Every morning, part of my normal "waking up" routine is to get myself a cup of coffee to sip on while I read the Centre Daily Times newspaper online. The CDT comes out of State College, PA and is a daily paper geared to Centre County, the county adjacent to where I live. Since I worked for many years, attended college there, etc., I'm pretty familiar with that area as well as my home county.
This morning, under their "Breaking News" headline was the story about a young woman in West Virginia who was abducted and tortured by a group of people in what the authorities say they will look into prosecuting those arrested for a hate crime. Read below for a portion of the article that appeared in the CDT this morning.
BIG CREEK, W.Va. --
A young black woman who authorities say was tortured for days at a remote hillside home, sexually assaulted and forced to eat rat droppings was not a random target, the county prosectutor said Wednesday.
One of the six suspects arrested in the case, Bobby Brewster, had a previous relationship with the victim, Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham told The Associated Press. He said Brewster had been charged in July with domestic battery and assault after a domestic dispute involving the same woman.
"She obviously had some sort of social relationship," Abraham said. "That is based on the fact that she was present at his residence on a prior date."
Megan Williams, 20, was found beaten and bruised at Brewster's mother's home in rural Big Creek on Saturday.
Abraham said he plans to pursue kidnapping charges against the suspects, and the FBI is looking into possible civil rights violations.
According to the criminal complaints, Williams' captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her, made her drink from a toilet and made her eat dog feces and rat droppings. She was also beaten and sexually assaulted during a span of about a week, according to the complaints.
It wasn't until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff's deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended. She limped toward the deputies, her arms outstretched as she cried, "Help me!"
Now, I don't know about what others who read this may think, but frankly I was appalled, completely shocked by what I read about this young woman and what was done to her.
This just goes beyond belief! Who on earth, in their right mind, would incur things like this on another human being?
Two women, mothers of two of the people accused in this crime, have also been arrested in conjunction with their children and the others.
How can a parent possibly not just approve of their offspring's actions and not just approve but also, assist in their actions?
Doesn't it just make your head spin to think there are folks who have such hatred inside their hearts that, in what is supposed to be a "civilized" society, they would perform acts like this on another person?
It truly just boggles my mind.
11 comments:
Yeah, this one boggled the mind. Sad. Not just sad 'cause of what happened to that young woman and because of the suspects being parent/adult children combos, but also 'cause stories like this set the country back a step and add a few bricks to that stupid wall of suspicion and mistrust that needs to be torn down now, already.
Good post.
James - this just goes beyond sad, so much. Just plain outrageous. I would hope these people ALL get the strongest punishment possible, unless of course, they plead guilty by insanity. Much as I hate to see someone cop a plea like that one, in this case, it does make one think that all of them have to either be insane or not of a mental capacity to be able to stand trial. This one will have me shaking my head for a long, long time.
This made me feel physically sick.
Your totally right about it boggling the mind, because i just cant even begin to think how those parents could do something like that.
They couldn't all be mentally incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.
Your title summed it up best-HATEful, Jeni!
I bet the person who tipped off the police was a participant who probably realized how sick and inhumane the crime was, or there would be a monetary reward.
Either way, I'm glad she was home alive. Now she has to spend the rest of her life trying to live with this crime against her.
I try to stay away from reading horrible stuff like that. Yikes!
I did happened to notice where your from. I grew up in snyder county and married a man from juniata county, just down the road from you. I use to visit state college back in the day to party with friends going to college there. My step mother-in-law lives in milroy.
Small world huh?
Generally I can come up with something to say about nearly anything. This leaves me speechless.
Later Y'all
I was sick over this story.
Never should've happened.
Thank God she is still alive.
I pray for justice.
luv
Your Eldest and Dearest
:)
Sickening. I hope the aggressors and the parents involved feel the full force of the law. That poor girl is going to need years of therapy, and even then -- how do you "get over" something like that?
hi jeni,
I read about this a couple days ago and it bothered me so much that I decided NOT to blog about it. Unfortunately too often I find myself wondering the same things and posing the same questions you've included in this post.
How, why, what, would make one human being treat another human being this way?
I don't have a sufficient answer. It is what it is and our society has become so much LESS than what it could be. The question is, how do we change it?
I don't have a clue.
Jeni, I have read about this. Sadly, we live in a culture where hateful people are glorified and powerful, and such incidents will only increase.
I agree with you, this is very infuriating.
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