Police: 5 children, father found dead in Washington State

[babylonsister]

cnn just reported this; the kids and dad were all shot.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5h8MWI7F4JnygmZObzYsM2dlna8nw

Police: 5 children, father found dead in Washington State

16 minutes ago

ORTING, Wash. — Police in Washington State say five children between seven and 16 years old and their father have been found dead.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Office is investigating the deaths of the five children near Orting, southeast of Tacoma.

The children are between seven and 16 years old.

The seven-year-old is a boy, and the other four are girls.

The body of the father was found in King County, which includes Seattle.

A Seattle television station is reporting the King County Sheriff's Department asked Pierce County deputies to do a welfare check at a home in Orting.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. WTF?

It's an epidemic, multiple slayings, wiping out families and committing suicide.

Kids getting slaughtered by a parent.

WTF is going on?

This is now officially really scary, because this is how the copycats get inspired..............

[aquart]

4. You know what's going on. Hopelessness.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. There's more to it than hopelessness -

Hopelessness, yes, certainly, but a kind of rage that's desperate and all-consuming.

If someone is depressed, he might take his own life. But, when he butchers his own children, that's something else. Something that I think is very, very frightening.

The mothers aren't doing this - fathers are, and some are fathers that have been estranged from the mothers.

So why take out the children?

It's an ugliness, something so dark, I don't know its name, but it scares me.....................

[malaise]

10. Looks more like armed hopelessness

It's very sad, but you know that men have been socialized to look after their families. It's true that lots of women look after their children on their own, but some men feel like abject failures and do not want their children in foster homes. It's a frightening situation and it's getting worse by the day to the point that most of these family slaughters aren't even carried on TV.

[doctor jazz]

12. Not to minimize the probem but there have been quite a few mothers doing similar things.

I'm disremembering names right now...but there were a couple who drove their cars into lakes with the kiddos inside. You probably recall them.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

14. Oh, sure .........

Susan Smith, that's the one you're thinking of.

And there are mothers who throw their kids off bridges, yes.

But, they're in the minority. It's the males who are doing the shooting, including the ones that take place in business and commercial sites.

When was the last time you heard of an armed girl or woman walking into a school or a business and opening fire?

Anyway, welcome to DU, doctor jazz!

:hi:

[NightWatcher]

15. statistically, men use guns, women use other means

women use poisons, gas, drownings.... violent, yes, but less messy

[Tangerine LaBamba]

19. Yes, but that's irrelevant when you

consider the number of events, and the number of people killed in each event.

They don't compare. The males, using whatever methods, always kill lots more. Mothers kill their kids, but I don't honestly recall an incident where a woman - not necessarily a mother - killed a bunch of people.

Can you? Except for Arlene Wournos, who was , I'm drawing a blank.................

[TorchTheWitch]

36. Sylvia Seegrist

Went on a shooting rampage at the Springfield Mall in PA back in the early-mid 80's. She had serious mental health issues. I was at the mall that day. Very scary. Seegrist is in jail (I think she got several life sentences). She didn't kill herself as a young man in the mall just walked right up to her and took the gun out of her hands. He was roundly praised for his bravery, but he always insisted that if he'd thought about it, he'd never had done it... he was in shock and just wanted her to stop shooting people.

My best friend at the time was engaged to a guy who's mother was best friends with Sylvia's mother. All the time Sylvia's mother talked and cried about her frustration and fear that her daughter was mentally ill and she was certain she was going to hurt people some day. Because of the incident, the laws on mental health changed much for the better.

So, yes, there are instances where women do such things. From what I recall in the news at the time, it was described as the first incident of a woman doing such a thing (with a gun/s) in the US. Since about two decades have passed since the incident, I doubt Sylvia was the only one, yet because of the laws at the time there was nothing she could do. You are correct, however, that it does always seem to be men/boys who go on these random shooting sprees... certainly the vast majority are. There must be some sort of reason for that.

Interesting read about the Springfield Mall shooting...
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1448884/halloween_hell_sylvia_seegrists_mischief.html?cat=72
It's quite long but covers pretty much everything including the trial and aftermath.

Man, what a day that was. I wasn't in the part of the mall where it took place (thankfully!) but we could hear it and see people frantically running and crouching to hide in the mall. Me and the friend I went with were hiding in the vestibule leading to the parking lot with a bunch of younger girls that were shaking and crying. We tried to calm them down but we were pretty scared ourselves. The worst was not really knowing what was happening and where. We were too scared to stay in the mall and too scared to run to the parking lot (no one knew if there were more shooters and if the parking lot may be more dangerous than the mall). Yet there was a deep feeling of needing desperately to flee. And where we were with glass doors leading into the mall and glass doors leading to the parking lot we were hardly hiding... it was such a desperate trapped and exposed feeling.



I just looked up some info on female mass murders. The first 3 I found were...

Sylvia Seegrist - 1985 - shooting spree at mall
Jennifer San Marco - 2006 - shooting spree at post office
Priscilla Joyce Ford - 1980 - deliberately ran over people with car

Interesting note is that all of these women had a history of being very severely mentally ill (paranoid, heard voices, completely out of touch with reality, etc.), and all either did kill themselves at the same time or intended to but were twarted.

Note: Sorry, no links... I went to several sites and didn't think to note any of them before I closed out the window.



I'm interested in this now... the ratio of men to women, random kills or killing of family or others known to the killer, degree and history of mental illness and how severe and what type, etc., etc. It's such a ghastly thing, I can't help but wonder what in the world makes a person do something like this.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

41. Thank you so much ........

What an excellent piece of information. I had no idea, never heard of the Springfield shooting, nor the three others. I'll be reading about them, though. You did great, and I am really sorry about what happened to you. Does going into a mall bother you now? Do you act differently when you're there, do you think?

It's got something to do with how men and women perceive themselves. Interesting that the women you cite all had mental health histories, but the men who do this rarely do - I recall that the Virginia Tech shooter had been in psychiatric treatment, but he's the only one I can think of.

Our brains are different, and we act out differently. Women internalize, and we tend to take things out on ourselves. Men act OUT, turning it against things and people out there, beyond themselves.

Well, didn't this thread evolve into something really fascinating?

Again, thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to tell your story and to open my mind up just a little bit more. I am grateful.........................

[doctor jazz]

24. Thanks. You're right, not many girls or women have done stuff like that...in the USA

hopefully their proclivities for suicide bombings as manifested in the middle East won't migrate to Peoria.
:scared:

[aquart]

45. Yep. No equality of the sexes in this.

It's men who can't be trusted with guns. Which should solve our problems handily. Only license them to women.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

47. No, that's not what anyone is espousing,

so please don't take away that mistaken and clearly stupid notion.

No one needs guns. They should all be melted down and made over into sardine cans. Or pogo sticks. Or jungle gyms. Or bicycles..................

[malaise]

17. True

Susan Smith. She thought getting rid of her kids would make some boyfriend find her more desirable. Still most mothers who kill their kids are suffering from postpartum related madness.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

18. She also had a history of sexual abuse -

her stepfather, who was prominent in county Republican politics, was having sex with her from an early age.

Set her up real good for all kinds of healthy experiences....................

[malaise]

22. Yes that must have destroyed her early in life

Women don't kill their own children easily. Invariably there are mental issues.
Was her step father ever locked up?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

26. Of course not .........

I don't know if there was a statute of limitations in that state, but, in any event, who was going to listen to the ravings of a murderer?

[Ghost in the Machine]

28. Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous

Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter, Susan Smith, who later drowned her 2 children by strapping them in their car seats and plunging them into a lake in South Carolina and blamed it on a black man. Beverly Russell admitted abusing Smith when she was 15 and continuing an incestuous relationship with her until shortly before she drowned her children in John D. Long Lake.
http://www.republicansexoffenders.com

:hi:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

30. Thank you ............

I was sure of my information, but I didn't know that he'd copped to it.

After, I trust, the statute of limitations had run.

I hadn't realized it had continued into her adult life.

I wonder if he remains married to Smith's mother.....................

[aquart]

37. Seriously, when it's the kids, it's to save them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. Or to do the cruelest thing he can think of to their mother

n/t

[aquart]

44. Seems so.

And yet I still think he was justifying it in his mind as saving them. We tend to give ourselves noble motives. People said he was "devastated," not "enraged." It's more complicated than pure spite.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. It sounds as if his wife walked out on him

Perhaps his "noble motive" was avenging the "affront to his honor."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. In this case, it's MUCH MORE than hopelessness

Hasn't anyone notice that he deprived the mother of ALL FIVE OF HER CHILDREN at once?

That's not hopelessness. That's cruelty.

[NightWatcher]

2. just read it at the Times, they didnt mention how they were killed

this has been a bad day.


THIS reflects the state of things way more than the DOW







http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008986370_websixdead04m.html

Pierce County Sheriff's deputies late this afternoon found five children, ages 7 to 16, dead in a Graham-area home, apparently the victims of violence.



Investigators believe the children may have been killed by their father who was discovered dead earlier this afternoon at an Auburn address, according to Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer. They believe the man, 35, took his own life.

Deputies were called to check on the welfare of the children in a home in the 20400 block of 135th Avenue Court East after officers found the father's body.

Troyer said four of the children were girls. One, the 7-year-old, was a boy, Troyer said.

Troyer said investigators are just beginning to unravel the crime, and information available now is very preliminary.

Dale Lund, a neighbor, said the killings occurred at a mobile-home park where he and the victims live.

Lund said the boy who was killed played at times with his grandson and the two shared the same school bus stop. Both boys attended elementary school together, Lund said.

The dead boy and the girls played in their own yard most of the time, he said.

"They pretty much kept to themselves over there," Lund said of the family

[villager]

3. How the fuck many mass slayings have we had in the *last 24 hours!!?*

Jesus Christ!

[doctor jazz]

13. I can't keep from thinking about how many Iraqis were slaughtered on 3/19/03

in 'shock and awe'

[villager]

16. Are we having a pissing match of human tragedies now?

n/t

[doctor jazz]

23. Oh dear, I wasn't pissing on the dead. Just wanted a little remembrance.

Is that okay with you? Maybe I've missed something.

[villager]

25. I'm trying to address the eruption of mass slayings in America, in the last 24 hours...

... If you want to remember the dead of shock and awe (a worthy topic in its own right) how about another thread?

How about staying on, you know, topic?

Unless you'd like to elaborate on the connection between a society's externalized violence, and its internalized violence.

Then maybe we have something to talk about viz. this particular thread...

[malaise]

20. Truthfully I think Bush's slaughter of Iraqis and the way in which

torture was dismissed as nothing serious desensitized way too many people.
We either value all human life or we don't.

Bush really fucked up this planet.

[liberalmuse]

5. Oh shit.

Things are hard here, like they are everywhere else. Maybe harder. Jesus. The children end up suffering because of adult fuck ups. Never had a chance. :cry:

[inwiththenew]

6. Every lunatic sees now that

By killing lots of people you become an instant celebrity. The news media will take the story and run with it because death sells, and numerous deaths at once sells even better.

[tekisui]

31. Do you really think that factors in to their motivation?

[Quantess]

33. I think it does for a few individuals.

Remember Gianni Versace's killer? He was on a killing spree, and Versace was his coup de grace.

[joshcryer]

34. It's logical, someone might think about doing something like this, but the media might make it...

...something actually noble. Something that is worth talking about.

[MissDeeds]

8. I think it's more prevalent than we know

I read a few months ago about a man in a small Kansas town who killed his three children and himself while his wife was at work. The story was quickly buried and no motive was ever given. Very strange -in a town of less than two thousand for this kind of story to be pushed aside??? Something is going on in our country. It's getting more violent and people are being driven to do the unthinkable. Is this a nation losing hope, or are people suddenly going nuts?

[inwiththenew]

9. The economy and despair

Times are tough and I think it is pushing people that were on the edge over. I haven't seen the statistics but I imagine suicides are up as well.

[MissDeeds]

39. I agree that suicides are up

And a lot of it has to do with the economy. An acquaintance of ours, a doctor, became so despondent after his 401k tanked that he stopped practicing, concerned that in his mental state he could not adequately care for his patients. He sought professional help, but eventually committed suicide. A close friend of his told us the doctor felt he had lost everything he had worked his whole life for and would never be able to retire. How sad to feel that you'd be better off dead.

BTW - Welcome to DU

[Tangerine LaBamba]

21. Like a virus, or

something in the water.

It's starting to remind me of a bad science fiction movie from the fifties...................

[Mojorabbit]

11. I haven't seen it this bad since the eighties.

Lots of people snapped during that recession. We need a better safety net.

[chollybocker]

27. More Americans probably 'died by the bullet' this week

on U.S. soil, vs. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. (Sorry, my math stops at body counts).

"It's people! Soylent Green is people!"

[Pavulon]

29. yep if there were no guns we would be all good.

crime free wonderland. thats the ticket..how many people overdosed on some already banned dope?

No worries, and it is all good

[Missy Vixen]

32. Oh, yeah

Let's not talk about people who died as the result of a shooting. After all, the gun nuts will either get the thread moved, or start an argument over a completely unrelated issue to draw attention away from the fact that thirty-three people are dead in the past 24 hours due to being murdered by those who should have NEVER had access to a firearm...

[Pavulon]

40. Talk all you want, actually doing something useful

would be a change. You want to feel good by passing some silly law that only people who choose NOT to be criminals will follow go for it.

Watch our majority go away. Want to do something useful look at the swiss model of supporting people. Had this person had proper mental health care he would have either been denied ownership (legal) or treated for whatever medical condition he had.

Not to many spree killings in zurich or tel aviv (not Israelis shooting Israelis), why is that?

[Missy Vixen]

48. My rights are as important as yours, Pavulon

Not to mention the rights of those who should be able to live in a society free of the threat of random gun violence.

"Watch our majority go away"? You know what? Anyone who would vote R on the basis of gun ownership (which is exactly what you're threatening,) is too stupid to reason with in the first place. I'm also thinking that the statement you made violates the rules of this website.

I note your silence on the fact that yesterday's shooter evidently managed to get a weapon despite an existing restraining order. In other words, guns are STILL being sold privately, with no background checks. After all, it's more important that everyone have access, isn't it?

[joshcryer]

35. Car accidents probably still massacred many more.

But your point stands.

[Fumesucker]

38. Part and parcel of living in a culture as sick as ours is..

American culture has been ill for quite some time now and it appears to me to be getting worse, not better.

These killing are but a symptom, IMO.