More on the Mont Vernon murder

Last week James N. sent us articles about a home invasion and murder in rural New Hampshire, in which the perpetrators, who were white teenagers, entered a home which they had chosen at random, determined beforehand to kill any people they found there. They found 42 year old wife and mother Kimberly Cates sleeping in her bed and stabbed and hacked her to death, and attempted to kill her 11 year old daughter whom they gravely injured. Mrs. Cates’s husband was away at the time and there was no weapon in the house. It seems to me that anyone living in a freestanding house in this country should keep weapons in the home for self-defense.

Please note that I say that the killers’ choice of the particular home they entered was random. Their determination to kill was not random but deliberate. When people set out to commit a crime, and commit it, that is not a random act, though apparently every police chief and police department spokesman in the U.S. now believes otherwise.

I asked James if there were stories with a fuller account of the attack, and he writes:

Here’s a local paper article on the Mont Vernon murder with quite a bit more detail.

The little girl was a karate student, and she fought like a tiger, likely accounting for her survival. Unfortunately, she lost her foot to a machete blow and her convalescence is expected to be long.

The ringleader, Spader, has a long history of trouble with the law. He was jailed for several weeks last year for removing his 17-year old girlfriend from her home over her parent’s objections (he was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and custodial interference). Both this girl’s father and the father of one of the arrested men have been quoted as saying that they were afraid of him, the father of the girlfriend said that he was not surprised that Spader had killed someone, he was only surprised that it wasn’t him and his family.

Gribble, the second man charged with murder, had flirted with being a Mormon missionary but has a clear history of extreme mood swings and angry behavior.

Both of the men charged with murder have Facebook pages where they brag about knives, drugs, and violence. Spader’s latest girlfriend apparently just broke up with him a few days before the crimes.

The two other men charged with various non-murder offenses seemingly were “along for the ride”. We don’t know the details of the State’s investigation, so we don’t know why two were charged with murder and two were not.

A couple of comments: The New Hampshire capital murder statute, unfortunately, clearly excludes these crimes. Why the NH statute is so narrowly drawn is unclear. My comments previously about the moral idiocy of death penalty opponents stand.

There has been an outpouring of sappy, candlelight vigil-type public reaction. Money is being raised for the girl. Her stolen iPod has been replaced. There’s even a website where you can go to virtually grieve if you can’t get to the Mont Vernon memorial sites. What there isn’t, is a lynch mob. Now, I’m not saying that the State Police should turn these men over to a lynch mob—but I AM saying that a normal, healthy reaction to a crime like this ISN’T to light candles and strew flowers. The only acceptable public non-official reaction to the crime is to act like a woman. What is needed is for more people to act like men. Men don’t cry and light candles, and put up websites titled, “We’re better than this,” to discourage vengeance. Men howl at the moon. Men surround the jail with clubs. Men change the laws that are supposed to protect mothers and little girls.

And when Spader and Gribble, who maimed a little girl with a machete, are released among the men at the New Hampshire State Prison, their lives are going to be nasty, brutish, and probably short.

How pathetic that the only place where justice may be done is in the society of incarcerated violent felons. What a sad commentary on what we have become.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 12, 2009 10:37 AM | Send