. During most of the intervening years, Tommy was not in the home (having been removed from the home by SRS) and Marion was in and out of mental institutions and other institutions. However, during those years, there were severe problems in the family caused by Marion. He continued to physically abuse Esta and sexually abuse Tommy’s sister. Marion, at times, thought he was the “outlaw Josey Wales.”

In 1985, Marion beat Esta, and Tommy attempted to shoot Marion, but missed. Marion was arrested, but, apparently, not prosecuted. Also in 1985, Tommy’s sister reported to the police that she was being sexually abused. Although she passed a polygraph test and her story was corroborated by her mother, Marion was not prosecuted. Esta then divorced Marion.

In 1987, Marion was released from Larned State Hospital. He had been convicted of some crime, but it is not clear from the record what he had been convicted of. As part of Marion’s parole agreement, he agreed to stay out of Dodge City, to take his psychotropic medicine, to attend mental health counseling, and not to consume any alcohol.

Upon his release, Marion immediately violated each of the conditions of his parole. At Marion’s request, Esta moved to Hutchinson with Paul. Tommy decided to go along. He testified that although things initially went well in Hutchinson, Marion quit taking his medicine and started drinking heavily. All witnesses testified that when Marion drank, he became argumentative and threatening.

On the day prior to the shooting, Marion made sexual advances toward Tommy’s girlfriend, Marcie. She told Tommy about this. Tommy came home from work and Marion, Esta, Paul, Marcie, and Steven Bonham (a friend of Tommy’s) were there. Marion had been drinking and repeatedly (as long as 1½ hours) played a pornographic tape he had made in prison expressing his desires for Esta. Tommy removed the tape and broke it.

Eventually, Marcie’s mother came and picked her up. Marcie left her car parked in front of the house. At this point, there is some disagreement in the testimony as to what happened next. Apparently, Marion was upset that Marcie’s car was parked on the street in front of the house. Tommy testified that Esta came to his room and told him that Marion wanted Marcie’s phone number. Tommy testified that he refused to give the number, and Marion came in and demanded it. Tommy testified that he went out and moved Marcie’s car across the street, but that Marion kept complaining about the car. Tommy testified that Marion said something about fighting him and threatened to get a knife, but that he (Tommy) went to his room. Tommy testified that he got a shotgun from his room and followed Marion out of the house. Tommy admitted that he did not know whether Marion had a knife, and he admitted that he never had observed a knife and that no one told him Marion had a knife.

Tommy testified that, once outside, Marion went to his car, which was parked the wrong way on the street in front of the house, and sat down in the car. Tommy testified that he went to the front of the car, but did not point the shotgun at Marion. Tommy testified that Esta came and started telling him to give the gun to her, but that he did not remember if she grabbed it. According to Tommy, during this argument, Marion got out of the car, and somehow the gun went off, killing Marion. Tommy specifically denied that Paul was outside at this time. After Tommy was arrested, he told the police that he had pointed the shotgun down the sidewalk and pulled the trigger in order to scare Marion, but that Marion had jumped in front of the gun.

Abusive father killed by teen to save mother, judge rules | CBC News

The boy, now 15, was found not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of his father at the conclusion of his trial in High Level, Alta.

CBC

A northern Alberta teen had no choice but to shoot his violently abusive father to defend himself and save his mother’s life, a judge has ruled.

At the conclusion of his trial in High Level, Alta. last month the boy, now 15, was found not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of his father two years ago. He cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

“I find that H. did not intend to kill his father, intending only that his father would stop what he was doing before killing his mother,” Justice Paul Jeffrey said in written reasons for his decision released this week.

“I find in all the circumstances, H. had no other choice if he was to intervene to save his mother,” the decision said. “In the circumstances, his actions were reasonable or, at a very minimum, he has raised more than a reasonable doubt that his acts were reasonable in all the circumstances.”

The boy was 13 in August 2013 when he shot his father once in the leg with a 30/30 Winchester rifle to stop him from attacking his mother, who had just been released from hospital. She had spent weeks on life support after the boy’s father nearly choked her to death.

The boy shot his father a second time in order to stop “the violent, enraged brute of a man” who was now “floundering” towards him, the judge said. He noted the father had threatened to kill the boy.

The judge believed the boy when he testified he didn’t intend to shoot his father in the stomach.

After firing the gun, the teen picked up his baby sister and ran out the door.

“I concluded that the first shot taken by H. was in defence of and to protect his mother, to avoid her imminent murder if he did not intervene,” the judge wrote.

“I find the second shot was in defence of himself and also his mother, because the first was insufficient to restrain his father’s aggression, by that time headed towards him.”

The teen was arrested several hours later. He spent more than two years in custody at the Edmonton Young Offender Centre.

The written judgment chronicles the horrific abuse the boy and his mother suffered at the hands of his father.

His mother had a number of visible permanent injuries from years of physical abuse. She had a permanent bump on her head after her husband kicked her in the head.

Whenever the boy looked at her, the judge wrote, “he saw another visible reminder of his father’s abhorrent, brutal, criminal treatment of his mother.”

The boy had suffered repeated beatings at the hands of his father since he was seven years old. He had been whipped with cords, struck with wooden objects and thrashed with an antenna.

Baton Rouge teen accused of killing father was isolated, abused for years, attorney says

An attorney for the 17-year-old arrested in his father's slaying earlier this month claims there is an extensive history of child abuse that

The Advocate

Mom of teen who killed his abusive father describes not knowing whether her son was alive for 11 years

A Netflix documentary called "I Just Killed My Dad" focuses on 19-year-old Anthony Templet, who faced manslaughter charges after killing his

Insider

Anthony, then 17, had confessed to shooting and killing his father, Burt Templet, after a violent altercation in the early hours of June 3, 2019. The teen was in jail awaiting trial for manslaughter.  He was released in 2021 with five years’ probation after his attorney negotiated a plea deal on the grounds of self-defense.

Thompson had not seen her son since 2008 when, she said, he was “snatched” at the age of 5 by her former husband. She said that her ex had convinced a judge in his home state of Louisiana to give him sole custody.

Court records in the three-part documentary series show he’d concealed his past as a domestic abuser, which included time in prison for abusing Thompson when she was pregnant.

Thompson’s sister, Elena, said in the documentary that Anthony was tricked by his dad into believing his mother was “just a junkie, had no use for him, didn’t care for him and there was no reason to go looking for her.”

Anthony Templet told the Netflix filmmakers that he was denied an education

“I didn’t have any contact with the outside world,” Anthony, now 19, said, adding, “He always found a way to make me feel like I was doing wrong.”

Anthony went on to recall that his father had a “hair trigger temper” and that “his moods could change in a second.”

Thompson said that she spent years searching in vain for her son. The police were involved, she said, but couldn’t find him. She went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Burt had relatives, and put up “missing posters” in the hope someone had seen her child.

“By the time he was 14 or 15, I would have no idea what he looked like or recognize his face,” Thompson said in the film.

Meanwhile, Anthony said he feared for his safety. Moments before the killing, he said that he and Burt had gotten into a violent fight about Anthony’s right to privacy. In police interviews shown in the film, Anthony admitted grabbing two of his father’s guns and firing three bullets in his head. Burt died later in the hospital.

“I didn’t want to kill him, I didn’t want him to kill me,” Anthony said in the documentary. “It was kind of ‘do or die.’”

Grand jury declines to indict local teen for killing abusive father

The 15-year-old was charged with shooting his father, 66-year-old Wesley Gales. The teen reportedly told authorities he “had enough of his f

https://www.wrdw.com

A Columbia County grand jury voted not to prosecute an Appling teenager charged with killing his father last year.

The 15-year-old was charged with shooting his father, 66-year-old Wesley Gales, in the head on the night of Oct. 28, 2020. The teen reportedly told authorities he shot his father because he was fed up with his mother being abused.

Today, the grand jury issued a “no bill,” Columbia County District Attorney Bobby Christine confirmed.

The night of the incident, Columbia County Sheriff’s deputies were called around 8:30 p.m. to 3353 Gales Road, in reference to a “CPR in progress.”

When authorities arrived, they found Gales on the back porch with a gunshot wound to the head. Deputies found Gale’s wife and his 15-year-old son at the scene as well.

While being interviewed, the son admitted shooting his father with a .22-caliber Marlin semiautomatic rifle. He reportedly told deputies the murder was brought on by his father constantly abusing his mother.

Incident reports over the past several years—going back to 2011—show the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office had been called to the Gales’ residence many times for what the reports call “family trouble.”

Many of the incidents, according to the reports, started as arguments but ended with physical violence and law enforcement being called to calm the dispute.

In the most recent incident, sheriff’s records show the father had been arrested and booked into Columbia County jail on March 11 on charges of battery/family violence and cruelty to children in the third degree.

The Revenge of an Assault Survivor

The following true story was told to (and written by) Amy Roost by Estela Salazar.

Medium

Mami built a room for Eduardo, on the far end of the house, where our meetings took place. I was his sex slave for three weeks out of the year.

…

Mami convinced Eduardo to bring her a gun to protect the family, and one day Eduardo arrived with a Beretta. Eduardo showed us the safety and how to load the gun and pull the trigger. Mami and I shot at the eucalyptus trees in our yard. Later, I watched as Mami hid the gun in her closet.

Emboldened by the power he wielded because of the photo, Eduardo became increasingly offensive, obscene and demeaning. “Act like a woman!” he demanded.

“How can I? I’m only 11!”

…

Depression swallowed me whole. First Don José had stolen my innocence. Now Eduardo had stolen what was left of my childhood. Killing myself seemed like the only escape. I got the gun from Mami’s closet, unlocked the safety, and hid it underneath the pillow in Eduardo’s room. My plan was to shoot myself in front of Eduardo, so that he would have to live with the consequences of what he’d done to me.

…

That night, the liquor on Eduardo’s breath entered my bedroom before he did. He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me across the house to his room. He latched the door behind us, then shoved me onto the bed in the corner of the room. I watched as he dug into his knapsack and pulled out something long. “I will put this in your ass,” he said. “And you will like it.”

“No! You were supposed to go away and leave me alone!” I screamed.

He clasped his hand over my mouth. “This will be the last time,” he whispered. “I promise.”

As Eduardo turned away to place his knapsack on the chair, I slid my hand beneath the pillow, grabbed the Beretta and raised it to my temple, but as Eduardo turned to face me with the dildo in his hand, I turned the gun on Eduardo and fired one shot into his forehead.

I was deafened by the blast as Eduardo fell on top of me, his whole body shuddering in my arms.

…

I rolled out from under Eduardo and let her in. Her worn hands gripped a candle. The light revealed a fine mist of blood splatter on three of the four walls.

“What have you done?”

“I killed him.”

“Estamos jodidos,” Mami sighed. “We’re screwed.”

We stood together looking at Eduardo’s dead body splayed across the bed.

…

I wrapped Eduardo’s body in blankets, and as a cold rain began to fall I dragged the body to the nearby sandy riverbank. Mami took my sisters to town while Don José slept on the other side of the house. I often hauled trash down to the river to be burned and buried, and hoped the neighbors thought I was doing just that.

Just as I’d dug holes to play in as a child, and just as I’d dug holes for burning our garbage, I dug a long shallow grave for Eduardo’s body. I rolled him into the hole, covered the body with the silty earth, then packed the mound with the back of the shovel.

After I killed Eduardo, I was no longer a child. I was a soldier who had defended my family and my home. I even went so far as to order a police detective correspondence course in the mail, and after reading it cover to cover, I was convinced that I wouldn’t get caught for my crime.

Four uneventful years passed. Don José and Eduardo were no longer threats to me. I earned enough money to pay my tuition by tutoring first-grade students who were referred to me by Fernando. I converted the room where I killed Eduardo into a classroom.

Then one day, the authorities arrived. I thought they were there to arrest me, but it was for another reason. They explained that our colony needed to be evacuated because it was in a flood basin and the dam was beginning to crack. They offered Mami new land plus some money. Mami agreed without hesitation. She and Don José began to disassemble the house, so that we could take the wood with us and build again on the new land.

“Mami, we need to do something with the body. It can’t be here,” I said. “The authorities know whose property this is, and if they find the body here, we’ll go to jail.”

“What are you going to do?” Mami asked.

“We have to unbury him.”

“Who is we?” Mami asked.

“Me. I’ll do it,” I said.

Mami took my sisters to town while I dug up Eduardo’s partially decayed body. The first whiff of maggot-covered corpse nearly knocked me out. But I couldn’t stop, so I resorted to my old trick—my mind flew away to the kitchen, and the music on the radio.

I went to the shed and found a pair of work gloves and the old axe I used to cut up the chickens, ducks and rabbits that we ate for dinner. I decapitated the skull and then cut the torso into pieces. I put these parts in paper bags, then put the bags in the latrine of the abandoned house next door, knowing that the chemicals in the latrine would quickly disintegrate them.

Next, I cut up the bones and put them in smaller paper bags. I knew of a slum area with a lot of trash, so I carried the bags three at time and dropped one bag every couple of hundred yards or so. I then returned to the body and started out again with three more bags, until eventually the bones were scattered for a mile or more along the Tijuana River, sure to be swept away in the next flood.