I wanted to post a comment I had read in an article in the Ledger. It was a comment about female sex offenders and I think this is information that more professionals and organizations should be told:
“People tend to think women can’t really sexually assault because they don’t have the proper anatomy, or they don’t have aggressive tendencies — sexual aggression,” said Susan Strickland, Ph.D., a certified sex offender treatment provider.
“Women molest, but they molest in a different way,” said Strickland, whose office is in Atlanta. “There is less use of force than with male offenders, and more use of coercion. These women come in all shapes and sizes. There is no profile.”
And female sex offenders use more intrusive levels of sexual behaviors than men. They are more likely than men to abuse strangers. And they are less likely than men to acknowledge guilt or to feel sorry or guilty, Strickland said.
After reading a bio (see below) about Ms. Strickland from the Georgia State Government in which she was appointed a member of the Sex Offender Review Board in 2006 I found myself giving more weight and credibility to her statement.
Here is that Bio:
Susan “Susi” M. Strickland, Ph.D., 44, Decatur, GA – Strickland is a licensed clinical social worker. She is an assistant professor at the University of Georgia, a consultant and expert witness at the Southern Center for Human Rights, a consultant and group facilitator at the Georgia Department of Corrections and a sex offender treatment specialist at the Highland Institute. She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers, the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, the Council on Social Work Education, the Society of Social Work Research and the National Organization of Forensic Social Work. She serves as a volunteer for the DeKalb Rape Crisis Center and the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University, a master’s degree from the University of Georgia and a doctoral degree from the University of Georgia.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Monster under the bed
For all those that think that mother's do not or can not do horrible things to their children this case, like so many others, explodes that myth. The sad thing is that sometimes the monsters are real. I can not begin to express to how sad I feel that this poor little 9 year old girl not only had to suffer this awful abuse but she then had her extended family turn against her. This little 9 year old girl was brave enough to have the defense attorney question her and according to one report the defense attorney asked her if she was coached as to what to say. Her answer: "Yes. They told me to tell the truth."
WHEELING - Jessica Morris was called "the monster under the bed" and "the monster in the bed" Thursday before she was sentenced by Ohio County Circuit Judge James Mazzone to a lifetime in prison.
Morris, a 31-year-old mother of three from Wheeling, displayed no emotion as Mazzone sentenced her to 101 to 235 years in prison for sexually assaulting her daughter.
The sentence agreed with a recommendation by Ohio County Adult Probation Officer William Ball, the Ohio County Prosecutor's office and West Virginia law.
In his pre-sentence investigation report, Ball wrote that the victim's "own mother was the monster under the bed."
Testimony at Morris' October trial revealed that the victim disclosed to child psychologists and counselors that she had been sexually assaulted numerous times by her mother and allegedly by her mother's boyfriend, Jack Jones, who is scheduled to go on trial early next year for his part in the assaults.
The crimes began when the child was 3 years old and continued until she was 7.
Not only did the mother sexually abuse her own daughter she also allowed and assisted her boyfriend to do so as well. These crimes are the absolute worst crimes a person can commit.
Assistant Ohio County Prosecutor Jenna Wood said, "The evidence in this case is consistent. The victim came into this court and testified that her mother held her down while she was kicking and screaming while Jack Jones forcibly raped her. This child was repeatedly raped in her home with her mother present - and, more disturbingly, your honor, the evidence in this case is that her mother perpetrated upon her on in the absence of Jack Jones.
"This little girl was raped. She was raped of her childhood. She was raped of her innocence. She was raped of a mother's love.
"In nature, a mother of an animal will intercept a predator and sacrifice herself to protect her child. What we have in this courtroom today, is a mother that protected a predator and sacrificed her child. She is a predator. She is not worthy of any mercy.
"The victim deserves salvation and she will only have salvation if she is protected from this woman forever. There is no child more deserving of protection. There is no defendant more deserving of punishment. And, there is no case more deserving of justice.
"She has been described as the monster under the bed. She was the monster in the bed.
"And God bless this child whose monsters were real." - Read the entire article here
I think the prosecutor summed it up pretty well. Even though the article did not mention it, it appears from other articles on this topic that there was also physical evidence in the case:
But a child advocate, and victim witness coordinator told NEWS9 there is evidence against Morris.
“I just don’t know how you could look at the physical evidence that corroborates the story of the child and not believe,” said Sharon Parker. - article here
WHEELING - Jessica Morris was called "the monster under the bed" and "the monster in the bed" Thursday before she was sentenced by Ohio County Circuit Judge James Mazzone to a lifetime in prison.
Morris, a 31-year-old mother of three from Wheeling, displayed no emotion as Mazzone sentenced her to 101 to 235 years in prison for sexually assaulting her daughter.
The sentence agreed with a recommendation by Ohio County Adult Probation Officer William Ball, the Ohio County Prosecutor's office and West Virginia law.
In his pre-sentence investigation report, Ball wrote that the victim's "own mother was the monster under the bed."
Testimony at Morris' October trial revealed that the victim disclosed to child psychologists and counselors that she had been sexually assaulted numerous times by her mother and allegedly by her mother's boyfriend, Jack Jones, who is scheduled to go on trial early next year for his part in the assaults.
The crimes began when the child was 3 years old and continued until she was 7.
Not only did the mother sexually abuse her own daughter she also allowed and assisted her boyfriend to do so as well. These crimes are the absolute worst crimes a person can commit.
Assistant Ohio County Prosecutor Jenna Wood said, "The evidence in this case is consistent. The victim came into this court and testified that her mother held her down while she was kicking and screaming while Jack Jones forcibly raped her. This child was repeatedly raped in her home with her mother present - and, more disturbingly, your honor, the evidence in this case is that her mother perpetrated upon her on in the absence of Jack Jones.
"This little girl was raped. She was raped of her childhood. She was raped of her innocence. She was raped of a mother's love.
"In nature, a mother of an animal will intercept a predator and sacrifice herself to protect her child. What we have in this courtroom today, is a mother that protected a predator and sacrificed her child. She is a predator. She is not worthy of any mercy.
"The victim deserves salvation and she will only have salvation if she is protected from this woman forever. There is no child more deserving of protection. There is no defendant more deserving of punishment. And, there is no case more deserving of justice.
"She has been described as the monster under the bed. She was the monster in the bed.
"And God bless this child whose monsters were real." - Read the entire article here
I think the prosecutor summed it up pretty well. Even though the article did not mention it, it appears from other articles on this topic that there was also physical evidence in the case:
But a child advocate, and victim witness coordinator told NEWS9 there is evidence against Morris.
“I just don’t know how you could look at the physical evidence that corroborates the story of the child and not believe,” said Sharon Parker. - article here
Friday, January 23, 2009
Case Series - Cruelty by con artist
In the article below a woman cons people into believing she has cancer. Cases like this are not often ones people bring up when they talk about abuse or cruelty. When men and women con people in the manner that this person did the cruelty is often subtle.
District Judge Michael Gibbons told Erika Williams she must serve one year before she is eligible for parole. He gave her credit for 96 days in custody.“This is a really sad day,” Gibbons said. “I don’t like doing this but I have to protect everyone else.”She pleaded guilty to one count of obtaining money under false pretenses.
Williams claimed to have a fast-growing, virulent form of terminal cancer that laid waste to her body. In carrying out the ruse, she shaved her head, inserted tubes up her nose, and allowed acquaintances to drive her to phony doctors’ appointments.
Concerned friends responded to Williams with money, rides to radiation treatment, gifts, places to live, frequent flier miles, meals, and what she really craved — love and attention.
It can be easy to just assume that this was done because the person was seeking attention, approval, or love. This case shows how it was much more than that. Some of the following statements show the cruelty involved:
As a cancer survivor, Gray said she would attest that it’s more difficult to watch her loved ones’ fear about her prognosis than it was to undergo treatment. Williams also said Gray’s oncologist was “a quack,” a completely unfounded statement. “You have to have complete trust in your doctor. Because of her, I was doubting him, wondering if his expertise in the field was enough to save my life,” Gray said.
Heather Alvey who works in an oncology unit called Williams “a predator without remorse who is innately evil.”
“She told a grieving mother she didn’t do enough to save her child. She asked me to speak at her own funeral,” Alvey said. “When I found out (about the lies), I didn’t cry. She wasn’t worth another tear. She is not sorry, she lives without regret. Her excuses are as pathetic as she is.”
And these following statements by the offender are interesting:
“I probably won’t get any psychological help in prison,” she said. “I do admit freely what I have done is horrible. I have a huge problem and I’ve had it for the majority of my life. I don’t want to be called a predator. My heart really is good.
“When you are a pathological liar, there’s not much counseling out there. I truly desire to get better, to make amends. I pray for your mercy and help to get the help I need,” she said. - Read the entire article here
District Judge Michael Gibbons told Erika Williams she must serve one year before she is eligible for parole. He gave her credit for 96 days in custody.“This is a really sad day,” Gibbons said. “I don’t like doing this but I have to protect everyone else.”She pleaded guilty to one count of obtaining money under false pretenses.
Williams claimed to have a fast-growing, virulent form of terminal cancer that laid waste to her body. In carrying out the ruse, she shaved her head, inserted tubes up her nose, and allowed acquaintances to drive her to phony doctors’ appointments.
Concerned friends responded to Williams with money, rides to radiation treatment, gifts, places to live, frequent flier miles, meals, and what she really craved — love and attention.
It can be easy to just assume that this was done because the person was seeking attention, approval, or love. This case shows how it was much more than that. Some of the following statements show the cruelty involved:
As a cancer survivor, Gray said she would attest that it’s more difficult to watch her loved ones’ fear about her prognosis than it was to undergo treatment. Williams also said Gray’s oncologist was “a quack,” a completely unfounded statement. “You have to have complete trust in your doctor. Because of her, I was doubting him, wondering if his expertise in the field was enough to save my life,” Gray said.
Heather Alvey who works in an oncology unit called Williams “a predator without remorse who is innately evil.”
“She told a grieving mother she didn’t do enough to save her child. She asked me to speak at her own funeral,” Alvey said. “When I found out (about the lies), I didn’t cry. She wasn’t worth another tear. She is not sorry, she lives without regret. Her excuses are as pathetic as she is.”
And these following statements by the offender are interesting:
“I probably won’t get any psychological help in prison,” she said. “I do admit freely what I have done is horrible. I have a huge problem and I’ve had it for the majority of my life. I don’t want to be called a predator. My heart really is good.
“When you are a pathological liar, there’s not much counseling out there. I truly desire to get better, to make amends. I pray for your mercy and help to get the help I need,” she said. - Read the entire article here
Monday, January 19, 2009
Case Series - Cinderella tortured
I wanted to look at another individual case from this ARTICLE where you can read the entire story:
WORCESTER— A Page Street woman accused of raping a 16-year-old girl was ordered held on $25,000 bail at her court arraignment yesterday. Mara L. Escobar, 35, of 4 Page St. was in Worcester Central District Court to answer to charges of assault and battery, three counts of assault and battery on a child with injury, five counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and two counts of rape of a child with force.
Ms. Escobar was arrested last week after police said she held the girl in a “Cinderella-type situation” for five years, during which Ms. Escobar beat and raped the girl.
Police said that while the girl lived with the woman and her two biological daughters, her mistreatment went beyond physical assault.
For example, her daughters’ bedrooms were well-appointed with televisions, DVD players, video games, toys and wall posters. The other girl’s room was Spartan, with bare walls, a bureau, a single bed with one fitted sheet and a single blanket. The girl did the housework, police said.
According to court records, the rapes and assaults occurred between June 2007 and Sept. 1. The rapes involved objects, and one of the assaults involved the use of a rose stem with thorns as a dangerous weapon, according to court records.
If the allegations that are stated turn out to be true then this will be another case of female on female rape not to mention the abuse, neglect and torture the victim had to endure.
WORCESTER— A Page Street woman accused of raping a 16-year-old girl was ordered held on $25,000 bail at her court arraignment yesterday. Mara L. Escobar, 35, of 4 Page St. was in Worcester Central District Court to answer to charges of assault and battery, three counts of assault and battery on a child with injury, five counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and two counts of rape of a child with force.
Ms. Escobar was arrested last week after police said she held the girl in a “Cinderella-type situation” for five years, during which Ms. Escobar beat and raped the girl.
Police said that while the girl lived with the woman and her two biological daughters, her mistreatment went beyond physical assault.
For example, her daughters’ bedrooms were well-appointed with televisions, DVD players, video games, toys and wall posters. The other girl’s room was Spartan, with bare walls, a bureau, a single bed with one fitted sheet and a single blanket. The girl did the housework, police said.
According to court records, the rapes and assaults occurred between June 2007 and Sept. 1. The rapes involved objects, and one of the assaults involved the use of a rose stem with thorns as a dangerous weapon, according to court records.
If the allegations that are stated turn out to be true then this will be another case of female on female rape not to mention the abuse, neglect and torture the victim had to endure.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Case Series - 12 year old tortured/murdered
I have started adding a look at various individual cases to the blog and they will all be in the category of Case Series. This is another of those cases and is truly an awful one. It shatters every myth that women can not be as cruel or sadistic as men:
On the morning of Saturday, January 11, 1992, Canaan, Ind., two men were out hunting and stumbled across a body. What they saw both shocked and appalled them.
Other than a pair of panties, the body was naked and burnt from the waist up. The legs of the victim were spread as if they had been posed, and the arms were stretched out with clenched fists. The victim looked like a young woman, but the chest had been burned so badly that it was difficult to tell. Even worse was the victim's face — the eyes were empty, without color; and the mouth was wide open, exposing teeth tightly clenched on the victim's tongue.
The victim was 12 year old Shanda Sharer.
The autopsy that was done showed that she had suffered multiple injuries. Ligature marks were found on her wrists, and she had several lacerations on her head, neck and legs. Her fingers were so badly crimped that they had to be cut off in order to take prints. Her jaw was also removed so that her dentist could make a positive identification. The upper part of her body was covered in extreme burns, and her tongue protruded through clenched teeth. Lacerations to the anus and rectum indicated a blunt object had been inserted at least three and a half inches. In addition, the extent of rectal bleeding showed that she had been alive at the time of the assault. Soot in the upper airway, showed that she had been alive when she was set on fire.
What was the reason behind someone doing this to a 12 year old girl? Jealousy.
Shanda had been seeing a girl at her school who already had a girlfriend. That girl was Melinda Loveless. She set about tormenting and threatening Shanda for months. Shanda continued to see the girl and eventually Loveless crossed the line into murder.
Loveless decided to do something about Shanda and when her friend Laurie Tackett came to her house things began to happen. Tackett was some friend. She had allegedly dabbled in the occult and claimed to have another personality that was a vampire; and had often talked about killing someone for the fun of it. They picked up two other girls on the way to Shanda's house, Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence. They decided to go to Shanda's house and abduct her and take her somewhere and hurt her and that is exactly what they did.
Shanda was subjected to 10+ hours of torture by these 4 girls. The 2 main tormentors were Loveless and Tackett. Starting with Shanda getting into the car and Loveless holding a knife to her throat, calling her names, ignoring Shanda's cries to not hurt or kill her. At one point they stopped and tied Shanda's hands, lit a fire and Tackett told Shanda that was what she was going to look like before they were done with her. They stole her jewelry, tormented her more verbally and decided to go to another location that was more private. They stopped to get gas and one of the girls called a friend yet said nothing about what was going on.
They drove for about an hour before they reached their destination. They forced Shanda out of the car and made her strip off all her clothes despite the bitter January cold. Loveless claimed she wanted to keep the clothes as a souvenir. Then the abuse got worse.
Tackett grabbed Shanda's arms and held them behind her back so that Loveless could hit her. Loveless repeatedly hit Shanda and the braces in her mouth caused blood to flow from the numerous cuts they inflicted. Loveless also kicked and used her knee on Shanda's head. Throughout all this Shanda begged and pleaded with her tormentors. She promised to never see the girlfriend again. It was all in vain and only caused her to be tormented more.
At some point Shanda fell to the ground. Loveless tried to cut her throat with a knife but the knife was to dull. One of the girls in the car, Hope Ripey, jumped out and held Shanda down as Loveless tried using her foot to force the knife to cut her throat but it did not work. So Loveless and Tackett took turns stabbing Shanda in the chest with the knife repeatedly. The wounds were not deep enough to kill her instantly and Shanda was begging for her life still but Loveless reportedly laughed in her face when she did.
At that point Tackett ran back to the car to get some rope to strangle Shanda with because the knife wounds were not working. When Tackett returned with the rope, Loveless sat on Shanda's legs as Tackett straddled her chest. Tackett then wrapped the rope around Shanda's neck and pulled with all her might until Shanda's body went limp. They were not sure if she was dead yet or not so they tossed Shanda's into the trunk of the car and headed for Tacketts house.
When they got to Tackett's house the girls all went inside and began socializing. During this time they heard a noise and that noise turned out to be Shanda screaming inside the trunk of the car. Tackett grabbed a knife from her kitchen and went out to the car trunk and stabbed Shanda over and over in hopes of killing her finally. She then shut the trunk and went back inside were Tackett and Loveless decided to take Shanda somewhere else and the other two girls refused to go.
As they were driving they decided to check and see if Shanda was dead yet. So they pulled over and open up the trunk to find Shanda covered in blood. Shanda said one word, "mommy". At that point Tackett grabbed a tire iron and hit Shanda in the head with it, closed the trunk and they got back into the car and drove on.
Again as they were driving they heard noises coming from the trunk and again they pulled over. Tackett went back, opened the trunk and saw Shanda lying on her side still alive. Tackett again grabbed the tire iron and repeatedly hit Shanda in the head with it. This time she hit her so hard she broke a piece of Shanda's skull off. Tackett got back into the car put the tire iron under her nose and smelled it. She began laughing as she explained what had happened and waved the tire iron under Loveless' nose.
As they continued to drive they decided to burn Shanda. They stopped several more times and beat Shanda with the tire iron each time they stopped. They went back to Tacketts house where they told the two girls who had remained behind what they had planned and bragged about what they had done to Shanda.
At this point they opened the trunk and Ripey saw a bottle of glass cleaner next to Shanda. She picked it up and began to spray Shanda with it. Shanda sat up at that point, covered in blood and swaying back and forth. Tackett began talking to her and tormenting her but Shanda was unresponsive. At this point the evidence suggests the girls sodomized Shanda with the tire iron; but none of them has ever admitted any knowledge of it or responsibility for this act. Tackett's mother yelled for the girls and it spooked them so they closed the trunk on Shanda once again.
They drove Shanda to an old logging road and carried her out of the trunk and laid her on the ground where they threw gasoline on her and Tackett lit a match and threw it on Shanda. The girls hopped back into the car and started to drive away when Loveless told Tackett to turn around because she wanted to make sure the body was still burning. When they went back Loveless grabbed the bottle with the remaining gasoline and went over to Shanda. Loveless saw Shanda curled up into a fetal position and her tongue darted in and out of her mouth. She poured the remaining gasoline on Shanda's burnt body and went back to the car. Loveless thought Sharer's death throes were funny and described them to the others. On their way back home they stopped at McDonalds to get breakfast and they made jokes about how the cooked meat looked like Shanda.
Cases like this one show one thing. People are people. Anyone, regardless of gender, is capable of anything. I know of many girls that talk about the bullying that goes on in school by other girls and how awful it can become. This case shows it in the extreme.
On the morning of Saturday, January 11, 1992, Canaan, Ind., two men were out hunting and stumbled across a body. What they saw both shocked and appalled them.
Other than a pair of panties, the body was naked and burnt from the waist up. The legs of the victim were spread as if they had been posed, and the arms were stretched out with clenched fists. The victim looked like a young woman, but the chest had been burned so badly that it was difficult to tell. Even worse was the victim's face — the eyes were empty, without color; and the mouth was wide open, exposing teeth tightly clenched on the victim's tongue.
The victim was 12 year old Shanda Sharer.
The autopsy that was done showed that she had suffered multiple injuries. Ligature marks were found on her wrists, and she had several lacerations on her head, neck and legs. Her fingers were so badly crimped that they had to be cut off in order to take prints. Her jaw was also removed so that her dentist could make a positive identification. The upper part of her body was covered in extreme burns, and her tongue protruded through clenched teeth. Lacerations to the anus and rectum indicated a blunt object had been inserted at least three and a half inches. In addition, the extent of rectal bleeding showed that she had been alive at the time of the assault. Soot in the upper airway, showed that she had been alive when she was set on fire.
What was the reason behind someone doing this to a 12 year old girl? Jealousy.
Shanda had been seeing a girl at her school who already had a girlfriend. That girl was Melinda Loveless. She set about tormenting and threatening Shanda for months. Shanda continued to see the girl and eventually Loveless crossed the line into murder.
Loveless decided to do something about Shanda and when her friend Laurie Tackett came to her house things began to happen. Tackett was some friend. She had allegedly dabbled in the occult and claimed to have another personality that was a vampire; and had often talked about killing someone for the fun of it. They picked up two other girls on the way to Shanda's house, Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence. They decided to go to Shanda's house and abduct her and take her somewhere and hurt her and that is exactly what they did.
Shanda was subjected to 10+ hours of torture by these 4 girls. The 2 main tormentors were Loveless and Tackett. Starting with Shanda getting into the car and Loveless holding a knife to her throat, calling her names, ignoring Shanda's cries to not hurt or kill her. At one point they stopped and tied Shanda's hands, lit a fire and Tackett told Shanda that was what she was going to look like before they were done with her. They stole her jewelry, tormented her more verbally and decided to go to another location that was more private. They stopped to get gas and one of the girls called a friend yet said nothing about what was going on.
They drove for about an hour before they reached their destination. They forced Shanda out of the car and made her strip off all her clothes despite the bitter January cold. Loveless claimed she wanted to keep the clothes as a souvenir. Then the abuse got worse.
Tackett grabbed Shanda's arms and held them behind her back so that Loveless could hit her. Loveless repeatedly hit Shanda and the braces in her mouth caused blood to flow from the numerous cuts they inflicted. Loveless also kicked and used her knee on Shanda's head. Throughout all this Shanda begged and pleaded with her tormentors. She promised to never see the girlfriend again. It was all in vain and only caused her to be tormented more.
At some point Shanda fell to the ground. Loveless tried to cut her throat with a knife but the knife was to dull. One of the girls in the car, Hope Ripey, jumped out and held Shanda down as Loveless tried using her foot to force the knife to cut her throat but it did not work. So Loveless and Tackett took turns stabbing Shanda in the chest with the knife repeatedly. The wounds were not deep enough to kill her instantly and Shanda was begging for her life still but Loveless reportedly laughed in her face when she did.
At that point Tackett ran back to the car to get some rope to strangle Shanda with because the knife wounds were not working. When Tackett returned with the rope, Loveless sat on Shanda's legs as Tackett straddled her chest. Tackett then wrapped the rope around Shanda's neck and pulled with all her might until Shanda's body went limp. They were not sure if she was dead yet or not so they tossed Shanda's into the trunk of the car and headed for Tacketts house.
When they got to Tackett's house the girls all went inside and began socializing. During this time they heard a noise and that noise turned out to be Shanda screaming inside the trunk of the car. Tackett grabbed a knife from her kitchen and went out to the car trunk and stabbed Shanda over and over in hopes of killing her finally. She then shut the trunk and went back inside were Tackett and Loveless decided to take Shanda somewhere else and the other two girls refused to go.
As they were driving they decided to check and see if Shanda was dead yet. So they pulled over and open up the trunk to find Shanda covered in blood. Shanda said one word, "mommy". At that point Tackett grabbed a tire iron and hit Shanda in the head with it, closed the trunk and they got back into the car and drove on.
Again as they were driving they heard noises coming from the trunk and again they pulled over. Tackett went back, opened the trunk and saw Shanda lying on her side still alive. Tackett again grabbed the tire iron and repeatedly hit Shanda in the head with it. This time she hit her so hard she broke a piece of Shanda's skull off. Tackett got back into the car put the tire iron under her nose and smelled it. She began laughing as she explained what had happened and waved the tire iron under Loveless' nose.
As they continued to drive they decided to burn Shanda. They stopped several more times and beat Shanda with the tire iron each time they stopped. They went back to Tacketts house where they told the two girls who had remained behind what they had planned and bragged about what they had done to Shanda.
At this point they opened the trunk and Ripey saw a bottle of glass cleaner next to Shanda. She picked it up and began to spray Shanda with it. Shanda sat up at that point, covered in blood and swaying back and forth. Tackett began talking to her and tormenting her but Shanda was unresponsive. At this point the evidence suggests the girls sodomized Shanda with the tire iron; but none of them has ever admitted any knowledge of it or responsibility for this act. Tackett's mother yelled for the girls and it spooked them so they closed the trunk on Shanda once again.
They drove Shanda to an old logging road and carried her out of the trunk and laid her on the ground where they threw gasoline on her and Tackett lit a match and threw it on Shanda. The girls hopped back into the car and started to drive away when Loveless told Tackett to turn around because she wanted to make sure the body was still burning. When they went back Loveless grabbed the bottle with the remaining gasoline and went over to Shanda. Loveless saw Shanda curled up into a fetal position and her tongue darted in and out of her mouth. She poured the remaining gasoline on Shanda's burnt body and went back to the car. Loveless thought Sharer's death throes were funny and described them to the others. On their way back home they stopped at McDonalds to get breakfast and they made jokes about how the cooked meat looked like Shanda.
Cases like this one show one thing. People are people. Anyone, regardless of gender, is capable of anything. I know of many girls that talk about the bullying that goes on in school by other girls and how awful it can become. This case shows it in the extreme.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Mother accused - another awful case
Another case that, if true, goes to show that gender is no safeguard when it comes to sexually abusing children:
Full articles are Here, Here and Here:
A former teacher at Little Flower Catholic School, Melissa B. Gray, 29, has been arrested on allegations that she traded child pornography with a Florida man and tried to arrange sexual encounters for him with two children, one of them a family member.
Her arrest allegedly pre-empted plans for her and Milton resident Jonathan Daniel Bervig to have sex this weekend with one of the children: the male family member's friend, an 8-year-old girl, authorities said.
According to an affidavit filed by an Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent Bervig had visited Gray's house several times, including an initial visit in which the two had sex. About a month ago, the affidavit alleges, Gray tried to set up a sexual liaison with Bervig, a 7-year-old family member and a female friend of the child.
It is also alleged that that Gray gave Benadryl to the two children at her house, then told Bervig to come so that they could “play” with the children. Reportedly Bervig drove to Gray’s house, but left because the children were still awake. He told authorities that Gray was angry that the children had not fallen asleep. Subsequently it is alleged that Gray and Bervig discussed drugging the child with Percocet for the alleged plans for the upcoming weekend.
Full articles are Here, Here and Here:
A former teacher at Little Flower Catholic School, Melissa B. Gray, 29, has been arrested on allegations that she traded child pornography with a Florida man and tried to arrange sexual encounters for him with two children, one of them a family member.
Her arrest allegedly pre-empted plans for her and Milton resident Jonathan Daniel Bervig to have sex this weekend with one of the children: the male family member's friend, an 8-year-old girl, authorities said.
According to an affidavit filed by an Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent Bervig had visited Gray's house several times, including an initial visit in which the two had sex. About a month ago, the affidavit alleges, Gray tried to set up a sexual liaison with Bervig, a 7-year-old family member and a female friend of the child.
It is also alleged that that Gray gave Benadryl to the two children at her house, then told Bervig to come so that they could “play” with the children. Reportedly Bervig drove to Gray’s house, but left because the children were still awake. He told authorities that Gray was angry that the children had not fallen asleep. Subsequently it is alleged that Gray and Bervig discussed drugging the child with Percocet for the alleged plans for the upcoming weekend.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Psychopath or not?
In this ARTICLE a woman is described faking having cancer on more than one occasion. She is also described as lying about other things. I wonder why no one has suggested she might be a psychopath? Read the article and decide for yourself:
This popular teacher told students and friends she was going to die. What no one knew: She'd feigned chemo nausea, shaved her own head and was never actually sick at all.
Courtesy of Glamour
Suzy Bass had less than a year to live. The Knoxville, Tennessee, high school math teacher was battling stage IV breast cancer, and it had spread to her shoulder and heel. Chemotherapy no longer worked; an experimental bone marrow therapy she'd tried as a last resort appeared futile. Her students and colleagues were devastated. Bass, then 41, was a popular newcomer to the picturesque private Webb School near the Smoky Mountains that fall of 2007. "Ms. Bass was the cool teacher," says Michaelan Moore, 18, who was a junior in Bass's Algebra II class. "Everyone just loved her immediately. We could tell her anything."
Because Bass had recently moved to Knoxville and was single, two Webb staffers--Julieanne Pope, 43, and Terri Ward, 51--became her part-time caregivers. "I left my cell phone on my nightstand every night in case she needed anything," says Ward, the dean of faculty. "On bad days I'd tell her, 'We are going to attack this. We are going to fight.'" When Bass was too sick to teach, they'd cover her classes. And they kept a steady stream of casseroles and smoothies going to her condo. "We'd visit and she'd be shaking, pale and so sick," says Pope, Webb's technology coordinator. At school Bass would cover her head--bald from chemotherapy--with a knit cap, and limp from the tumor in her foot.
In October Webb students and faculty put together a team for Komen Knoxville Race for the Cure to benefit the local breast cancer charity affiliate. "Suzy's Crew for the Cure," they called it. But when race day came, Bass was too weak to even walk. "She just met us at the finish line so she could cross it," says Pope. As Bass's condition worsened, she sent an e-mail to Pope thanking her for her support and friendship, and in an attached document, she outlined her last wishes. She asked that she be cremated, her ashes scattered in the Cayman Islands, with no tears: "I want whoever is sprinkling to be enjoying friends, family and loved ones, laughing and just having fun," she said.
Inspired by Bass's brave battle, Webb's students dedicated their prom fund-raiser to her, raising money for Komen for the Cure by selling T-shirts bearing the charity's logo. "Everyone wanted to support Ms. Bass," says Eliza Dawson, 17, a student who helped coordinate the event. The students planned to present a check to the director of Komen's Knoxville branch--with Bass by their side--during prom, and their efforts were covered by the local newspaper.
A week before the big dance, though, the school received a series of troubling phone calls. The callers were intimately familiar with Bass's devastating saga. But they weren't upset about her deadly illness--they were furious.
Bass, they said, was making the whole thing up.
On April 21, Webb president Scott Hutchinson sat in his office, dumbfounded by the calls he'd received that day. Staffers from a school in Dallas, Georgia--where Bass once taught--had contacted him to expose what they claimed was Bass's latest deception. An employee googled her former colleague to see what had become of her; she found the Knoxville News Sentinel article about the prom fund-raiser. Bass, the callers warned Hutchinson, had pretended to be a cancer patient during her tenure at their school--and at yet another one in Alabama.
The school president--who couldn't imagine anyone, let alone one of his most beloved teachers, doing what these strangers alleged--called Bass to his office. "I told her, 'Find me a physician who's treating you for cancer, and I'll make this go away,' " Hutchinson says. After four days of stalling, Bass arranged for her doctor to call the school. But as the caller spoke with Rob Costante, an assistant head of Webb, it was clear that "he was a complete sham," says Costante. Heartsick, Hutchinson went to look for Bass--but she was already gone. Later that afternoon, Hutchinson got Bass on the phone and fired her.
As news of Bass's betrayal hit the hallways, emotions ranged from shock and rage to confusion and embarrassment. "I couldn't help but think about the 'end of chemo' cake I'd baked her with a pink frosting ribbon," remembers Moore. "That made me feel a little silly." The entire Webb community had opened their hearts--and wallets--for Bass. Her freshman classes had even bought a refrigerator for her classroom where she kept Gatorade (hydration is key during chemotherapy). "I cried, I was mad, I had every emotion you could feel," Pope says. When she broke the news to her daughter, Macy, the 13-year-old threw a breast cancer awareness band Bass had given her on the floor. "I can't even look at this," she said through tears. Teacher Amanda Rowcliffe, 47, thought of the night when Bass had called her, sobbing. "She said she'd just had her chemo port put in and was distraught about going to school with the ugly bandage showing," Rowcliffe recalls. So she went out, bought and delivered a turtleneck to Bass's home. "I felt so betrayed," she says.
A week after getting exposed, Bass pulled down her Facebook account, changed her phone number and disappeared. In her wake, she left a community of angry, bewildered people with many unanswered questions: How did she do it? How could we not have known? And the biggest, most puzzling one of all: Why?
After coming across a Knoxville newspaper story posted online about the scandal at Webb, I was instantly fascinated--and horrified. As a cancer patient myself--I have leukemia, which I've chronicled in Glamour's Life With Cancer column and blog--I have experienced both the devastation of a diagnosis and the roller-coaster ride of treatment. Not to mention the burden of knowing how scared my family and friends were for me. I wanted to understand what had happened here, so I started digging.
Suzy Bass grew up in Athens, Alabama, a city of 20,000 residents, with a brother seven years her senior; her mother, a former kindergarten teacher; and her father, a retired NASA engineer. "You could write a book about all the accomplishments Suzy had growing up," says her father, Bill Bass, 74, who agreed to talk to Glamour on his family's behalf. From a young age, he recalls, Bass was energetic, athletic and whip-smart (a childhood IQ test describes her "superior range of intellectual ability"). She had a passion for basketball, never missing summer camp with the University of Tennessee's renowned women's basketball team, the Lady Vols.
During high school, the 5'2" Bass made history as her team's second-highest scorer of all time. Her long list of extracurriculars included student government, marching band and a sorority that Bass presided over during her senior year. She graduated twelfth in her class of almost 200. When asked if anything ever seemed odd about his daughter's behavior, Bill Bass replies, "No, she had lots of friends and boyfriends." Then he pauses, cautiously adding, "In high school, we'd catch her in white lies. Nothing serious, but we were never quite sure she'd tell us the truth."
In 1989 Bass earned her bachelor's degree in math education from Athens State College (now known as Athens State University), and was soon doing what she'd always dreamed of: teaching math and coaching basketball. In 1995, not long after starting a job at Tanner High School close to her hometown, she told her parents that she'd been having breathing problems and persistent colds. Then one day she broke the news: She'd been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, an often deadly form of blood cancer. "I went with her to chemo on more than one occasion," says her father, who recalls sitting in the waiting room and watching Bass sign in and walk back to the treatment area.
Nearly one year later, a church friend grew suspicious of Bass's behavior and called the doctor she claimed to be seeing. After learning that Bass wasn't a patient after all, the acquaintance alerted Tanner High officials, who informed Bass's parents about the allegations. "We were shocked," Bill says. "I made an appointment to see the oncologist I thought was treating her, and it was true, he had no idea who she was." The school district's superintendent asked Bass to resign. For several weeks she was hospitalized for depression. But her treatment ended there--something her family would deeply regret. "There is a lot more understanding now about mental illness than there was in 1995," Bill Bass says sadly.
Following her release, Bass moved in with her parents, enrolled in school and earned a master's degree in education. She also fell in love with a man she'd met while teaching at Tanner High School. The couple married, but it lasted less than a year. Ready for a fresh start, Bass moved to Knoxville, where she had always dreamed of living, in the late nineties. She was as content as her family had ever seen her: pursuing a doctoral degree in mathematics at the University of Tennessee, teaching classes at nearby community colleges and tutoring her beloved Lady Vols (she counts revered coach Pat Summitt as a mentor). But Bass became overwhelmed while working on her dissertation. Thinking a new location would help clear her head, she took a job in Dallas, Georgia, at Paulding County High School in August 2003.
Bass quickly became one of the best-loved teachers there. But her demons were back at work too. She was at Paulding County for about a year and a half when the Basses got a call that their daughter had passed out at school. A few weeks later, Bass called with a worrisome update: A mammogram had detected a tumor. Soon after, she announced that it was stage II ductal carcinoma.
Perhaps it can only be explained by unconditional parental love, but once again, the Basses found themselves duped by their daughter. "What blinded us was the fact that Suzy's colleagues saw her pass out," Bill Bass says. "We assumed it must be true if they saw it." When he and his wife visited Bass in Georgia, he recalls, she looked sick and appeared to have radiation burns under her arms. "My wife would rub cream on her to soothe them," he says.
Bass's church and school friends were drawn into her account of illness too. Her students pitched in for a pink iPod she could listen to during chemo. In the fall of 2005, the school nominated Bass for the prestigious Disney Teacher of the Year Award. "[Bass] may be the finest teacher/inspiration I have ever been associated with in 32 years of education," Jim Gottwald, the Paulding County principal told the Athens State University newsletter. But within days, the principal of Bass's previous school, Tanner High--who had seen an article about her nomination--called Paulding County. That prompted a months-long investigation, which revealed that Bass had forged a doctor's name on a certificate of disability that she gave Paulding's associate superintendent, and had told students she'd drop low test scores if they donated $100 or more to Relay for Life, another cancer fund-raising race.
In March 2006, she was forced to resign and surrender her Georgia teacher's certificate. Bass headed home. This time she told her parents that enemies at Tanner High had tried to sabotage her career and that she indeed had breast cancer, it had just gone into remission. A little more than a year later, Bass left for Knoxville.
Although she had told friends there that she was estranged from her family, that wasn't the case. The Basses just hadn't seen her for a few months. So they had no idea that, at Webb, their daughter was claiming that her cancer was out of remission. They didn't see that she'd shaved her head. They didn't know she was telling people the end was near. It was an old friend in Knoxville who called to tell them what had happened. "On the one hand, we were so glad she didn't have cancer," says her father, "but we also knew we had our work cut out for us." He and his wife felt guilt-stricken that they hadn't realized the truth sooner. "It all makes sense now," he continues, "but hindsight is 20/20."
Hutchinson, too, admits that he should have dug into Bass's history before hiring her. Determined that no other school would be deceived, he warned the agencies that accredit private schools in the Southeast about Bass. Hutchinson didn't pursue legal action; making a case against Bass, lawyers said, would have been difficult anyway. While others raised money for charity in her name, it's believed she never pocketed any, and that she never submitted any insurance claims for her fake illnesses. She also didn't take disability leave.
In the days after her firing from Webb, all anyone there could talk about was Suzy Bass. Many students assumed she had just moved to another school, her cancer persona intact. Others imagined her to be hiding somewhere from everything she had done. And then came summer break. By the time school started again in August, Bass was just a painful memory. No one thought they would ever find out why she lied to them. There's only one person who really knows, after all, and no one had seen or heard from her--until now.
Once she left Knoxville, Bass admitted herself into an Alabama psychiatric ward and she told doctors she no longer wanted to live. There, she was diagnosed with bipolar, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. After about a week of treatment, doctors released her and she moved to the basement apartment in an aunt and uncle's house near Athens, a quick 15-minute drive away from her parents and brother. Every morning and night, her aunt watches as Bass takes her medication.
Initially reluctant to accept my calls, Bass eventually agreed to talk on the phone and, in a series of conversations, answered questions--for the very first time--about what she'd done. Speaking with a thick Southern accent, she sounded calm and polite, even funny. I could see why so many people had adored her. When she told me about a recent session with her mental health counselor, she joked, "They charge $90 for 20 minutes and I'm the crazy one?" We talked about Knoxville, the Lady Vols and what a small world it is; I played volleyball as a student at UT when Bass was working in the athletic department there--we likely passed each other in the halls on a daily basis.
When our conversation veered to the tough questions, Bass freely admitted faking cancer three times. "I'm sorry I can't undo what I did, and I'm sorry that sorry is such an insignificant word," she says. "The remorse in my heart and soul is huge." Bass acknowledges that there were other lies she'd told friends and colleagues. She once pretended she had a fiancé who died on 9/11, that she'd played basketball at Florida State University and that she'd starred in the North American tour of Mamma Mia! "What I did was wrong, and I'm willing to stand up and admit that," Bass says, "but it doesn't change that my intent was never to hurt anyone. Never. I'm not that kind of person."
Listening to Bass detail the outrageous lengths she went to over the years to fake her symptoms is chilling. After spending hours researching cancer on the Internet, Bass learned to draw convincing-looking radiation dots on her neck with a permanent marker (doctors tattoo patients so they know where to line up the radiation machine every day). She would also roll up a bath towel, stretch it between her hands and rub it back and forth against her neck as fast as she could to give herself "radiation burns." She shaved her own head with a razor and made herself throw up from chemotherapy "nausea" in school bathrooms. And all those times her father accompanied her to chemo treatments? After walking through the waiting room door, Bass would meet up with an actual cancer patient--a friend she met at church--and keep her company during her chemotherapy.
Despite all that effort and time Bass spent learning how to appear sick, she claims that every time she feigned having cancer, she truly believed she was ill. "In my mind, I didn't lie to anybody," she says. "I know that's not what the people in these three communities believe, but in my world there was no doubt that I had cancer and was dying." Bass says it wasn't until she was sitting in Scott Hutchinson's office listening to the accusations leveled against her that she realized she wasn't actually a cancer patient. "I remember thinking, Oh crap, this is happening again," she says. Out of sheer desperation to keep her teaching position at Webb, she went through the charade of finding a "doctor" to verify her story. (Bass claims she doesn't recall whom she asked to pose as her physician.) "I loved my job and my kids," she says, "and just wanted to stay there so badly."
Could someone honestly believe she is dying while actively lying about it? That's part of the puzzle Bass's counseling team is attempting to piece together. "It is certainly possible that given her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Suzy could have truly believed she had cancer," says Marvin Kalachman, a licensed physician assistant who has treated patients for more than 30 years. He prescribes and monitors Bass's medication under the supervision of a medical doctor. Every other week Bass, escorted by a family member, drives for an hour from her home to see Kalachman and attend therapy sessions at Trinity Counseling Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Her parents are helping to pay for treatment.
Originally known as manic depression, bipolar disorder, which often strikes in young adulthood, is characterized by severe, pathological swings in mood from extreme highs (like euphoria) to extreme lows (depression), says Melvin McInnis, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan and a leading expert on the disorder. It's possible for a bipolar patient to experience delusions lasting days or weeks during an episode, Dr. McInnis explains. In Bass's case, however, she went to great lengths to fake symptoms--not a hallmark of bipolar delusions, he notes.
Marc Feldman, M.D., a world-renowned psychiatrist, has treated more than 100 women who have faked serious illness. Though he has never met Bass, he believes he has her diagnosis: Munchausen syndrome, a psychological disorder in which someone feigns or self-induces illness to get attention and sympathy. According to Dr. Feldman, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and author of Playing Sick?, these people know that they are lying, but typically don't know why they're compelled to do so. And, he says, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder does not rule out Munchausen syndrome. Currently Bass's counselors have not diagnosed her with Munchausen syndrome and say they are primarily focused on treating her bipolar disorder, but add that her diagnostic review is not yet complete. What everyone does agree on is that this is a woman who will need help for a long, long time.
This popular teacher told students and friends she was going to die. What no one knew: She'd feigned chemo nausea, shaved her own head and was never actually sick at all.
Courtesy of Glamour
Suzy Bass had less than a year to live. The Knoxville, Tennessee, high school math teacher was battling stage IV breast cancer, and it had spread to her shoulder and heel. Chemotherapy no longer worked; an experimental bone marrow therapy she'd tried as a last resort appeared futile. Her students and colleagues were devastated. Bass, then 41, was a popular newcomer to the picturesque private Webb School near the Smoky Mountains that fall of 2007. "Ms. Bass was the cool teacher," says Michaelan Moore, 18, who was a junior in Bass's Algebra II class. "Everyone just loved her immediately. We could tell her anything."
Because Bass had recently moved to Knoxville and was single, two Webb staffers--Julieanne Pope, 43, and Terri Ward, 51--became her part-time caregivers. "I left my cell phone on my nightstand every night in case she needed anything," says Ward, the dean of faculty. "On bad days I'd tell her, 'We are going to attack this. We are going to fight.'" When Bass was too sick to teach, they'd cover her classes. And they kept a steady stream of casseroles and smoothies going to her condo. "We'd visit and she'd be shaking, pale and so sick," says Pope, Webb's technology coordinator. At school Bass would cover her head--bald from chemotherapy--with a knit cap, and limp from the tumor in her foot.
In October Webb students and faculty put together a team for Komen Knoxville Race for the Cure to benefit the local breast cancer charity affiliate. "Suzy's Crew for the Cure," they called it. But when race day came, Bass was too weak to even walk. "She just met us at the finish line so she could cross it," says Pope. As Bass's condition worsened, she sent an e-mail to Pope thanking her for her support and friendship, and in an attached document, she outlined her last wishes. She asked that she be cremated, her ashes scattered in the Cayman Islands, with no tears: "I want whoever is sprinkling to be enjoying friends, family and loved ones, laughing and just having fun," she said.
Inspired by Bass's brave battle, Webb's students dedicated their prom fund-raiser to her, raising money for Komen for the Cure by selling T-shirts bearing the charity's logo. "Everyone wanted to support Ms. Bass," says Eliza Dawson, 17, a student who helped coordinate the event. The students planned to present a check to the director of Komen's Knoxville branch--with Bass by their side--during prom, and their efforts were covered by the local newspaper.
A week before the big dance, though, the school received a series of troubling phone calls. The callers were intimately familiar with Bass's devastating saga. But they weren't upset about her deadly illness--they were furious.
Bass, they said, was making the whole thing up.
On April 21, Webb president Scott Hutchinson sat in his office, dumbfounded by the calls he'd received that day. Staffers from a school in Dallas, Georgia--where Bass once taught--had contacted him to expose what they claimed was Bass's latest deception. An employee googled her former colleague to see what had become of her; she found the Knoxville News Sentinel article about the prom fund-raiser. Bass, the callers warned Hutchinson, had pretended to be a cancer patient during her tenure at their school--and at yet another one in Alabama.
The school president--who couldn't imagine anyone, let alone one of his most beloved teachers, doing what these strangers alleged--called Bass to his office. "I told her, 'Find me a physician who's treating you for cancer, and I'll make this go away,' " Hutchinson says. After four days of stalling, Bass arranged for her doctor to call the school. But as the caller spoke with Rob Costante, an assistant head of Webb, it was clear that "he was a complete sham," says Costante. Heartsick, Hutchinson went to look for Bass--but she was already gone. Later that afternoon, Hutchinson got Bass on the phone and fired her.
As news of Bass's betrayal hit the hallways, emotions ranged from shock and rage to confusion and embarrassment. "I couldn't help but think about the 'end of chemo' cake I'd baked her with a pink frosting ribbon," remembers Moore. "That made me feel a little silly." The entire Webb community had opened their hearts--and wallets--for Bass. Her freshman classes had even bought a refrigerator for her classroom where she kept Gatorade (hydration is key during chemotherapy). "I cried, I was mad, I had every emotion you could feel," Pope says. When she broke the news to her daughter, Macy, the 13-year-old threw a breast cancer awareness band Bass had given her on the floor. "I can't even look at this," she said through tears. Teacher Amanda Rowcliffe, 47, thought of the night when Bass had called her, sobbing. "She said she'd just had her chemo port put in and was distraught about going to school with the ugly bandage showing," Rowcliffe recalls. So she went out, bought and delivered a turtleneck to Bass's home. "I felt so betrayed," she says.
A week after getting exposed, Bass pulled down her Facebook account, changed her phone number and disappeared. In her wake, she left a community of angry, bewildered people with many unanswered questions: How did she do it? How could we not have known? And the biggest, most puzzling one of all: Why?
After coming across a Knoxville newspaper story posted online about the scandal at Webb, I was instantly fascinated--and horrified. As a cancer patient myself--I have leukemia, which I've chronicled in Glamour's Life With Cancer column and blog--I have experienced both the devastation of a diagnosis and the roller-coaster ride of treatment. Not to mention the burden of knowing how scared my family and friends were for me. I wanted to understand what had happened here, so I started digging.
Suzy Bass grew up in Athens, Alabama, a city of 20,000 residents, with a brother seven years her senior; her mother, a former kindergarten teacher; and her father, a retired NASA engineer. "You could write a book about all the accomplishments Suzy had growing up," says her father, Bill Bass, 74, who agreed to talk to Glamour on his family's behalf. From a young age, he recalls, Bass was energetic, athletic and whip-smart (a childhood IQ test describes her "superior range of intellectual ability"). She had a passion for basketball, never missing summer camp with the University of Tennessee's renowned women's basketball team, the Lady Vols.
During high school, the 5'2" Bass made history as her team's second-highest scorer of all time. Her long list of extracurriculars included student government, marching band and a sorority that Bass presided over during her senior year. She graduated twelfth in her class of almost 200. When asked if anything ever seemed odd about his daughter's behavior, Bill Bass replies, "No, she had lots of friends and boyfriends." Then he pauses, cautiously adding, "In high school, we'd catch her in white lies. Nothing serious, but we were never quite sure she'd tell us the truth."
In 1989 Bass earned her bachelor's degree in math education from Athens State College (now known as Athens State University), and was soon doing what she'd always dreamed of: teaching math and coaching basketball. In 1995, not long after starting a job at Tanner High School close to her hometown, she told her parents that she'd been having breathing problems and persistent colds. Then one day she broke the news: She'd been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, an often deadly form of blood cancer. "I went with her to chemo on more than one occasion," says her father, who recalls sitting in the waiting room and watching Bass sign in and walk back to the treatment area.
Nearly one year later, a church friend grew suspicious of Bass's behavior and called the doctor she claimed to be seeing. After learning that Bass wasn't a patient after all, the acquaintance alerted Tanner High officials, who informed Bass's parents about the allegations. "We were shocked," Bill says. "I made an appointment to see the oncologist I thought was treating her, and it was true, he had no idea who she was." The school district's superintendent asked Bass to resign. For several weeks she was hospitalized for depression. But her treatment ended there--something her family would deeply regret. "There is a lot more understanding now about mental illness than there was in 1995," Bill Bass says sadly.
Following her release, Bass moved in with her parents, enrolled in school and earned a master's degree in education. She also fell in love with a man she'd met while teaching at Tanner High School. The couple married, but it lasted less than a year. Ready for a fresh start, Bass moved to Knoxville, where she had always dreamed of living, in the late nineties. She was as content as her family had ever seen her: pursuing a doctoral degree in mathematics at the University of Tennessee, teaching classes at nearby community colleges and tutoring her beloved Lady Vols (she counts revered coach Pat Summitt as a mentor). But Bass became overwhelmed while working on her dissertation. Thinking a new location would help clear her head, she took a job in Dallas, Georgia, at Paulding County High School in August 2003.
Bass quickly became one of the best-loved teachers there. But her demons were back at work too. She was at Paulding County for about a year and a half when the Basses got a call that their daughter had passed out at school. A few weeks later, Bass called with a worrisome update: A mammogram had detected a tumor. Soon after, she announced that it was stage II ductal carcinoma.
Perhaps it can only be explained by unconditional parental love, but once again, the Basses found themselves duped by their daughter. "What blinded us was the fact that Suzy's colleagues saw her pass out," Bill Bass says. "We assumed it must be true if they saw it." When he and his wife visited Bass in Georgia, he recalls, she looked sick and appeared to have radiation burns under her arms. "My wife would rub cream on her to soothe them," he says.
Bass's church and school friends were drawn into her account of illness too. Her students pitched in for a pink iPod she could listen to during chemo. In the fall of 2005, the school nominated Bass for the prestigious Disney Teacher of the Year Award. "[Bass] may be the finest teacher/inspiration I have ever been associated with in 32 years of education," Jim Gottwald, the Paulding County principal told the Athens State University newsletter. But within days, the principal of Bass's previous school, Tanner High--who had seen an article about her nomination--called Paulding County. That prompted a months-long investigation, which revealed that Bass had forged a doctor's name on a certificate of disability that she gave Paulding's associate superintendent, and had told students she'd drop low test scores if they donated $100 or more to Relay for Life, another cancer fund-raising race.
In March 2006, she was forced to resign and surrender her Georgia teacher's certificate. Bass headed home. This time she told her parents that enemies at Tanner High had tried to sabotage her career and that she indeed had breast cancer, it had just gone into remission. A little more than a year later, Bass left for Knoxville.
Although she had told friends there that she was estranged from her family, that wasn't the case. The Basses just hadn't seen her for a few months. So they had no idea that, at Webb, their daughter was claiming that her cancer was out of remission. They didn't see that she'd shaved her head. They didn't know she was telling people the end was near. It was an old friend in Knoxville who called to tell them what had happened. "On the one hand, we were so glad she didn't have cancer," says her father, "but we also knew we had our work cut out for us." He and his wife felt guilt-stricken that they hadn't realized the truth sooner. "It all makes sense now," he continues, "but hindsight is 20/20."
Hutchinson, too, admits that he should have dug into Bass's history before hiring her. Determined that no other school would be deceived, he warned the agencies that accredit private schools in the Southeast about Bass. Hutchinson didn't pursue legal action; making a case against Bass, lawyers said, would have been difficult anyway. While others raised money for charity in her name, it's believed she never pocketed any, and that she never submitted any insurance claims for her fake illnesses. She also didn't take disability leave.
In the days after her firing from Webb, all anyone there could talk about was Suzy Bass. Many students assumed she had just moved to another school, her cancer persona intact. Others imagined her to be hiding somewhere from everything she had done. And then came summer break. By the time school started again in August, Bass was just a painful memory. No one thought they would ever find out why she lied to them. There's only one person who really knows, after all, and no one had seen or heard from her--until now.
Once she left Knoxville, Bass admitted herself into an Alabama psychiatric ward and she told doctors she no longer wanted to live. There, she was diagnosed with bipolar, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. After about a week of treatment, doctors released her and she moved to the basement apartment in an aunt and uncle's house near Athens, a quick 15-minute drive away from her parents and brother. Every morning and night, her aunt watches as Bass takes her medication.
Initially reluctant to accept my calls, Bass eventually agreed to talk on the phone and, in a series of conversations, answered questions--for the very first time--about what she'd done. Speaking with a thick Southern accent, she sounded calm and polite, even funny. I could see why so many people had adored her. When she told me about a recent session with her mental health counselor, she joked, "They charge $90 for 20 minutes and I'm the crazy one?" We talked about Knoxville, the Lady Vols and what a small world it is; I played volleyball as a student at UT when Bass was working in the athletic department there--we likely passed each other in the halls on a daily basis.
When our conversation veered to the tough questions, Bass freely admitted faking cancer three times. "I'm sorry I can't undo what I did, and I'm sorry that sorry is such an insignificant word," she says. "The remorse in my heart and soul is huge." Bass acknowledges that there were other lies she'd told friends and colleagues. She once pretended she had a fiancé who died on 9/11, that she'd played basketball at Florida State University and that she'd starred in the North American tour of Mamma Mia! "What I did was wrong, and I'm willing to stand up and admit that," Bass says, "but it doesn't change that my intent was never to hurt anyone. Never. I'm not that kind of person."
Listening to Bass detail the outrageous lengths she went to over the years to fake her symptoms is chilling. After spending hours researching cancer on the Internet, Bass learned to draw convincing-looking radiation dots on her neck with a permanent marker (doctors tattoo patients so they know where to line up the radiation machine every day). She would also roll up a bath towel, stretch it between her hands and rub it back and forth against her neck as fast as she could to give herself "radiation burns." She shaved her own head with a razor and made herself throw up from chemotherapy "nausea" in school bathrooms. And all those times her father accompanied her to chemo treatments? After walking through the waiting room door, Bass would meet up with an actual cancer patient--a friend she met at church--and keep her company during her chemotherapy.
Despite all that effort and time Bass spent learning how to appear sick, she claims that every time she feigned having cancer, she truly believed she was ill. "In my mind, I didn't lie to anybody," she says. "I know that's not what the people in these three communities believe, but in my world there was no doubt that I had cancer and was dying." Bass says it wasn't until she was sitting in Scott Hutchinson's office listening to the accusations leveled against her that she realized she wasn't actually a cancer patient. "I remember thinking, Oh crap, this is happening again," she says. Out of sheer desperation to keep her teaching position at Webb, she went through the charade of finding a "doctor" to verify her story. (Bass claims she doesn't recall whom she asked to pose as her physician.) "I loved my job and my kids," she says, "and just wanted to stay there so badly."
Could someone honestly believe she is dying while actively lying about it? That's part of the puzzle Bass's counseling team is attempting to piece together. "It is certainly possible that given her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Suzy could have truly believed she had cancer," says Marvin Kalachman, a licensed physician assistant who has treated patients for more than 30 years. He prescribes and monitors Bass's medication under the supervision of a medical doctor. Every other week Bass, escorted by a family member, drives for an hour from her home to see Kalachman and attend therapy sessions at Trinity Counseling Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Her parents are helping to pay for treatment.
Originally known as manic depression, bipolar disorder, which often strikes in young adulthood, is characterized by severe, pathological swings in mood from extreme highs (like euphoria) to extreme lows (depression), says Melvin McInnis, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan and a leading expert on the disorder. It's possible for a bipolar patient to experience delusions lasting days or weeks during an episode, Dr. McInnis explains. In Bass's case, however, she went to great lengths to fake symptoms--not a hallmark of bipolar delusions, he notes.
Marc Feldman, M.D., a world-renowned psychiatrist, has treated more than 100 women who have faked serious illness. Though he has never met Bass, he believes he has her diagnosis: Munchausen syndrome, a psychological disorder in which someone feigns or self-induces illness to get attention and sympathy. According to Dr. Feldman, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and author of Playing Sick?, these people know that they are lying, but typically don't know why they're compelled to do so. And, he says, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder does not rule out Munchausen syndrome. Currently Bass's counselors have not diagnosed her with Munchausen syndrome and say they are primarily focused on treating her bipolar disorder, but add that her diagnostic review is not yet complete. What everyone does agree on is that this is a woman who will need help for a long, long time.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Case Series - Court and Bond ignored
I wanted to post another case that clearly shows some thinking errors going on by the offender:
You can read the complete article here:
Indianola, Ia. - Shannon Michelle Rew faces up to 10 years behind bars and a lifetime as a registered sex offender, but the 37-year-old Indianola mother of three is unapologetic about her sexual relationship with a teenage boy.
"We both cared about each other. That's what the basis of our relationship was," she said. "Our sense of humor and our personalities were a perfect match."
Rew, who pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of third-degree sex abuse, said she and the boy "cared a lot about each other" and "kind of let emotions just take over," which prosecutors say led to an ongoing relationship that included pornography, explicit text messages and a sexual encounter in her van while she was free on bond.
"The fact that you went ahead and committed a subsequent offense of the same nature does not give the court a lot of confidence that you've learned anything in this matter," said Warren County District Judge Darrell Goodhue, who recommended that Rew be put on probation for life as part of her sentence.
She was free on bond in this case and ignored the Courts rules and went ahead and abused him again anyway. That right there speaks volumes.
Rew said she and the boy met after her 16-year-old daughter dated him for about six months.
"He was a really nice kid, a really nice person," Rew said. "He would do anything for you. He was having a lot of personal problems and family problems to where he came to me a lot, you know?"
Warren County Attorney Bryan Tingle said Rew's alleged concern for the boy's welfare was questionable.
People who are charged with crimes try "to make excuses to justify their crimes and take the focus away from what they did wrong under our laws by focusing attention on the victims," he said. "She took advantage of an emotionally unstable individual. That's what a criminal does. He or she takes advantage of someone who is vulnerable or in a fragile state."
It is nice to see a prosecutor who understands.
Rew said she never meant to hurt the boy or his family.
She said that if she had caused them pain, she regretted doing so, but that she wasn't sorry about the relationship.
"We had a really good time together, and I don't regret that. I just regret that because of what happened, everything that came out of it - I would never have done it if I knew that would be the case," she said.
"It's crazy. They can be 16, and you don't get charged with anything. They can be 15, and you get charged with life parole. Who's to say this 15-year-old isn't as mature as an 18-year-old?
"I don't think, when you care about somebody, that age really matters."
And there is the no-apology apology along with her thinking errors. She is also basically saying she is sorry she got caught and would not have done it if she thought you would get caught.
There was/is an interesting sidebar note with the story that said:
There are some statistics on convictions, but the women often plead to lesser charges, "or they're not apprehended in the first place," said Robert Shoop, a Kansas State University leadership and ethics professor who has served as a forensic expert in more than 50 sex abuse cases.
Such cases often stem from mentoring relationships: A flirtatious relationship develops, and then the woman and the boy spend more time together. Later, they end up alone, and then the relationship becomes sexual, Shoop said.
"It's a very predictable pattern," he said. "In many cases, the relationship gives them a tremendous amount of ego gratification.
"Shoop said it's common for the woman to say she's in love with the boy. "These people basically, in my experience, generally have a very poor concept of ethics and boundaries," he said. "We can definitely say that the reportage of females molesting males is increasing dramatically."
You can read the complete article here:
Indianola, Ia. - Shannon Michelle Rew faces up to 10 years behind bars and a lifetime as a registered sex offender, but the 37-year-old Indianola mother of three is unapologetic about her sexual relationship with a teenage boy.
"We both cared about each other. That's what the basis of our relationship was," she said. "Our sense of humor and our personalities were a perfect match."
Rew, who pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of third-degree sex abuse, said she and the boy "cared a lot about each other" and "kind of let emotions just take over," which prosecutors say led to an ongoing relationship that included pornography, explicit text messages and a sexual encounter in her van while she was free on bond.
"The fact that you went ahead and committed a subsequent offense of the same nature does not give the court a lot of confidence that you've learned anything in this matter," said Warren County District Judge Darrell Goodhue, who recommended that Rew be put on probation for life as part of her sentence.
She was free on bond in this case and ignored the Courts rules and went ahead and abused him again anyway. That right there speaks volumes.
Rew said she and the boy met after her 16-year-old daughter dated him for about six months.
"He was a really nice kid, a really nice person," Rew said. "He would do anything for you. He was having a lot of personal problems and family problems to where he came to me a lot, you know?"
Warren County Attorney Bryan Tingle said Rew's alleged concern for the boy's welfare was questionable.
People who are charged with crimes try "to make excuses to justify their crimes and take the focus away from what they did wrong under our laws by focusing attention on the victims," he said. "She took advantage of an emotionally unstable individual. That's what a criminal does. He or she takes advantage of someone who is vulnerable or in a fragile state."
It is nice to see a prosecutor who understands.
Rew said she never meant to hurt the boy or his family.
She said that if she had caused them pain, she regretted doing so, but that she wasn't sorry about the relationship.
"We had a really good time together, and I don't regret that. I just regret that because of what happened, everything that came out of it - I would never have done it if I knew that would be the case," she said.
"It's crazy. They can be 16, and you don't get charged with anything. They can be 15, and you get charged with life parole. Who's to say this 15-year-old isn't as mature as an 18-year-old?
"I don't think, when you care about somebody, that age really matters."
And there is the no-apology apology along with her thinking errors. She is also basically saying she is sorry she got caught and would not have done it if she thought you would get caught.
There was/is an interesting sidebar note with the story that said:
There are some statistics on convictions, but the women often plead to lesser charges, "or they're not apprehended in the first place," said Robert Shoop, a Kansas State University leadership and ethics professor who has served as a forensic expert in more than 50 sex abuse cases.
Such cases often stem from mentoring relationships: A flirtatious relationship develops, and then the woman and the boy spend more time together. Later, they end up alone, and then the relationship becomes sexual, Shoop said.
"It's a very predictable pattern," he said. "In many cases, the relationship gives them a tremendous amount of ego gratification.
"Shoop said it's common for the woman to say she's in love with the boy. "These people basically, in my experience, generally have a very poor concept of ethics and boundaries," he said. "We can definitely say that the reportage of females molesting males is increasing dramatically."
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