The amount of "that would never happen to our kind" in this post is disgusting. She's dead. I think that's punishment enough for the mom even if you don't like what she named her daughter or how she parented.
The amount of "that would never happen to our kind" in this post is disgusting. She's dead. I think that's punishment enough for the mom even if you don't like what she named her daughter or how she parented.
Seriously. She is going to be living with this nightmare for the rest of her life. The person to point fingers at is the murderer who took advantage of a mom whose only crime was maybe being naive.
Post by lolobeth802 on Jun 22, 2013 13:26:42 GMT -5
Not that I would EVER let my kid go with a stranger, but this makes me reign in my trust, I can be too trusting of people. I have 3 and it can be very distracting/hectic at the checkout. Someone "nice" offered her a favor, I'm sure she was thankful. I can see how it happened. My guess is she could see the McDonald's from the check out line... And 10 seconds later she looks up, and she's gone. The entire thing happened within an hour. Abduction, to police finding her body. I feel so sick and sad over it. That fucker shouldn't be on the streets in the first place.
I'm sure the asshole was a little smarter than just hey let me take your pretty kid to Mickey D's. None of you have talked to a stranger before?
About 50 people make comments about my twins every day. Some of them tell me stories about their twin grandkids, etc. Sometimes I have 10 minutes conversations with them. Maybe this man was charming and friendly and seemed like a nice grandfatherly type person. Maybe the Mcdonalds was within sight of the checkout. Maybe he offered to buy her some fries as mom was checking out. Maybe mom hesitated for a second but thought, he has been so normal in our conversation, I can see her, he seems like a sweet man, its 5 minutes, etc.
The poor woman is never going to forgive herself. I hope she never reads comments on any of the articles related to her daughter's death
My guess is she was drunk or high on something or otherwise mentally compromised. Because I can't see anyone in their right mind allowing their 8 year old walk off with an unknown older man.
This leaves a knot in my gut.
Have you read the book, "The Gift of Fear?"
It's frighteningly easy to manipulate someone into a dangerous situation--and it's frighteningly easy to discount how easy it is by saying "it happened b/c the mom was compromised."
This book does a great job of telling how predators know how to subtly manipulate a situation to get people to do what they want.
The author talks about Pre-incident Indicators or PINS that are commonly used by predators before violent acts.
Things like forced teaming, unsolicited promises and discounting the word "no" among other indicators.
This older man was a convicted sex offender--I'd bet dollars to donuts he was a master at using some of these techniques to create a situation to get this poor kid alone. He did it before--he may have used some of the same techniques that worked in the past.
Not that I would EVER let my kid go with a stranger, but this makes me reign in my trust, I can be too trusting of people. I have 3 and it can be very distracting/hectic at the checkout. Someone "nice" offered her a favor, I'm sure she was thankful. I can see how it happened. My guess is she could see the McDonald's from the check out line... And 10 seconds later she looks up, and she's gone. The entire thing happened within an hour. Abduction, to police finding her body. I feel so sick and sad over it. That fucker shouldn't be on the streets in the first place.
that's where I am at too. That poor little girl and that poor mother.
I live in Jax too & woke up to this on the news this morning. I was still watching when they had the press conference to announce that her body had been found. The police officer in the press conference was choked up before he began speaking, so I knew it was bad news. I didn't watch any news tonight, so I hadn't heard about the mother allowing Charish to go with the guy to the McD's in the store. Man, what a heartbreaking story.
The amount of "that would never happen to our kind" in this post is disgusting. She's dead. I think that's punishment enough for the mom even if you don't like what she named her daughter or how she parented.
Seriously. She is going to be living with this nightmare for the rest of her life. The person to point fingers at is the murderer who took advantage of a mom whose only crime was maybe being naive.
I can definitely understand this. But honestly, as inappropriate as it might be, it's a defense mechanism. It's like reassuring yourself that it WON'T happen to you because you take such and such measures, even though deep down you know damn well it could. It's like when someone has lung cancer and people ask "did s/he smoke?" Like the fact that they smoked means they deserved to get cancer? Of course not. But it's a crappy way of feeling "safer" if you don't smoke and they do. People say anything to feel "protected" when something scares the shit out of them.
I'm so fucking sick and fucking tired of people jumping to bad parents' defense.
The mom sucked! She sucks!
sent from my I feel so lucky hey hey hey you wanna hug me hey hey hey what rhymes with hug me?
Y'know, I'm going to have to agree with the poster above who said something about given the time of night, the age of the girl, the age of the man, etc...this is likely not something that happened with a mom who was operating at 100%. Whether that be sheer stupidity, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or naivete, something was up here. I feel terribly for the child, and for the mother, but something is off here on the mother's part. Whatever that something is may not be her fault (mental illness, etc) but these are not the actions of a healthy, fully functioning parent, no matter how crafty or manipulative the sex offender, and no matter how close the McDonald's was to the checkout.
"Police said Smith met and befriended the mother and three children earlier in the evening at the Dollar General on Edgewood Avenue West. They agreed to go together to Walmart, where he said he would buy the family clothes and other items.
"After being inside the store for a couple of hours, the man then offered to buy some hamburgers," said JSO Director Mike Williams. "As he walked to the front of the store, he took our 8-year-old victim with him."
Donald Smith at Walmart When they had not returned after about 30 minutes, the mother called police. Based on the description of the suspect, detectives showed her a photograph of Donald J. Smith (pictured, right, in Walmart surveillance photo) and she identified him as the man who took Charish."
"Police said Smith met and befriended the mother and three children earlier in the evening at the Dollar General on Edgewood Avenue West. They agreed to go together to Walmart, where he said he would buy the family clothes and other items.
"After being inside the store for a couple of hours, the man then offered to buy some hamburgers," said JSO Director Mike Williams. "As he walked to the front of the store, he took our 8-year-old victim with him."
Donald Smith at Walmart When they had not returned after about 30 minutes, the mother called police. Based on the description of the suspect, detectives showed her a photograph of Donald J. Smith (pictured, right, in Walmart surveillance photo) and she identified him as the man who took Charish."
This is what I was coming in here to post... It obviously was a little more complex than him just taking her from the register on a whim. This guy obviously had a well thought out plan, and found the perfect victim. Sad sad sad. (
I can't help but wonder if the mom actually knew the guy and hired him to kidnap her and kill her.
That poor girl.
That is a crazy giant leap in assumption. Its way more likely she was just stupid and too trusting.
And most likely someone who was in a terrible spot financially, and desperately needed basic items for her children. Someone preyed on her need. As a mother, my heart breaks thinking about how desperate she had to have been to take up a perfect (dangerous) stranger on his offer because she needed clothes for her children.
This is even more heartbreaking, if that's at all possible.
This truly breaks my heart. My eyes are filled with tears right now as I can't even fathom the pain that that precious girl's family is going through. As a new mom I just can't help but feel intense pain for them. I think of my sweet daughter sleeping peacefully and safely in her room right now and if ANYTHING were to happen to her I don't think I would want to even go on living. I just can't imagine. How incredibly sad.