If you missed it on ABC's 20/20, it's worth watching. The death penalty for the offenders wouldn't disturb me at all. As Katie's mother said, it's hard to think of such people as human beings. The main offender got two life sentences, which means that he will spend at least 16 years in prison. The other could be out in 6. Britain has a funny way of doing math these days.
What Katie used to look like, in the days when, says she, "I used to be the most important person in my life.":
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If I had my way, not only the assailants but also the ex-boyfriend who sent them would be pushing up daisies.
But I want to mention: This is _not_ to "blame the victim" in some ways that mitigates their evil. But she was naive. She should not have gotten involved with this guy. She says she was a "party animal." Sign of a girl not being careful. And once she was afraid of him, she certainly should not have gone where he suggested she go.
The thing is, girls are not warned nowadays. Auster says that modern liberal society is a factory for producing dead white girls. I'm afraid it's all too true. They don't take care. In particular--sensitive topic alert--they think it wrong to be particularly careful of taking up with racial minority boyfriends, which is what this boyfriend was. There are many other incidents where girls have gone dangerous places and done dangerous things.
Look at the Holloway girl. Here's her mother going all over the world in search of justice for her after her murder, but she couldn't put a tenth of that energy into keeping the girl out of the situation in the first place. Holloway went to a tourist resort to have sex and be constantly drunk (aka "party") for a several-day "graduation party." What sort of parent allows/pays for/encourages that kind of thing? But never once has Holloway's mother said, "I was wrong. I didn't teach her not to party. I didn't raise her right. I sent her off deliberately into a dangerous situation defined as 'fun'. It's partly my fault that she was murdered."
Nobody seems to learn from these things.
Yes, it's always bothered me that Holloway and friends were, one, allowed to go to such a place; second, so poorly chaperoned that the kids could drink all the alcohol they wanted and disappear in the company of complete strangers; and, third, that the chaperones and classmates then LEFT THE ISLAND WITHOUT HER.
Really, there were no chaperones to speak of, if you know what I mean. If there had been, they wouldn't have been there at all. They would have gone somewhere to do legitimate things that real chaperones might plausibly approve of.
It seems to me that there is an enormous problem with teaching young people, particularly women, that they have a _right_ to wander the world like something more childish even than children without having anything happen to them. They have a right to jog on wooded trails alone. They have a right to wander around city streets late at night alone in scanty attire. They have a right to be drunk and vulnerable in the company of men they scarcely know. They have a right to take up an immediate and casual sexual relationship with a man whose character and background they know nothing about, merely because they "fancy" him (as in Katie's case). And _nothing is going to happen to them_. Now, in one sense, you can say that in an ideal world, nothing would happen to them (beyond the evils inherent in the fornication and substance abuse). But that's not the world we live in.
I tell you, I am already telling my girls, and especially the oldest, about how to handle things like secular parties to which she might be invited once she has a job and so forth. I'm talking to her about never drinking when she's out, even when she's of age, so that she can be in full control of her own transportation. And so forth. Never, as far as lies with oneself, being out of control of the situation or helpless and dependent on the good will of strangers. We have cautionary tales times around the lunch table. Not graphic, but just clear.
More mothers should do this.
"there were no chaperones to speak of"
The kids were the chaperones. The adults were there as a seal of approval for Parental Indulgence on steroids.
Tell the eldest never to accept a drink from anyone who is not her dear friend. And the transportation thing is crucial. She needs her own car, so that she can come and go as she desires.
Hadn't thought of the Mickey Finn angle. Good point.
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