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Is there any story more terrifying than that of Josef Fritzl, the 73-year-old Austrian electrical engineer who imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years in the family’s basement, fathered seven children with her, and murdered one of them? Fritzl lived a shadowy double life. Well respected in the sleepy community of Amstettten, Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie were, by all accounts, normal citizens raising their three grandchildren (ages 16, 14, and 12) abandoned periodically by Elisabeth, whom Fritzl claimed had joined a cult in 1984. But what friends and neighbors, and reportedly even Rosemarie herself and the three “upstairs children,” weren’t aware of was Fritzl’s downstairs life, where Elisabeth and three other children were kept with only an old television set and radio for contact with the outside world.

According to court reports, Fritzl drugged, handcuffed, and raped Elisabeth up to 3,000 times (sometimes on display of the children) during her imprisonment. When she resisted, he retaliated by harming the three children (now ages 19, 18, and 6) or by threatening to leave the four to perish in their 645-square-foot windowless, soundproof, electronically secured underground prison. Another child, a baby boy born in 1996, died days after birth due to Fritzl’s refusal to get medical assistance and was cremated in a domestic furnace. The captives endured lost teeth, damp and cold, malnourishment, physical decay, rats. Elisabeth suffered internal injuries from Fritzl’s sex toys and gave birth with only the most rudimentary trappings: a bucket for the blood, aspirin for the pain, a pair of rusty scissors to cut the umbilical cords. Only when the eldest daughter collapsed last April and Elisabeth was able to convince Fritzl to take her to the hospital were the children freed. Currently, the eldest daughter is in critical condition at a local hospital.

Many gaps still exist in the case and perhaps will never be explained, such as how Fritzl determined which children would be allowed to live upstairs, why social services didn’t uncover anything during their 21 visits to the family, to what degree Rosemarie may have been complicit in the imprisonment, and her tacit acceptance of the children. With Rosemarie, Fritzl fathered another seven children who appear to have had no involvement in the case, and it is unknown whether any of them had any knowledge of their sister’s disappearance.

During the trial, Fritzl covered his face with a blue binder, saying that he was “embarrassed” by the intense media coverage. Reports of Elisabeth’s attendance at the proceedings were never substantiated, but it is thought that her presence at the trial, as well as her 11 hours of videotaped testimony, was what finally shamed Fritzl into admitting his guilt in the depravity. Elisabeth is said to have emerged from the nightmare as a strong 42-year-old woman. In fact, it was her strength of character which may have drawn Fritzl to her in the first place. He desired to dominate his third daughter’s “obstinate” personality, much like his own, sensing that she was a greater challenge for him than Elisabeth’s siblings. Control was identified as a main theme in Fritzl’s life. The product of an over-domineering mother, Fritzl had been previously convicted of rape of another woman when Elisabeth was a toddler and had abused the girl well in advance of her imprisonment, which he said he sought as a way to protect her from the life of drinking and smoking that she pursued as she became a teenager.

Fritzl will spend the majority of his life sentence for rape, incest, murder, and enslavement at a psychiatric facility, where he could be eligible for release in as few as 15 years. Meanwhile, his broken family has been left with the arduous process of coming to terms with the ordeal. Elisabeth and the six children have been reunited and have been given new names and new lives in another town. They travel to regular sessions with psychotherapists. Rosemarie reportedly lives alone in a small apartment, where she is visited by the children, a concession that Elisabeth has made despite what must be a tense relationship with her mother. Published reports say that the initial union between the two sets of children and Elisabeth went better than expected, given the conditions of their meeting. But the “downstairs children” are developing at varying paces, struggling with stunted language, weak immune systems, and years without natural sunlight and vitamin D. The “upstairs children” have been forced to confront the lies scaffolding their existence and the existence of their new family members.

It’s easy, in hindsight, to point to the incongruities and attempt to lay blame on those who did not question Fritzl’s actions and intervene earlier. But perhaps the best course of action, now that Fritzl has been sentenced, is to give the family all the space, literally and figuratively, that it can tolerate until it mends. The healing process hopefully began the moment the four were freed last spring and accelerates with each day. Reports say that as the children emerged from the cellar last year, the youngest imprisoned child, the six-year-old boy, pointed to the sky and asked, “Is that God up there?”

Easley, South Carolina - James T. Dickerson Jr. has been arrested and charged with killing his 7-year-old son, Jeremy Wade Dickerson. On Friday morning, paramedics responded to a call at 215 W. Church Road. Upon arrival they found 7-year-old Jeremy Dickerson dead on the floor of his father’s room.

According to Anderson County Deputy Coroner Don McCown, autopsy results show that Jeremy Dickerson died of shock caused by hemorrhaging resulting from “blunt force trauma the boy suffered from a blunt instrument”.

Jeremy had been struck multiple times over his entire body and is believed to have been dead for several hours before paramedics were called.

Jeremy’s 5-year old brother was also present at the scene and is believed to have been beaten by his father James Theodore Dickerson Jr. as well. He has been removed to the custody of children’s services.

James T Dickerson Jr. is currently being held without bond at the Anderson County Detention Center.

Embedded video from <a href=”http://www.cnn.com/video” mce_href=”http://www.cnn.com/video”>CNN Video</a>

Earlier this month a Fort Lauderdale Florida elementary school art teacher reportedly punched an 8-year old student in the face. 36-year old David Adam Grant is facing child abuse charges in connection with the incident.

Police were contacted on Tuesday November 5th and told that an 8-year-old student at Sunland Elementary School had been battered. Following an investigation, police concluded that David Adam Grant, an art teacher at the school, “hit the 8-year-old student around his left eye with a loosely closed fist, causing a bruise over his right eye.”

According to reports, Grant allegedly punched the 8-year old student because the student broke a crayon and was otherwise being disruptive in class.

Earlier this month in Desert Hot Springs California, 25-year old babysitter, Eric Puchi, was arrested and charged with murder for allegedly beating 2-year old Isabella Guerra to death.

On November 7, 2008, a 911 call was placed reporting that a 2 year old child was not breathing. Emergency crews arrived at the residence described by Riverside County Sheriff’s Sgt. Gregg Miller as located “in the 15500 block of Bubbling Wells Road near Desert Hot Springs”. There, they found 2-year old Isabella Guerra unconscious.

The child was taken to Desert Regional Medical Center. She was listed in critical condition. She died the following Wednesday at Loma Linda University Medical Center where she had later been flown.

Police have accused Puchi, who had been babysitting Isabella Guerra at the time of her death, of beating her to the point of rendering her comatose.

In addition to the charge of murder, Puchi has also been charged with child assault resulting in death, assault causing brain injury, and assault to a child under 5 years of age.

**This is NOT a photo of the little girl mentioned in the post

43-year old Tammy Smith of Moundsville, West Virginia is facing five counts of child abuse and malicious assault felony charges for allegedly burning the word “wimp” into her 6-year old daughter’s neck because the girl tripped and fell.

Before we all start getting down on Tammy, let’s ask ourselves what kinds of horrors poor Tammy had to endure when she herself was growing up. She must have been a severely abused child because no one becomes quite so depraved that they can sit there (or stand there) and burn an actual readable word into the neck of their six year old child without having gone through severe abuse themselves. So let’s not be too hard on Tammy. Wicked evil mothers from the most sadistic regions of hell deserve understanding too.

Seriously though,  it had to take some doing to get the letters shaped out I’d think. I’ve never really burned words into people’s necks before but I’m thinking it takes some work to get the letters shaped out into a word that other people can actually read. Luckily for her daughter it was only a four letter word. The child probably has her tiny little six year old neck to thank for that. No room for a longer word or a whole passage.

By the way I read that a police officer, expressing shock over the incident, remarked that the ‘i’ was even dotted.” I admit that made me laugh; but you know what, there’s nothing funny about this. I don’t give a crap what Tammy Smith went through in her own life. I’ve been through a lot of crap myself but I never thought it gave me the right to abuse my kid. If I knew it was wrong when it  was being done to me then I know it’s wrong period, and I don’t do it to my own child.

Image: Worried little girl by txd

Note: The image used in this post has nothing to do with the people mentioned in the post. The little girl in the photo is not the little girl mentioned in the post. This is a random image from Flickr that is used for illustrative purposes.