<p>His story is just that, a story. It’s possible he’s telling the truth, but it’s probably he’s lying and, if he is mentally ill, he may have an altered perception of reality which would also render his version of events unreliable. His concern over being arrested for kidnapping could easily have led him to attempt to get off completely by killing the boy and then disposing of his body. It was unlikely he would get away with kidnapping if he released the child. He had a chance of getting away with kidnapping by committing murder. If not for the video footage, he might have succeeded. Either way, I think “I panicked” is the obvious story that anyone would give who had any instinct of self-preservation.</p>
<p>This discussion makes me wonder how many children have been killed as a result of the captor wanting to hide the evidence of the crime. I wish there was a way for these people to safely drop a child off the way babies can be dropped off at hospitals. I know it’s completely unrealistic, but it’s terrible to think of how many children are killed so that they can’t give evidence about their captors.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, you say you agree with jonri, who says she firmly disagrees with me. But interestingly some of what you say, I agree with! </p>
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<p>This is what I was trying to say too. The man could function. He wasn’t insane. But he had some mental issues and behaviors. </p>
<p>You go on to say that pleading insanity won’t hold water. I want to clarify yet again that I never said, nor think, the man is insane. I only said what you did that he appears to have a history of some mental health issues (was being treated allegedly for these in the past). That is not nearly the same as insanity or not functioning.</p>
<p>I do not believe it’s possible to beat a child’s mother and still be considered a good person in that child’s life. </p>
<p>I spent many years working in the field of domestic violence intervention and prevention. Most of the children we saw had not been physically abused by their fathers but these children were heavily damaged by living in the environment where abuse had occurred.</p>
<p>Jonri, I understand your point that he may have thought he’d be caught for kidnapping and so murdered the boy and thought he could get away with that. But I don’t find it rational or mentally stable to murder someone (I think anyone who murders has something wrong with them, even if never discovered previously) and I don’t find it in reality to assume you won’t get caught when you murder someone. He took a chance at that, but if someone is realistic, they know there is a very good chance of being caught. Also, I’m not sure the motivation for kidnapping the boy, but if this guy was rational and realistic, just how long did he think he could go with a boy living at his apartment that would not be noticed by others? Was he just going to raise him until adulthood? I doubt he rationally or realistically thought that far ahead from the moment at hand when he brought the boy home.</p>
<p>I do agree that if you are abusing the mother of your children, then in that regard, you are not such a great father. But I mostly meant that there are men who are abusive to their wives but never lay a hand on the children. But abusing the children’s mother in itself is not great as a father because you are not a great person. But I meant that many men who are abusive in a spousal relationship are loving otherwise to their kids, even though it is bad for the kids that the father doesn’t treat the mother well. It DOES affect the children. Sorry if I wasn’t clear on what I had meant.</p>
<p>Excuse me if this has already been asked ,but why would the mom consider letting the boy walk by himself ? Does she have several younger kids ? I would never let an 8 year old walk anywhere alone , because there are too many nutty people out there ! The police said that 12 is about the right age to walk in NY .</p>
<p>This is why my parents wouldn’t let me go anywhere alone before I was 16 and as strong as most men… I carry a gun now everywhere I go. Laws don’t stop people who truly want to harm others. Just like in ancient times when natural selection decided evolution, rape and murder ran the world quite frankly. You need to do everything you can to protect yourself…</p>
<p>I realize that I am pretty ancient, but I was raised on the edge of Detroit (and was living in that area during the '67 riots). We did not have a lunchroom at school … many parents were 2 parent wage earner families and/or did not have 2 cars … and we walked back & forth to school alone (to school, home for lunch, back to school, home from school). I walked quite a few blocks, sometimes with others & sometimes alone. Moms/dads did not walk their kids to/from school. We went to the neighborhood park by ourselves, hanging out there a lot in the summer. We played outside by ourselves & with friends all day long in the summer, and until dinner during the school year.</p>
<p>I struggled with how much freedom to give my own kids as they grew up. No, I didn’t let them ride bikes to the store when they were in kindergarten, as we did. However, I did let them walk back & forth to school, go to friends’ houses, etc when they were relatively young. It has been awhile, so I don’t remember just how old they were when they did certain things … but it was more when I felt they were mature enough than when I felt they were “old” enough (so my D was allowed more freedoms at an earlier age than my S, as she was a more mature child). I was careful, but I did allow them freedoms others on this thread would have allowed. I suppose much depends on where you live. Could something have happened to them? Yes, but it could have happened to them anywhere/anytime. I would obviously have been devastated had anything happened … but I did what I felt was right. I understand how this little boy’s family did what they felt was the right thing. My heart breaks for them, and I am glad that they do not know everything about what happened to their child.</p>
<p>This is made much more tragic in that the little boy got lost, despite the family’s attempt to have him memorize the route and a practice dry run. If he hadn’t gotten lost and didn’t have to approach anyone for directions this tragedy would have been averted. He was probably too excited and distracted and missed his turn.</p>
<p>cbreeze, while it is true if the boy hadn’t gotten lost, it may not have happened (though actually the man may have approached the boy anyway, but maybe you could say if he weren’t alone it may not have happened)…we can’t really go through life second guessing every action. I can think of horrible things that happen in an instance, like a car accident resulting in death, being in a store when a gunman opens fire randomly, or boarding a certain plane on 9/11… or so many other things, where one could say, “only if this had not happened, then the bad thing would not have happened.” I just don’t know how valuable it is to do that, because some bad fate was involved that these two crossed paths at that moment.</p>
<p>The neighborhood was one where a lot of kids that age walk home from school/camp and play without supervision. From what I understand, for an 8 year old to walk that stretch would not be an issue in that community before this happened. The camp initially said they were not going to change their dismissal procedures, but now are saying that they may request parental notes for kids not being picked up. It’s quite different from my sons’ school where only the middle school kids are permitted to leave at dismissal on their own and only after a parent gives a release. </p>
<p>I mentioned this before how ironic it is that both child disappearances in NYC, Etan Patz more than 30 years ago, and this one, involved the first time a child was permitted to go on his own. </p>
<p>As for getting lost, my teen son went the opposite direction in Manhattan and ended up at the East River rather than the Hudson last year. I’ve gone the wrong way many times in the city. Some of us are just not good directionally. It takes us practice to learn the way. </p>
<p>I have many time made exceptions to some safety rules for a variety of reasons. Many moms do. I don’t think this mom was doing something out of the ordinary for her environment. It was just a terrible, terrible thing that someone so unbalanced was out there at the time. What were the chances of such a thing?</p>
I have the same problem. I work in an office building in which each floor is a giant rectangle and locations are referred to by their floor and direction. Unless I look out the window and locate landmarks, I can’t figure out where I am – I’ve worked there for 16 years. That’s something that wouldn’t necessarily be identifiable in a small child.</p>
<p>I’m exactly the same way – terrible at directions – and have been since childhood, when I would sometimes come out of the Donnell Library on 53rd between 5th and 6th (yes, I used to walk there myself, or take the bus, from an early age) and be absolutely paralyzed with indecision, going a few steps one way and then the other and then back again, not knowing whether I should turn left or right to go east towards 5th rather than west towards 6th. Even now, I sometimes have to depend on where the sun is if I can see it, or which way traffic is going, to know which way to go in an unfamiliar neighborhood. And, like zoosermom, I have to really think about which way I’m facing inside my office – the entrance to the building faces north, but then you have to turn one way to get on the elevator, and turn another way when you get off, and it’s totally confusing to me. Even though I’ve sat inside the same office, at the same desk, for the last 16 years.</p>
<p>As for how old a child should be to do something, yes, it is an individual thing, but also driven by the community in which you live. In the midwest, we lived in a development loaded with kids and they would run like a pack of dogs from one yard/house to another. It was difficult to forbid your child from this if you lived in the middle of such a place and your kids went to school and were friends with those children. If ALL of the kids walked to school, again, you are going to feel the pressure not to accompany your child. </p>
<p>From the accounts I had read, this little boy desperately wanted to walk home himself, and this was usual for the camp. The parents had their reasons as to why he was being walked home to begin with, and what he was asking to do was really more "normal: for his environment. </p>
<p>It was just so unfortunate, too unfortunate that things turned out as they did. Would this Levi Aron person have broken down like this eventually? So much unknown. </p>
<p>The horror of this hurts. What also truly bothers me is if the stresses and pressures of life are becoming increasingly more difficult for those with fragile mental holds. Even before this happened, it was an issue that has been on my mind, for a long time. With all of the laws passed, and political correctness climate we find ourselves, it seems to me that there is even more difficulty for those who can’t conform well. I wonder if it isn’t the area where I live which I feel is hard and fast in many ways. But this happened in a community that tends to take care of their own. All the more of the horror of it. So I’m looking at some tangents that really are not to blame, for what happened, as the only blame for all of this is that someone unbalanced truly went over the edge.</p>
<p>I think when horrific things happen, it is natural to look at what could have been done to avoid it, but many times there is no answer to that. Like you say, this person who appears to be unbalanced in some way went over the edge. I don’t think others can predict the behaviors of someone who may have displayed some mental illness but nothing as extreme as this. I don’t think it can be prevented. And it is not all about the little boy walking home from camp as apparently some do in that community often. We hear of horrific cases where kids were snatched from their own beds! And every day I seem to read about a parent who has killed their own kids (the kids were not safe in the hands of their own parents!!)</p>
<p>Most child abuse, kidnappings, molestations involve close family members, often the parents. So if we can eliminate ourselves from doing such things, we think our kids should be safe.</p>
<p>I agree. You will note that my post say that “otherwise” the person is a good father. I think it’s horrific for a young man or woman to grow up with a dad that hits mom.At the same time, there really is no reason to think that a man who hits his wife but apparently never ever hit his stepchildren is going to kill a lost child who asked him for directions. Why is this important? Because there are a lot of people out there–both in and out of the accused’s “community” --who are blaming his ex wife for not having “warned” the community that he could be violent. Give me an ever loving break. </p>
<p>There are also folks out there who want his parents arrested. I had this argument with a friend here in NYC this week. “If you left your children alone in an apartment and they were killed in a fire, you’d be arrested in a minute. Why is this different?” You would NOT be arrested if you left your almost nine year old child alone for 12 minutes. Realistically, that’s what these parents thought they were doing. </p>
<p>I consider myself a very good mom. Yet, looking back there a few times when my offspring begged me for privileges which they really weren’t ready for and I caved. In a couple of cases, we had near disasters and I realized I had granted my child more independence or authority than I should have. Thank heaven, nothing ( permanently) bad happened. So even if this child was too immature to walk home alone, my heart goes out to his parents who obviously loved him so very, very much and who, at worst, made a mistake when a much loved child begged to walk home alone. To SUGGEST that charges be brought against them makes my blood BOIL. </p>
<p>And, as for sense of direction…do you know that there all sorts of studies that say that it is those of us who were overprotected in childhood who lack a sense of direction? The kids who were left to wander a bit on their own unsupervised, got lost a bit, and figured out where they were–sometimes after a few false starts–are the ones who grow up to have a good sense of direction. That’s one of the reasons that IN THE AGGREGATE men have a better sense of direction than women. Little boys are usually given more freedom to explore their neighborhood on their own than little girls. </p>
<p>The bottom line is what lesson should all of us carry away from this? It seems as though the message being given is that we shouldn’t let nine year olds walk seven blocks by themselves. That’s nonsense. What we should be doing is teaching kids to be “street smart.” That poor little boy trusted an adult who he recognized as an adult Jewish male and therefore ASSUMED was trustworthy. He waited seven minutes for that monster and climbed into his car without objection because he trusted him simply because he was probably wearing a yarmulke and spoke Yiddish .</p>
<p>The lesson we should walk away with is that our children should be taught that they can NOT trust someone just because he shares our faith or is a member of our “community” or is someone our child knows from the neighborhood.</p>
<p>Is it possible Leiby recognized Aron from the Synagogue and that is why he not only got in the car but stayed in the car during the time Aron attended the wedding, and then went home with Aron?</p>
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