Elizabeth Olten. St. Martin's Missouri. Not much information on this one. According to Nancy Grace, she is nine years old, and was reported missing within 45 minutes of her disappearance. She was walking home from a friend's house, a distance of about a quarter of a mile, in broad daylight.
CBS news blog snippet.
Her family called police when she did not arrive home by 7 p.m. Search teams were assembled at the Extreme Body and Paint shop by 7:30 p.m. and combed the wooded area using flashlights. They were still searching at around 10:20 p.m. last night. They are expected to resume the search early this morning.
ETA: STL Today reports that Elizabeth's body has been found. A juvenile is a Person of Interest.
Once again, I feel sick. One quarter of a mile from her home.
ONE QUARTER OF A MILE, people!
ETA: Yahoo News has a bit more info. Thanks for the link, Melissa.
ETA: News Tribune article says the perpetrator is 15, and a hearing is to be held to see if he or she should be tried as an adult. Laura tells me that local comments indicate a rumour that it's a girl. thanks for the link, Laura.
A girl. What reason could a 15-year-old girl have for killing a 9-year-old girl? This case gets more and more strange.
I think child molesters should be shot dead.
ReplyDeleteHow can someone harm a child?
The despair the parents must feel.
My heart is with you, Allison, but I'm thinking they need to be locked up for life.
ReplyDeleteI think they are a waste of air, but when we start executing folks for other offenses besides the most horrific murders, we are starting on a slippery slope.
The crying mothers is painful.
ReplyDeleteRonni--you and I know their lives will never be the same.
Sudden death is a strange animal.
I am sick to my stomach! I honestly don't know how much more of this I can take without screaming out loud.
ReplyDeleteGAH - Looks like it was a classmate in this case.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091024/ap_on_re_us/us_missouri_girl_dead
Seriously getting scary.
At this point, I think it's a stretch to say it's a "classmate." A juvenile, older than Elizabeth, who knew her, seems to be all they are saying.
ReplyDeleteI find it difficult to believe a 4th grader could have done this, and I will be very much surprised if the perp turns out to be younger than high school age.
I could be wrong. God knows, I've been wrong before.
Thanks for the link. I'm going to add it to the story.
ReplyDeleteRonni, don't you think a child being kidnapped and killed is a most horrific murder?
ReplyDeleteIt is a slippery slope, but killing children is evil. I could never be in law enforcement or victim's services...
It's a tough call, Allison. I've always been an advocate of the death penalty, and rather proud of Texas and the alacrity with which we carry it out.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I sometimes feel it might be more in line with the crime if the killer is put in the general population, rather than segregated on Death Row.
Sometimes I think, well maybe, and, others, I'm not too sure.
If murder is involved as well as rape, then, yes, the crime meets my qualifications for the DP. But then, rape, itself, has life-changing results, especially for a child...
Don't forget Kelly Brumbelow-Simpson(?) was what 13? There are documented serial killers as young as 10 (her last name was Bell, I think), and that was several decades ago.
ReplyDeleteBTW- we did lunch for the jury that sentenced that murder-spree guy to death in a couple hours. I told my boss we should have sent them a box of free cookies or something.
I will never forget Kelly! That was the case that got me started thinking about these things. Things like, what, in their upbringing, leads a child to think it's OK to let anger run rampant; to think it's OK to stab the girl 97 times because she didn't want to go out with him?
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the cookies!
I think we are all a combination of nature and nurture.
http://www.texansforequaljustice.org/protest/sampson.shtml
ReplyDeleteIt was Sampson. Terrance Daron Sampson. Poor baby is coming up for parole, according to the link.
http://www.tdcaa.com/node/1121
ReplyDeleteA task force of volunteers organizes paperwork to present to Parole board officials...
They are seeking 1st degree murder charge against a 15 year old. Some of the local commenters are saying it is a girl.
ReplyDeletehttp://newstribune.com/articles/2009/10/24/news_local/068local02olten09.txt
So sad.