NEW: Jury finds Underwood guilty:
An Oklahoma jury took less than an hour to find Kevin Underwood guilty in the murder of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin.
Underwood killed her, molested her, in that order, then tried to sever her head in order to consume her flesh.
The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for this monster. If there was anyone the death penalty was designed for it’s Underwood.
I don’t understand how someone can take another life. It’s way beyond my comprehension. I really have a difficult time with the death penalty too. I think the death penalty is way too leanient for these people. They should have to endure the same death they inflicted on their fellow human beings. That should be the law, that whatever means you kill someone with you should die the same way. Why don’t we just put all the murderers together in a cell and let them do away with each other?
Should we have mercy? No, they didn’t have mercy on their victim. Where are the victims rights? What about the victims feelings, the pain and suffering. The loss of life of the victim. The truth is that the victim don’t want justice. They just wanted to live out their natural life. They didn’t have any choice. What is wrong with us that we are allowing people to get by so easy for such horrible crimes. We put them away for the rest of their life and then we end up supporting them. With cost and living expenses these days the average person struggles to do this for their own families.
None of it makes sense to me. No wonder there is so much depression and disfunction.
I have a little pet fantasy about how to deal with violent criminals. Right now it’s ever so complicated and costly. Prison does not provide rehabilitation, yet criminals get out some day. We don’t feel right executing someone for an act of passion. What a mess.
Then there is, for me, a spiritual aspect. Killing people is wrong. I don’t think it’s our place to send people back to God. But they certainly cannot live with us. So: exile.
How about we rent a massive chunk of land in the China/Mongolia/Russia area? Gotta be cheaper than our prisons. Let these people who seem to find violence to be a necessity and right of their inner selves go and make their own society. Send them with a shovel and ax, blankets, clothes, seeds, beasts, whatever is essential. Then let them act out their lives together. Certainly harsh, likely a return to savagery, but it seems like a good fit for both society and them. Some of us want to delete them from society, some want them to have a chance to change. This could do both.
A daydream. They just don’t belong here. I don’t want to be bothered sullying myself with fantasies of torturing them. Just airdrop them andlet them deal with each other to the cleansing of their souls.
I’m more of a rusty woodchipper fan myself but I could get behind your idea Dan.
And remember, only God can judge them but the state can arrange the meeting.
Yeh, but then we have people who are capable of dropping people in rusty woodchippers. That’s scary too. That’s why I think they could take care of each other better. We keep our hands clean.
Have you seen the movie “No Escape” with Ray Liotta. It is basically the same premise, the dump all these hard-core criminals off on a desserted island where they are left to fend for themselves. Ever since I watched that, I have always that that would be such a great idea. Why do we have to coddle prisioners. I could go on and on about my disgust for the penial system.
Back to the topic, this case, Kevin Underwood, the trial took place where I live in Oklahoma. It was just too sad.
Dan- maybe you can explain it, where does people’s empathy go, is empathy something you acquire or are you born with it and enviroment, upbringing or whatever, does that have an effect or dimish so that people have no feelings for another human life.
I did think about that movie I just couldn’t remember the name of it.
Wasn’t that how Australia started? A place for felons?
I do remember seeing previews for that. Have to watch it sometime. Good idea.
Short answer to where empathy goes, unless a person is a sociopath or has a neurological disorder: empathy is almost effortlessly fostered in a child by acts as simple as a smile. Even horrendously abused children may have empathy. But empathy, whether budding or fully developed, can be systematically crushed by a variety modes.
Long answer: Where it comes from. With exceptions, it’s likely as innate as anger and pleasure. As a baby learns his or her emotions, he or she learns the emotions of others. Feeling as another feels causes a sympathetic connection. If a primary caretaker is abusive, that can be twisted for self-preservation.
Even a child who is beaten, neglected or sexually abused usually retains empathy. They just get the twist of using it for self protection. Though a majority of pedophiles were once abused, very few sexual abuse victims become pedophiles. Some would argue abuse victims have keen empathy. I’ve often seen it to be true. So if you can’t beat and rape the empathy out of a person, how does it go?
This is what fascinates and horrifies me. I think empathy is forfeited through minor or even nearly benign events. And though this will be controversial, I believe it’s a choice.
Take the teens torturers or rival murderers we seen on this site. No one with much empathy would be capable of doing those things. I believe they chose to release their empathy systematically over the years. Overly simple, but when we see a chainsaw massacre movie, we are riding a primative aversion thrill. Those kids took it someplace else. They dreamt of inflicting rather than fleeing.
The biggest threat I see to our young culture is desensitization. I see it nearly every kid I know. I’m telling you, the baby raping jokes on South Park givethem tiny traumas. A ten year old should never have to hold baby rape in his mind. It’s so shocking and terrifying the kid has to shut down a tiny bit. What a 20 year old can be safely revolted by damages a 10 year old a tiny bit. And kids today get tons of this exposure. Remember how shocking it was when you found out about plain old sex? These kids know about sadism.
Now kids desensitize to protect their innocence sense of good in the world. But some kids choose to indulge an appetite for ugly. They want to cause ugly. I believe these people forfeit their empathy by choice.
Pedophiles are a good example of another means of empathy suppression. More pedophiles than not are in an agony to protect kids. They contort their lives to avoid evil thoughts of kids, evil possibilities. What pedophile support groups do is attempt to rewire natural empathy. They contort natural aversion and understanding until it meets their needs. Because sex is so compelling, the mind is eager to accept falsehood. Pedophiles who prey also choose to give up their empathy in dribs and drabs. On deadkidsofmyspace I read one predator who was suggesting sadism to the “grandfather” police officer of two preschool age children. That man had clearly shed every shred of empathy he ever had. Other pedophiles cling to their empathy and successfully never offend.
Studies bear out that empathy is systematically shed, but the popular idea is that it’s crushed by damaging events beyond someone’s control. I don’t believe that. I believe people make microscopic choices every time they are exposed to horror in any form. I blame adult shows in children’s time slots, among other things, for desensitizing our kids, stealing their innocent world view far too soon, but the kids who become animals as a result of the onslaught of revolting ideas, they choose that. A child may say “ew” and talk to a parent or friend. He may avoid that show. He may give up his idea of the rosy world before his brain is ready and choose to revolt in any number of incovenient and inappropriate ways commonly refered to as juvenile delinquency. Or he may decide that sympathy is for suckers and beome a violator. The way I see it, empathy is given up not stolen.
Empathy and the cultivation of empathy is a noble pursuit for people with afflictions such as pedophilia or rage problems. Those disorders are so powerful that people really need proffesional help to control them. Their empathy is laudable when they use every means possible o protect innocent people. Empathy isn’t for suckers. It is one of the finest things about humanity. When people choose to abandon it and indulge in violation, I think we need to and have the right to utterly exclude them from our fine human pursuits.
Oh, yeh, Australia. That was a mess, what little i know. Part of my fantasy is financial. Seems like we could contain violent criminals, insulate them from the citizens of contracted country, at a great expense that is still far less than we pay now.
Dan – Thank you so much, I cant help but wonder though, I mean, isnt there a way to expose children to the real world and the horrors of what people do to other people and not completely ruin there empathy and respect for life. I have 2 boys, 13 and 7 who love horror movies (Dad is a film major so maybe that does help cause it shows that it is made up, not real) but they are also the most polite, intellegent (unlike thier mother who I just think I did not spell intellegent correctly) caring boys I have ever known, and I am not just saying that as their mother, every teacher, parent, stranger on the street has said that about them. My boys wont even kill bugs in the house, the pick them up and put them back outside (when my youngest was about 3 he liked to play with the rolly-pollys, litte bugs I dont know what the real name of them is) I told him “why dont you pick up the rolly-pollies and go put them back in the dirt to be with their family” to this day, he still does that, if I am digging something up in the garden, he picks them up and moves them to another spot to “be with thier families”, they both almost break down and cry when they see road kill and will go up to a baby or child in the store that is crying and try to comfort them. My oldest is involved with many social and chartiable programs at school. You are the expert, can we as parents and adults of young people, cant we help not to desensitize kids through all the violence they are exposed to through TV, movies, internet, video games by providing enough love and reinforcement to counteract that exposure. If you truly think not, I will seriously reconsider my views on what my boys are exposed too.
BTW – Dan, I read all your posts on the forums and I think you are a awesome. You should consider writing a book or at least start your own website to offer parenting/child rearing advice.
I agree with you Dan that killing is wrong. But then we do it all the time in war. I also feel that divorce is wrong, but necessary in some situataions. (ie) Domestic violence for one. And then when I go to the bible the information I find there is somewhat confusing.
……………..
Exodus 21:23-25
23 “But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Leviticus 24:19-21
19 “If a man injures his neighbor, just as he has done, so it shall be done to him: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth just as he has injured a man, so it shall be inflicted on him. 21 “Thus the one who kills an animal shall make it good, but the one who kills a man shall be put to death.
It is a good thing that Jesus taught us how we are to treat others today in the new covenant:
Matthew 5:38-48
38 “You have heard that it was said, “AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.’ 39 “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41 “Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 “Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
……
But then again if one of my children were a victim of one of these torturing inhumane murderers I would be hard pressed not to believe in Trench’s rusty woodchipper.
What really ticks me off is that there are so many of these people in a prison where heat is provided them. Three squares a day is provided them. Clothes are provided for them. Medical attention, television, all their needs are provided for them. And all they have to do is sit back and breath for the rest of their lives. And we get to pay for it. They don’t even have to worry about how they are going to buy food or pay the bills.
And most of them have family members on the outside that will provide what ever else they do need that the prisons wont provide, the eligitmate children they fathered before they went to jail, tax payers pay for them. I hear ya, I really do.
Dan can correct me if I am wrong, but if we can start with children while they are young, instill empathy for human life and respect for the law, then maybe we can prevent more children from growing up and turning into criminals, we need better programs in place for young parents (or as I truly feel, we need more family planning/birth control options) we need to give people better tools to raise healthy, happy, empathic (is that a word) children.
Dan- another question for you, since a lot of mental issues (ie depression, anxiety,etc) are caused from a chemical imbalance and there are medications that help correct that imbalance, is sociopathic tendancys and/or a lack of empathy a chemical imbalance that can be corrected, well maybe not so corrected but more or less helped with medications along with an effective counseling treatment program?
I certainly believe things need to change at the childhood level. When I see how some of these kids in school bully other children it absolutely infuriates me. It’s just not right. And some of the parents condone their children behaving in this manner. I sort of believe it’s a matter of good over evil. And sometimes it seems that evil is winning out.
Bootyj, even I can’t write long enough posts to explore all the subtleties of how the human mind is formed. I love an excuse to try though.
Exposing them to the real world. Well, yes. But I believe their childlike minds deserve to form at precisely their own rate. Can we agree that 8 is too young for Marquis deSade concepts? Why? Because it damages them. Children’s minds are profoundly flexible and fertile, both advantageous and a vulnerability. I’d almost say thoughts are as powerful as things that happen to them. Context is thought, so I yes, I believe that.
Think about this. A child may be handled thoroughly by a doctor. A child handled in the same exact way by another person knows something is wrong, no matter how skillfully a predator frames it. Even a child who has been taught to be comfortable with their bodies, that their bodies are nice and they are theirs alone, even that child know. A child with no intentional body awareness knows. How? They have a concept of the world. The yknow what is meant to go on, what feel right and what feels wrong. All perception and they are dead accurate.
Why is sexual contact with an adult so incredibly damaging? In our programmed revulsion, we assume it is the actual contact. Really it’s the subtle mindfuck, even with little or no manipulation. Slick predators know that, so they frame their assaults in positive ways. Some are very skilled. So how can one of these slick assaults be so damaging if they are rrelatively minor and positively presented? It’s because a child has an innocent word view that becomes more of a “real” world view in their own good time. Sex in a healthy kid under 8 is somewhat murky. They think of it as something weird adults like to do together. They NEED that world view. An acting pedophile shatters that. For the child, the world is no longer real. It’s not about their bodies or ickiness or degradation. It’s about the world where they are safe from vague dangers, where they are sacred and magical. The world itself evaporates.
Predators with conscience need to understand that accidental brief brushes of contact are assault because a child knows. In their innocent world, they know. Sexual contact breaks their little minds to let magic leak out and ugly leak in.
We let predators out because someone thinks, eh, they merely fondled a kid and made him uncomfortable. Not true. In reality, that child’s world was killed. He or she can recover, but in a new, uglier world.
Maybe we can relate. Remember your first true love and how the breakup felt like the world would end? Remember the pain, the fear of being unlovable, that true love didn’t exist and you’d be forever alone? And that was a natural, intended lesson! Image that dramatic pain artificially created in a child. They’re just not ready.
Kids deserve a life stage when there is no ugliness in the world. Then they gradually take ugliness in small bits. How parents frame it is everyhing
When a child is exposed to horror, much of how they perceive it has to do with how their world view is shaped. You’re right, kids after their concrete age can tell fantasy from reality. That is good. That’s why it’s important to do as you do. We have to help kids process their thoughts. A knifing on tv? We are appalled, say “that is horrible, I can’t stand to see people treat each other that way. ” We let them know it’s actually a rarity, that they or we will not be stabbed. A monster movie? “Oh this is so scary. I’m glad there are no real monsters.”
Kids brains are a sizzling hotbed of wiring. They bubble with thoughts. They are wiring themselves everymoment of their lives, slowing in the early 20s. It amazes me everything I tease apart a child’s fear or false conviction. They take in everything and often file it in weird ways. That’s why we need to get in the habit of processingwith kids. They can take knocks if they process it well, with help. The real world can leak in in a way that that doesn’t overwhelm them.
Monster movies I think can be processed well in pre-teens. I’m much more upset by unlimited video games because it has the effect of drugs on kids’ minds. All that bubbling of thought is reduced. The finest wiring days of an entire lifetime spent in a numbing drug haze. It’s a waste.
I think there are approx ages for everything. Young adults tell me to tell kids 19 for first intercourse. I’d been telling kids not before 17 but the college kids insist it messed with their head before 19.
I tell the kids no internet porn. That is some seriously bad wiring. Where appropriate, I tell teen guys that college girls say they can’t stand sleeping with guys who’ve consumed too much porn. Makes them bad lovers with bad expectations. 16 year olds reactions to porn is profound. 22, not so much. 22 can see the fakeness, the bad advice, pick and choose. But a young teen cannot. Material of all sorts on the internet gives so many false ideas.
I advocate making naked pictures available to teens, non surgically altered ones. They crave them so they’ll find something somewhere. I feel like almost every young woman I’ve met has some degree of body dysmorphia. I’m appalled. They are really hurt. But boys and girls wire their brains on surreal internet flesh.
Do you know how fetishes are created in a person? Usually they are made in childhood from seemingly innocuous events. That’s how subtle the wiring is. And most true fetishes, like a foot fetish, are impediments to healthy relationships. They are not merely a happy choice.
So many pet topics about the ick in kids’ heads. I’m shocked all the time about what’s in there and how it got there.
Kids need to indulge innocence before 10. They need to wire themselves up with big dreams, magical thinking, easy joy, sure success, absolute safety. A 13 year old needs other things. Risk for one. He needs tons of attention, the kind of attention that tells him he is a highly desirable companion. He needs discussions where he does most of thetalking. He needs to make mistakes, even big ones. When you freak out, blast what he did but never him. He’s never bad, or he’ll show you bad. And you can begin to have man-like expectations. Praise, adoration, admiration. Tell a kid he is admirable, brave, clever, gentle, that his many fine qualities awe you, and he’ll rise to your occasion. That’s why when he does some shitty thing he won’t think he’s fallen from a false pedestal but only made a mistake he is man enough to face, fix, and do better next time.
I always want parents of teens to know their kids have to fuck up. Heck, I’m working with a young man just graduating from college as a teacher who was a none-to-minor JD.
You’ve got a good kid there, so he can probably take a lot of leash. Sometimes advanced kids are lacking for challenges, emotional, personal. Because they’re being wired , they need lots of stuff to challenge them, make them uncomfortable. They need to fail at things so they need big challenges. Adults underestimate kids’ capacity.
You probably know these basics though. They sound like great kids. You clearly put a lot of thought into them. And they know that. Parenthood is full of mistakes, but as long as your kids know how highy you think of them and love them, few mistakes matter over time.
Bootyj, I wandered. I’d keep the seven year old away from adult stuff. He sounds like a sensitive, gentle kid. The only show i’ve watched is South Park, but I take it as an indication. It is made with adult ideas. Baby rape and Marquis deSade are not ideas for kids, not as a joke, not in cartoons. It tears a tiny hole in kids’ minds.
Now the 13 year old is interesting. From the way you’ve been raising him, he probably has a healthy perspective on violence. Have to think about sex now. You and, in many cases, dad need to have an ongoing relationship around sex. It’s actually easy to do. Trick is to make it natural. Kids want to know your thoughts but never personal specifics. (somehow I don’t think you’d do that) Two goals are to keep him away from internet porn as long as possible and to keep him from having sex till it’s healthy. My sources assure me that’s 19 or later, but I think 18 is not damaging even if it doesn’t turn out well. I’m having great success with my info that the lovers college girl admire are boyfriends who avoided the twisted reality of porn and instead cultivated communiction, generosity, understanding of female sexuality. I tell them flat out about brain wiring. They seem to think they absolutely must see naked women, but porn seems to be tempting but optional.
I loved the bug story. They’re very gentle kids.
Well, also as a mid-level hard core feminist, I have instilled in my boys respect for women. We (my 13 year old and I) have discussed sex, and I know this is going to sound blunt, but after he had a sex -ed and rape prevention class at school (which BTW I think is wonderful that the school offered), my advice to him was “Think with your head and not with your dick”, blunt-yes, crude- probably, but then I followed it up with that you need to just stop and take 10 seconds to think about what you are going to do before you do it, something may feel really good in the moment, but the results may last you a lifetime, he knows I was 17 went I got pregnant with him (18 when I had him). So I know the way kids these days are and I know I have a good kid, but the next few years are going to be a challenge to keep him on the straight and narrow, not to fall victim to peer pressure (he had a halloween party and I had to break up 12 year olds making out, which I never would have thought in a million years). He was telling me about some girl, who got pregnant in his school (7th grader) and all the other trouble this girl has been in, and I told him that it wasnt nice to make fun of her (calling her a skank and a slut) but that he should really sympathize with her, that she obviously has problems and there is something wrong with her family and I also pointed out to him that the vast majority of girls who act out sexually at a young age were most likely molested. He stopped and said, well I never thought of it like that, now he says he makes a conscious effort to say Hi to her and not to shun her like other kids do (I also said the same thing to 2 of my sons girl friends, friends that are girls, they both said the same thing, that they didnt think of it like that and I told them, no one would expect you to hang out with this girl, but to just have some respect for her feelings and what she has probably gone through and the reasons she acts the way she does). Now, does it surprise anyone that those two girls parents never had a conversation like that with them, doesnt surprise me, although they are probably good parents, no one takes the time to talk to thier kids (aside from “hi how was school” “what do you want for dinner”), I do a lot of, well, phschological type talk with my boys (Well, how do you feel about that, what do you think of that, what do you think that person is thinking, how would you feel, what would you do in that situation) all with the intention of instilling empathy.
Also, I hate south park, not really because of the topics, I just dont find it funny (and I love cartoons, simpsons, family guy, sponge bob) my son watches and tells me “mom you should watch it, you would like it”, but I have tried.
Dan – I think you are truly much more instightful than some prenting books I have read. Please consider starting your own blog site.
I’m not sure that this is still relevant at this point in your conversation, but I’m someone who, quite some time ago “decide[d] that sympathy is for suckers and” became “a violator.” Over the last several years, I have made a conscious attempt to desensitize myself to various aspects of the ugliness in our world, and I have come close to being able to watch, listen to, speak ugliness and perform reprehensible actions without immediate consequence from my conscience. But, there’s also a happy part of it from your perspective. My parents raised me to be a moral person. And they did it too well. I have been completely unable to abandon that aspect of myself, despite my not-inconsiderable attempts to transform myself into a sociopath. Admittedly, my screwy brain chemistry almost definitely plays a role in the entire thing, though I know not precisely how. I suppose my point is that it’s hard to wipe out the effects of good parenting.
Yes, empathic is a word. http://insected.arizona.edu/isoinfo.htm
Anon, why would you want to be a sociopath?
You’re only a violator if you violate. Otherwise you’re just a person with disturbing thoughts.
When I’ve talked to people who’ve worked consciously to desensitive themselves, it often has to do with youth group identity. Some groups celebrate being disaffected outsiders, thus work to shock with bad behavior. And there’s a weak sort of power in it too.
Group identity is crucial to kids. Being noticed for something, anything, is too.
Sometimes young people experience a lot of pain and choose to lose sensitivity to protect themselves, though that usually ends up hurting them and not others.
So I’m curious, why desensitize, court psychopathy?
The theory behind it was that I’d be able to think more rationally about various topics with a less active conscience. It worked to some extent. And I thought that it would prevent feeling moral cumpulsions and remorse, but it just weakens the compulsions and delays the moral backlash from many actions.
Psychopaths aren’t necessarily rational. Sometimes quite the opposite.
Rationality’s overrated when you’re talking about the human experience. Doesn’t often help much. Life require an irrational dimension.
Moral compulsions and remorse are not contaminations. They create discomfort. Discomfort is the only path to growth.
Emotional control is not the same as desensitizing. Letting empathic impulses drop away creates the illusion of control, but really it is a diminshment of potential.
Was thinking about your screwy “brain chemistry.” All this a creative way to deal? Historically the screwy brain chemistry people often make contributions no one else can. What’s the label for your screwy chemistry?
Thanks for the pillbug link. Detail. Nice.
Well, I like calling them “rolly-pollies” just sounds cuter. I think that is my defense mecanism to put “cutness” on ugliness, makes my view of the world better.
Anon, you sound like a very intelligent individual, I think you have the capacity to offer a lot of help to people, please dont intentionally set out to harm people. I like how you said that is hard to wipe out the effects of good parenting. That really does make me feel good that I hope that how I am raising my boys will last thier lifetime.
On a different note, I was molested by my neighbor at the age of 6 – 7 – I have tremendous fear that situations like this are becoming more prevalent, (murder of victims) for several reasons.
1) we are not treating the victims which sometimes grow into offenders. I know I was not the only victim, and often wonder about the others
2) we do not offer any prevention
3) we are lumping all sex offenders together when there are clearly different ‘types’ and motivations
4) restricting the released offenders options for residency, and marking them for life, via the database
I have often wondered if I was very fortunate that what happened to me, happened in the time (1950’s) that it did – because today I think many offenders may be inclined to silence their victims.
The other sad thing about this, is that many people don’t realize it is not lunatics like this that are abusing the most – it is the people right next door, or in our own homes.
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