Underestimating those on the fringes

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

http://www.philly.com/philly/n…

This is the first report I have seen that is a little more than canned hash on the horrors faced by Michelle Knight in her still young life.

ELIZABETH SMART, kidnapped in 2002 at the age of 14 and rescued nine months later, has said that her strong family relationships and community ties helped her heal from the horrors inflicted by her abductors.

So I feel great worry for Michelle Knight’s recovery.

Well you might.

Left unspoken and unanalyzed is the treatment by cops and prosecutors and judges – in your name, that preceded the dozen years of captivity and brutalizing by a psychopath.


“I just wish that my daughter would reach out [to me] to let me know she’s there,” Barbara Knight told the Today show Wednesday.

Lord, the cluelessness of a woman who expects her daughter, who has been to hell and back, to make the first effort at reunification. And who presumes her daughter is “angry at the world,” as if she’s some kind of snippy adolescent.

The rest of us can be released because we have identified the designated scapegoat.

Charlie Gallagher reminded me [of another case] when I called to chat with him about the Cleveland case. Gallagher is the former assistant district attorney who prosecuted Gary “House of Horrors” Heidnik, who kidnapped, raped and tortured six women in his North Philly basement.

“Of those women, only one was reported missing by her family,” says Gallagher. “The rest lived on the streets. They weren’t going to be missed.”

Michelle Knight was not living on the streets, was not even allowed to be counted among the missing, was apparently tortured further by her psychopath captor for the lack of concern for her absence compared with the others.

This reminds me of a vaguely remembered memo by an innocent man freed from prison after many years by evidence that needed only to be examined.

After the celebrations ended and the balloons were all popped and the bands stopped playing and the crowds dispersed, the man was left isolated in a small, barren apartment with little to occupy a now lonely, friendless, restricted and useless life.  He began to have thoughts he was worse off than when he was in prison.

Best,  Terry

1 comment

Comments have been disabled.