Child-homicide figures, including children killed by their parents, are tracked in FBI statistics, which are, again, a collation of local statistics, but in this case provided by police departments across the nation. According to FBI statistics, 445 sons and daughters were killed by their parents in 2011, though the victims are not categorized by age, nor do the numbers include most deaths due to abuse that are not likely considered “intentional” under the law. There is no comprehensive, systematic national tracking by the FBI of the murder of children by parents, nor is there complete national information available on such things as specific ages of murder victims and their relationships to their killers.
The closest federal authorities provide comes from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The unit, within the Department of Justice, analyzes crime based on a data sample obtained from 40,000 US households to determine the frequency, as well as characteristics, of criminal victimization in the United States. Members of the households are interviewed twice a year to determine if someone in the family has been a crime victim, and the information is used to estimate crime rates.
According to the 2008 NCVS findings on homicides within families, murder of a partner by a spouse or ex-spouse—which accounted for most family homicide—represented a decreasing percentage of all family homicides from 1980 through 2008.37 In 1980, they made up half (52 percent) of all family homicides. By 2008, they accounted for just over a third (37 percent). But children, who are the second most frequent victims of family homicide, comprised an increasingly larger percentage of such murder, jumping from 15 percent of all family homicides in 1980 to 25 percent of all family homicides in 2008. And the boost was true for both black and white families. In 1980, 16.1 percent of white family homicides and 13.4 percent of black family homicides involved a parent who murdered a child. Yet by 2008, 23.5 percent of white family homicides and 30 percent of black family homicides involved a child killed by a parent. Interestingly, the percentage of parent victims killed by one of their children also increased, rising steadily from 9.7 percent of all family homicides in 1980 to 13 percent in 2008.38
Domestic-violence expert Richard Gelles believes the lines tracking homicide rates of children and wives in households may, at one point, “cross,” as homicides of wives continue to decrease and child homicides remain relatively flat. He attributes that situation to the different manner that violence against children and women are handled in the United States. Domestic violence against women is dealt with in the criminal-justice system, while child abuse in all but the most extreme situations is still largely an issue for social-service agencies, he noted. “I like to quote Al Capone here, who said that you can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone,” Gelles told me. “That’s the situation now with men who attack their wives or intimate partners. They’re dealt with by law enforcement.” The “kind word alone” from a social worker “doesn’t seem to be as effective” in stemming fatal violence against children, he noted.
If statistics are to be more complete, and an effective tool for professionals battling the problem of domestic abuse, the system needs a “one-stop shopping” store of data, argues a report by the PolicyLab that grew in part out of its research contradicting NCANDS statistics. Different, sometimes contradictory, information can be “unsettling” for child-welfare administrators trying to use data to “better understand the prevalence of maltreatment in their jurisdiction, and more important, improve outcomes for children,” notes a PolicyLab position paper.39 The PolicyLab recommends combining the NCANDS figures with FBI homicide statistics, death certificate data, and hospital statistics. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) system already exists for hospitals to track various diseases, injuries, medical conditions, and child abuse encountered by their staffs, but it’s not included in national abuse statistics.
Some states already have such multisource abuse tracking in place. The Alaska Surveillance of Child Abuse and Neglect Program (Alaska SCAN), for example, builds reports based on input from Child Protective Service agencies, police, hospitals and clinics, child-advocacy centers, and child-death reviews. To effectively address child abuse “the problem must be as clearly defined as possible through surveillance,” argues the PolicyLab.
If all the statistics concerning child fatalities due to abuse, neglect, or homicide were reliably gathered and reported, would it shock us into taking more action to protect children? The fact is, some major cases aside—like Florida mom Casey Anthony’s acquittal on first-degree murder charges after the remains of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, were found, or Scott Peterson’s murder of his pregnant wife, Laci—domestic violence and child abuse rarely trigger major alarm bells with the public. In two months during the summer of 2012 at least 40 children nationwide were killed by fathers in attacks considered horrific enough to make local headlines or national news. If the General Accounting Office is correct in concluding that national figures only tally a portion of abuse attacks, the number of child-maltreatment and child-neglect deaths at the hands of children’s caregivers would have been at least 240 in two months. If 40 children had been shot or strangled at a local school, the story would have captivated the media for months, and would have made the floor of Congress as politicians discussed what to do to prevent the problem in the future, just as the horrific shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary did that same year in December. But because the earlier cases were separate incidents, or perhaps because they were domestic-abuse cases, the deaths were less riveting to the public. Two major mass killings that summer—the shooting deaths of 12 at a showing of the Dark Knight Rises in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and the killing of seven in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin—burned up news pages. But in fact, familicides like Bill Parente’s murderous attack usually account for the majority of murder-suicides involving at least three victims in the United States each year. Most Americans poring over news reports about shootings at a Batman movie were unaware of the trail of tears in homes across the nation while several American children met their death at the hands of their father in 2012:1
Lewis Beatty, 40, admitted to police that he cut the throats of his six-year-old daughter, Sara, and eleven-year-old Amanda in his suburban Pittsburgh home June 1, then followed his estranged wife from work to her home to stab her to death there before setting the home ablaze. Beatty returned to his own home, where the bodies of his two girls still lay, to set it on fire as well. He was rescued from the blaze by a neighbor. He told police he became enraged when Sara casually mentioned while playing with her Barbie dolls following kindergarten graduation that her mom has been talking to another man. He also killed the family’s pet pony, goat, and dog because, he explained to detectives, there wouldn’t be anyone left to care for the animals. Beatty was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without parole. “This should never have happened,” Beatty said in court.
The body of James Butwin, 47, was found with his 40-year-old wife, Yafit, and their three children—seven-year-old Matthew, 14-year-old Daniel, and 16-year-old Malissa—all killed by bullets in a burned-out car in the Arizona desert close to the Mexican border. Police initially thought the bodies were the result of a drug deal gone bad because of known Mexican cartel activity in the Pinal County area. But investigators later discovered that Butwin, described by a friend as the “nicest guy,” had left two notes indicating that he planned to commit suicide, including instructions to a friend about what to do with his real-estate holdings. He had lost his job, was deeply in debt, and had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The last evening of his life, he celebrated his 47th birthday with his family at their home, then they climbed in the car for a nighttime drive in the desert.
Trucking Company owner Avtar Singh, 47, fatally shot his wife and three sons, ages three, 15, and 17, early June 9 before turning the gun on himself in the family’s home in Selma, California. Singh appeared close to being extradited to
India, where he was wanted for the 1996 kidnapping and murder of a Kashmiri activist and was a suspect in other murders while he was a general in the Indian army. Following an investigation about Singh’s criminal history by a California journalist, his 36-year-old wife, Hervander, threatened to sue unless there was an apology. She said her husband was an honorable soldier who had bled for his country, but would never spill the blood of an innocent. Singh’s background first came to the attention of local police weeks earlier when he was arrested and charged with felony domestic abuse after choking his wife. “He was a nice guy,” said a truck driver who worked for Singh.
On June 25, Marquis Garrison, 30, allegedly shook his two-month-old daughter and threw her on the ground when he said her fussing and crying “frustrated” him, according to the Denver District Attorney’s Office. She later died of her injuries.
Memphis dad Maurice Brown, 28, was charged with murdering his three-year-old son while babysitting July 1. He reported the toddler missing and said he feared the boy had been kidnapped by members of a rival gang. His son’s body was later found nearby in a large trash bin. He had died from blunt-force trauma. Maurice Brown Jr., three feet tall and 65 pounds, was last seen alive wearing a Batman shirt and blue jeans. A witness told police he saw Brown leave his house at night with a child slung over his shoulder. “As the father of a small child, I can’t even begin to imagine what could prompt somebody, or trigger somebody, to not only react violently to a small, three-year-old child, but to dispose of the body in such a manner,” a police spokesman told News Channel 3 in Memphis.2 The toddler’s maternal grandmother had warned her daughter about Brown’s temper. “Maurice was getting angrier and angrier,” she said.
The bodies of Randall Engels, 37, and his estranged 35-year-old wife, Amy, and their two children, Bailey, 13, and Jackson, 11, were found shot to death July 4 at the old family home in Dundee, about 25 miles south of Portland, Oregon. Amy had filed for divorce from Randall in late May, after 14 years of marriage, and had moved with the children to a new home in a nearby town. When Engels filed for divorce, she asked a Yamhill County judge to issue an emergency temporary custody and parenting order, citing an “immediate danger” to her children. Amy’s friends became alarmed when Randall posted on his Facebook page: “If she’s gone I can’t go on,” from the Beatles song, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.” Police saw the same words written on a white board when they peered through a window to check on the family.
North Dakota construction worker Aaron Schaffhausen was charged with murdering his three daughters in the Wisconsin home they shared with their mother, his estranged wife. Police said Schaffhausen asked for an unscheduled visit with his daughters July 10, and his ex-wife agreed; he showed up at their Minot house to be with the girls, and dismissed the babysitter. Two hours later, investigators said, he texted his wife: “Come and see your children. I killed them.” Police found the dead girls lying together in a single bed. River Falls Police Investigator John Wilson described in court how he entered the house with a paramedic and discovered each girl—eleven-year-old Amara, eight-year-old Sophie, and five-year-old Cecilia—with covers pulled up to their necks, their eyes open and lifeless, and with what appeared to be dried blood on their mouths and cheeks. The walls of one bedroom were splattered with blood, and the carpet was covered with a large pool of blood. The girls had large, “gaping” wounds across their necks, Wilson testified. Schaffhausen has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, and his trial was slated for spring 2013.
Indianapolis dad Johnny Bishop, 30, confessed to police that he violently shook and critically injured his nine-month-old son on July 11 because his wife was in the hospital and he was “stressed,” according to police reports. “I shook him,” he said. “It is my fault. I need to control my stupid temper.” Bishop, also the dad of a three-year-old girl, had a previous conviction for injuring an infant, according to police. He pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated battery, battery, and neglect. His baby survived.
Jesse Adams, 3, was shot dead by his 34-year-old dad, Carey, who then fatally shot himself in the head in his North Carolina home in Grifton on July 13. Police said the murder-suicide was the result of an ugly, ongoing domestic dispute with his wife. “The safest place in the world that a child should be is in his mom or dad’s bed, cuddled up with them,” Pitt County Deputy Mason Paramore told a local news program.3 “And that was not the case this time. I took the mother to the hospital in hopes that maybe I could give her an opportunity to say good-bye. That was a long ride to the hospital, talking and praying together and a whole lot of crying together.” A victim’s rights advocate from the police department said mom Christy Adams “doesn’t want everybody to make Carey out to be the worst person that ever walked the Earth. She wants us to know that once upon a time, he was a really good person. He had a very sweet little boy and Jesse loved him.”
Oregon dad Kaliq Mansor, 34, was sentenced to at least 28 years in prison for the July 13 death of his eleven-week-old son, Bryan, and the abuse of Bryan’s twin, Ethan. Bryan suffered bruises, a fractured skull, broken ribs, and bleeding and swelling in his brain. Police found Internet searches on Mansor’s computer including “father hates infant” and “How do I stop abusing my baby?” as well as a downloaded video game that involved images of abusing children, according to court records. “The man that I loved is not the man sitting here today,” said Mansor’s ex-wife, Angela Foster, in her victim impact statement the day he was sentenced. “That man died the day he started hurting my boys.”
Massachusetts dad Daryl Benway, 41, who had recently lost his job as a computer consultant and was estranged from his wife, shot his seven-year-old daughter, Abigail, and nine-year-old son, Owen, in the head July 28 before turning the gun on himself. After he was shot in the master bedroom of the family’s Oxford house, Owen managed to crawl to the kitchen and was still alive when police found him. Abigail died.
A dad in Dodge City, Kansas, was charged with killing his nine-month-old son, Brandon Villa, on July 21. Jonathan M. Villa-Ramirez was out on bail on aggravated robbery, attempted aggravated robbery, attempted robbery, and aggravated assault charges when he allegedly attacked the baby, according to court records.
Pennsylvania dad Robert Heibert, 28, of New Brighton, was charged with killing his two-month-old daughter, Melanie Alexander, on July 26. He told police he was watching the baby while his girlfriend was out playing bingo, and that he might have shaken her to revive Melanie when he noticed she was unresponsive and her lips were blue. He later allegedly admitted shaking her to stop her from crying so vigorously that her chin bounced on her chest, according to police records.
Kentucky police alerted by a burglary alarm set off on July 29 in Sadé Goldsmith’s new Louisville home arrived to find Goldsmith, 26, and her sons, six-year-old John Jr. and five-year-old Jon’tee Devine, shot to death. The boys’ dad and Goldsmith’s estranged lover, John Devine, confessed to the murders at a local hospital where he was treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police reports.
The missing four-year-old daughter of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, dad Kevin Cleeves, 35, was found unharmed with her father. But Cleeves was charged with shooting to death three people on July 27—his estranged wife, Brandi, her boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s mom—then kidnapping his daughter. Cleeves told police he had “made a mistake” confronting his ex and her new lover, according to police reports.
Domestic-violence expert Richard Gelles believes the steady stream of child-abuse deaths isn’t enough to pique the public’s, or politicians’, interest, except for an occasional super tragedy, and that the very numbers may work to the disadvantage of the attention the issue can draw. “‘Josef Stalin said that one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic,” noted Gelles in a phone interview with me.4 “That’s how it is with domestic violence. The public reacts to a single dramatic tragedy but can’t sustain an interest in the overall problem—unless it’s presented as
an ‘epidemic.’”
Perhaps we tend to accept a certain level of family violence because we’re convinced that society is largely powerless to protect children within their own homes—or that it’s not society’s place to interfere, even though Michael Petit of Every Child Matters is convinced that in the most extreme abuse cases, the “only thing standing between a child and death at the hands of a parent is the government.” Part of American culture, Gelles believes, is the strong belief that parents have a right to raise their children without government interference. One of the reasons the United States (along with Somalia and the South Sudan) hasn’t ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a United Nations’ human-rights treaty, is because conservative political factions argue that it conflicts with our constitution, which “keeps government at more than arm’s length from how parents raise children,” Gelles adds. Women abused by husbands have used civil-rights laws to win greater protection from courts and police, notes Gelles. “But children don’t have anywhere near the same level of civil rights,” he added.
Ironically, the same political factions that would block increased government supervision of or help for families are the same ones that would boost the number of children in the nation by restricting abortion. Like the langurs, maybe we’re driven to bring as much life as possible into the world, but once it’s here, we defer to a system that can be very hard on young life.
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