<p>*Every potential juror watching the news will see her as their daughter or little sister. *</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>* From a prosecutor’s perspective, this is exactly the kind of victim that makes the job easy – a beautiful, smart, high SES, well-loved white girl. *</p>
<p>Exactly…she’s like Laci Peterson…the nation will HATE the killer, just like they hated Scott Peterson. </p>
<p>* A jury would … see her smiling in the gorgeous team portrait and then pictures of that lovely girl lying on the coroner’s table. *</p>
<p>Exactly. Her pretty photos will be blown up to life-size. It will be like she’s right in the court room the whole time. The lifeless and beaten up body pictures will sicken the most hardened juror. The big athletic size of the killer will disgust them as they imagine this sweet young girl being overtaken by this guy.</p>
<p>His threatening emails will be read in sickening detail. </p>
<p>* A rookie right out of law school could get a conviction, which is why there won’t be any trial…the top guy in the office will handle the plea negotiations, and unless the defendant has a death wish, he’ll take it. *</p>
<p>Exactly. The prosecution doesn’t need a dream team for this case. It’s a done deal. He’ll plea.</p>
<p>I totally, and completely agree that this young man is 100% at fault…
But I disagree that there is no other fault. Maybe I just need to think that the choices I’ve made in parenting, that the effort I’ve put in is for a reason. Maybe because to think otherwise means that I’ve wasted my adult life.</p>
<p>soozie - I agree that this is his responsibility, but I believe that there are cultures that nurture or enable whatever it is inside of people that made them capable of such a thing. With this young man, perhaps we had the perfect storm - drinking, BMOC syndrome, protection by the parents and some sort of pathology at the root of it all. Is it possible that the pathology could be quashed in a different environment? We’ll never know.</p>
<p>I suspect those men with control and anger issues exhibited them long before the girlfriend/wife stage. How did mom and dad react? </p>
<p>The posters above are saying parents have the responsibility to hold their sons (and Ds) accountable for their actions early, make them feel the pain of consequences before alcohol, size and sports culture smother their self-control.</p>
<p>No one is saying every LAX player is on the wrong path. But adults have allowed 18-21year olds to define the social culture at colleges all over the country, and it’s not pretty-you can read the stats for alcohol poisonings, sexual attacks, and assaults. Those crimes are not decreasing.</p>
<p>This young man, on “the wrong path” attacked the victim once before–where was the intervention by parents, school, coach and police to swiftly redirect him to the right path?</p>
<p>*With this young man, perhaps we had the perfect storm - drinking, BMOC syndrome, protection by the parents and some sort of pathology at the root of it all. Is it possible that the pathology could be quashed in a different environment? We’ll never know. *</p>
<p>Excellent point…a perfect storm. In another student, maybe only a couple of the issues would have been present, and no violence. But when all the issues are present together, they can create a monster.</p>
<p>*
The posters above are saying parents have the responsibility to hold their sons (and Ds) accountable for their actions early, make them feel the pain of consequences before alcohol, size and sports culture smother their self-control.*</p>
<p>Earlier I posted that my H is shocked to recently learn how some of his relatives are parenting their kids. One such relative recently paid off 3 speeding tickets of her teen daughter. The daughter didn’t have to pay a thing…she doesn’t have to pay her mom back…nothing. Her college daughter ran up huge credit card bills, and the mom paid them off. The mom is a very loving mom…she’s a nurse…she’s a pet rescuer…but she’s a moron about these kinds of issues. And, she’s creating two monsters (maybe not ones that would kill, but ones that will have serious problems in the future.). But, when that time comes, she’ll swear that she was the best mom ever and did “everything right.” :rolleyes:</p>
<p>cartera, you are right that there could be contributing factors. But just saying that some parents can be great parents and have one of their kids turn out to do bad things and another one of their kids turn out to be anyone’s pride and joy and so they did something right. Who knows what predisposes someone to act as he has acted? As I wrote, many kids have backgrounds like him and never come close to doing these things.</p>
<p>Actually I think a weaker woman being beaten to death by a man she knew to be dangerous is a PERFECT reason to have a gun–and use it if needed. She could be alive today and he would be dead with any luck.</p>
<p>barrons…I really hope this thread is not used to debate guns. </p>
<p>By the way, she could have lived in a dorm and guns would not be allowed on campus. She also could be overtaken by a guy unexpectedly and even if she had a gun, not had it within reach at the time. But that is a debate for a different thread, in my view.</p>
<p>I agree with cartera and I dont want to rehash the Duke Lacrosse case I followed it only peripherally. I did see the parents of the accused players on 60 minutes and sympathized with what they and their sons had endured. The one aspect that bothered me about the parents was their cavalier attitude regarding the boys having big time drinking parties and hiring prostitutes as if its just boys being boys. I see it as a much deeper problem. Undergraduates should not have access to that kind of disposable income and feel entitled to flaunt it by throwing illegal ETOH/hooker bashes and have their parents treat the incident as so what.</p>
<p>I happen to feel very sorry for his parents/family. I don’t see what the family could have/should have done differently. He has been out of their home for nearly 4 years. I think it is sad that people want to blame his parents to some degree for his apparent vicious behavior. Why aren’t we blaming his friends at school, or his professors, or his coaches? They probably spent far more time with him over the last 4 years than his parents. BTW, I don’t think that they should be blamed either. They probably never saw this coming.</p>
<p>How so? Are you denying that the victim was physically weaker in this case? If she wasn’t, and was in fact physically stronger than her assailant, then she would likely still be alive today. NCAA men’s lacrosse players give out beatings for a living; saying that you are weaker than one is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I’m a male and this guy could probably kill me, too.</p>
<p>3bm103, You said it way more eloquently than I. </p>
<p>barrons, yes, he is an adult and yes, he is 100% at fault; I agree. But I also believe that babies are born with a clean slate and can be molded (or parented- if we still can remember what that used to mean) into being good, decent people if their folks put as much effort into raising their kids as they do trying to become prominent businessmen or country club wives. </p>
<p>This guy was arrested in Charlottesville in 2008 and had to be tasered while becoming verbally and physically abusive with a female cop. Received 60 day suspended sentence, some volunteer service (how nice) and six months supervised probation.</p>
<p>If he were mine, he would have done better to spend that night in jail than spend it with me and his dad. That charge alone would have been it. School over. Put his butt in the car and home he goes. Want to go back to school? Go to work first- pay your way. Don’t want to live at home? Pay for an apartment. You screwed up, you fix it. Need help? Sure we would get help with counseling and professional support. But it would be a long time before I paid another penny for a kid that was behaving like that to go to school. But no. He immediately goes back to UVA and now a lovely life is over. I am not trying to be judgemental, but this tragedy could have been avoided had different actions been taken by his parents over his lifetime. I really believe that.</p>
<p>northeastmom -Problems with anger management develop well before college. Parents can’t take credit for good kids who grow up to become mature, well adjusted members of society and conveniently not take some blame when their kid is so out of control he has repeated incidents of drinking and assault; stalks and then murders his ex-girl friend.</p>
<p>there isn’t anything chauvinistic about his statement. Women are generally physically weaker and smaller than men. Which is one reason that some men feel empowered to physically abuse - because they know that their women can be physically overcome.</p>
<p>My H is 6’2". I’m 5’2". I am very much weaker than he is. He could pick me up and throw me against the wall any day of the week if he wanted to. I, on the other hand, couldn’t move him at all during a 911 call when he became unconscience due to a medication reaction. The 911 operator wanted me to get him laying flat on the floor - I could NOT do that. If the situation had been reversed, he easily could have done that for me.</p>
<p>*yes, he is an adult and yes, he is 100% at fault; I agree. But I also believe that babies are born with a clean slate and can be molded (or parented- if we still can remember what that used to mean) into being good, decent people if their folks put as much effort into raising their kids as they do trying to become prominent businessmen or country club wives. *</p>
<p>It’s his assumption that women are weak. Are you saying there aren’t women out there that could kill you, too? It’s the generalized assumption he’s using to justify gun ownership.</p>
<p>By the way, last fall, my sister-in-law was attacked in her own kitchen as she unloaded groceries from her car in the attached garage. Where was my brother and his gun he keeps? Upstairs in his office as she yelled for him for almost five minutes. She (in her heels) fought the guy for almost five minutes before he grabbed the jewelry he was after and ran off. Score one for the weak woman who is still alive… without the help of a gun.</p>
<p>Weak is a relative term. His assumption isn’t that women are weak, it is that women in general are weaker (physically) than men in general. Most people, male or female, would agree with this assumption. Of course there are outliers, but we are talking about in general.</p>
<p>KandK, How can you be so positive that his parents KNEW about the arrest and aren’t learning about it for the first time from the current news accounts? The fine was $100 plus court costs. Most college kids can come up with that kind of money. Maybe his parents knew about it–and maybe they didn’t. The incident happened in Lexington, VA, apparently while he was visiting a friend at Washington & Lee. You really think that every college kid who gets arrested for public intoxication calls mom and dad?</p>
<p>And why are you assuming that his parents were paying for college? I think there’s a good possibility he was at UVa on at least a partial athletic scholarship. So, what if they really didn’t hold the financial purse strings? What if he was going to UVa for little or no money–and if they yanked him out he’d lose the scholarship? Okay, he got drunk once and was arrested while WALKING around for public intoxication and then resisting arrest. Personally, while I’d be EXTREMELY upset if my kid did that, I wouldn’t conclude that murder was the next step.</p>
<p>We are all responsible for our own actions. That includes Huguely. We can all blame our parents for every mistake we make–and go back to Adam & Eve. He’s 22. He’s responsible for his own actions.</p>
<p>His parents aren’t on trial. To me, it’s absurd to believe that if you do a good job of parenting, you’re guaranteed good results. Parents are ONLY one of the many influences on their children. They can be lead astray by others. They can develop vices without any help from mom and dad. I don’t think kids are blank slates who can be molded to any shape their parents wish.</p>
<p>While that may speak volumes and be true about the men in your family, please have the decency not portray your own family experience or personal reasoning as being common to the rest of society.</p>