A teenager was charged on Tuesday with killing and raping his sister and beating his niece with a sledgehammer in a crime the sheriff called one of the most brutal he's ever seen.
Walter Smith Jr., 16, was charged with the first-degree murder and rape of his 22-year-old sister, Betsy Mary Smith, and aggravated assault against his two year-old niece, Andrea Costello.
Smith was charged after he recounted Monday morning's events to Spotsylvania detectives, said Sheriff Howard Smith. Based on Walter Smith's accounts, police said Betsy Smith was beaten with a sledgehammer and stabbed before being raped. When Costello began crying, she was struck in the head with a sledgehammer. Betsy Smith, Costello and a 1-year-old boy were then locked inside the room.
A detective found family members of the child, including Walter Smith, in the house, the sheriff said. The detective found the dead body of Betsy Smith inside the padlocked room.
The sheriff said the children were not found until one of them began crying on Monday afternoon and Betsy and Walter Smith's mother, Mary Smith, told Walter to go check on them.
"Her face was messed up," Mary Smith said of Costello, who was the child of another one of Mary Smith's daughters. "I asked Andrea after I cleaned her face up what happened to her. She said she fell and bumped her head against the fuse box."
Mary Smith said she does not believe Walter Smith killed his sister.
"He don't remember nothing he did," she said. "He was out of it or something like that. It was an accident. He don't remember that stuff."
Mary Smith said her son had no history of violence, but said he was on medication for depression.
Quick question for Mommy: if she was there Monday, how did she not notice anything unusual or out of the ordinary? How does it escape her attention that two babies are missing until one of them begins crying later that afternoon? Where was she when said psychopath was beating, raping, and stabbing his sister to death? And how on Earth can she defend him when he not only confessed, but told police what he did and how? Rather than making excuses for him, did she ever stop and wonder how it is her 16-year-old son was able to do something so horrible to his own sister and niece?
Liberals, of course, will be crying if this monster is put to death, because it's "cruel and unusual", which is likely to happen if he is found guilty, seeing as how he's going to be tried as an adult. Personally, I'm with Chuck's suggestion for how best to punish this guy:
As for him, "cruel and unusual" has a wide meaning. As he is familiar with beating others, he shall be beaten daily for twenty four days--one day for each year of his sister's life, and one day for each year of his niece's. Then he will be stabbed--twenty four times--by a trained "punisher" who can stab to inflict the greatest pain, but not kill. Following the stabbings, he shall be beaten with hammers--again, not to kill, but to injure. He shall be raped throughout his punishment, repeatedly by any other prisoner who wants him. He will be a human toilet for all the other refuse in the prison system.
Unusual and cruel? Certainly. But would such treatment be unusual or cruel to him?
Our justice system needs a new position: Punisher. Not simply a prison guard, the punisher is one who metes out appropriate punishment to those who've committed violent crime. It isn't torture, as torture is meant to gain information or achieve some other goal. Punishment in this case is through pain and suffering. If you cause pain to someone else, you should suffer the same pain yourself, in the same manner. If that manner is not easily replicated, it is left up to the devices of the punisher's own creativity to exact the level of pain. If the punisher causes more pain than the convict had through his crimes, we'll underwrite his honest mistakes. One of the ritical ideas here is that now a criminal may think "Wow, I'm not just going to the gas chamber for this, I'm going to be skinned alive slowly and left in the sun for the ants and flies to eat while I slowly die" before he does whatever he is planning. Compared to a gas chamber, that is a MUCH more deterring thought. Also, they may not suffer the pain the exact same way, so they would have to consider the unknown, and not be able to prepare themselves for it or to otherwise "work the system."
I never really understood how it was liberals could work themselves into a frenzy over how "cruel" lethal injection is, or how "horrible" the electric chair is. Here in Florida, our death row inmates get to live wonderfully, and on top of that, are treated to a fantastic final meal.
Take Danny Rolling, the notorious Gainesville serial killer. He liked to torture and rape his victims, but before he got started, he would tie them up and outline, in perfect detail, just exactly what was going to happen to them. He would mutilate their bodies, decapitate them, and all the while, the victims knew in clear certainty they weren't going to survive:
What makes these murders even worse is that the victims were all systematically tortured -- bound with duct tape, and before the rapes and murders were to commence, told them in vivid detail what he was going to do to them.
Imagine how they must have felt. Imagine yourself in their position -- tied up, helpless to defend yourself, and knowing with complete certainty that you are going to be raped and murdered, and knowing with equal certainty that it is going to be in the worst way possible -- brutally, grotesquely, and that death will not be coming slowly or painlessly.
He started his killing spree in 1990 and was finally executed in 2006 -- sixteen long years to live after killing innocent college students. He was convicted using DNA evidence, and through 17 matches between a screwdriver in his possession and pry marks at the crime scene. He confessed to the murders to other inmates in prison, usually in vivid detail, and entered a three-page plea agreement. In 1994, he also plead guilty to a triple murder in Shreveport, LA, of a 23-year-old woman, her 55-year-old father, and her 8-year-old nephew. Before he died, his lawyer fought to keep him alive, claiming the chemicals used in lethal injection caused "extreme pain". How did he spend his final hours? Eating an extravagant meal -- of his choosing, by the way -- of lobster tail, butterfly shrimp, a baked potato, iced tea, and strawberry cheesecake. He was then given the lethal injection and basically fell asleep forever.
That is what liberals deem cruel and unusual punishment, for a monster like Danny Rolling. And I'm sure that if this monster is put to death, they'll cry some more about how horrible this kid's death will be. They can never seem to shed the same number of tears for the victims though, strangely enough. They just don't get as outraged about the brutal treatment of the victims as they do about the "cruel and unusual punishment" of lethal injection.
People like this kid, and Danny Rolling, and the BTK serial killer (and so on) deserve special treatment.
But, that will never happen. What likely will happen is that this monster will be found guilty, and hopefully he'll get the death penalty. If he does, liberals will whine and moan and wail about how horrible and inhumane it is, somehow never thinking to whine and moan and wail about how horrible his crimes were. They'll cry that he was taking medicine for depression, see, so it wasn't his fault, and we should all just give him a break and let him sit in prison, living off of our taxpayer dollars. If he is put to death, it will probably be through lethal injection, and it probably won't be until he's sat in prison for twenty years or more.
Dontcha just love our justice system?
Hat Tip: Chuck's Blog
2 comments:
As I've said to anyone w/n earshot for many years: There truly is a lot to be said in favor of the "Eye-for-an-Eye" system of punishment. For me, it's a no-brainer.
I would quickly apply for this new job.
And I'm not ashamed to tell you that I would enjoy it a great deal.
I think the death sentences should be carried out in a way that fits the reason they are in prison.
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