Friends argue 16-year-old girl needs help, not prison, following her mother’s murder:
This is another story that I’ve been following here. It’s the story of Esmie Tseng, a 16-year-old Kansas girl who is accused of stabbing her mother, Shu Y. Tseng, to death. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten a chance to post the previous entries since The Great Website Meltdown of 2005.
What makes this story attention-getting is the support she is getting from friends and strangers alike who do not want her tried as an adult, which is basically what this article is about.
I have yet to hear an official motive for the killing, but it may be because I haven’t researched too hard. I just post dribs and drabs of what I get through the media. However, Esmie’s mom has been portrayed as this overbearing mother putting way too much pressure to succeed on her daughter…
“Her mom leaves a note on her bed that basically said, ‘If you don’t take the state championship, we’re taking the piano away,’” Horwitz said. “(Esmie) puts in (her journal) a couple times that the only thing that defines her is piano and her escape from life is to sit down and play Bach for a few hours.”
While her mother sounds like a control freak, it’s still no reason to stab her repeatedly if that is, in fact, the motive.
Unless I hear a better explanation of why she killed her mother, I have no problems at all with her being tried as an adult.
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