It was three years ago today a little girl from Monroe, Michigan flashed across news screens as missing. A beautiful little girl who would be discovered to have met a tragic end to her little innocent life. Her name, Nevaeh Buchanan.
Since the day the story hit the news I have not been able to get this little girl out of my mind's eye. So much so her memory has compelled me to write on this blog once again and after a five month hiatus from blogging.
I'm not sure why I became so drawn to little Nevaeh but there was something in her pictures...her eyes so innocent...that drew me to her story. I can remember being outraged when just days after she came up missing her story dropped off the news.
I would search the net for updates all the while hoping I would run across an article saying she was found alive. I never found that article, but what I did find was a network of fellow survivors of childhood sexual assault also searching for that update and article....also writing in their blogs about this little girl...and also wondering aloud when we would hear anything new on the story.
That network communicated among ourselves, we shared any links to updates that we could find. We shared our hopes for her safe return and our fears that we would never see that news.
Perhaps we found each other and communicated so easily because all of us felt deep within us her cries - they were our cries. Anyone who has lived through child sexual assault knows that the moment it happens the little girl in you becomes lost...forever searching to be found.
Nevaeh was found ...she was found 11 days after she came up missing and tragically we learned that beautiful little girl died a violent death - her life was extinguished after being buried alive, face down, and a concrete mix thrown on top of her little body.
I can remember crying like a baby when I read the news that sand was found in her lungs a clue into her being alive as she was buried.
So here we are three years later and still no arrest - still no answers as to who killed Nevaeh -
If she was alive today she would be just 8 years old.
The Monroe Sheriff's Department claim they are close to an arrest......................
It's time....close is not good enough -
Because every day there is not closure in this case is another day another innocent child is put in harms way - And that is more than tragic -
Rest in peace, Nevaeh - your memory lives on the hearts of many...many who did not know you in life, but honor you in your passing............
Yesterday evening my sons and I watched the 1993 movie In the Name of the Father . It was my youngest son's suggestion. He and I had watched the movie just a few weeks ago - something in it caught his attention and he wanted to watch it again.
If you have not seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It is more than just a true life story, it is one we all should remember and learn a lesson from.
The movie begins in 1974 Belfast and is the story of Gerry Conlon, his friends and family, and how an over zealous government detained them, relentlessly interrogated them to the point of mental torture which caused their spirits to break and confess to a crime they did not commit.
The crime they confessed to was for a bombing of an English pup where 5 people lost their lives. A crime that was actually committed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and who also took credit for it.
It all happened during a time when tensions between the Catholics of Northern Ireland and England's Crown driven Protestant dominated police authority had boiled over violence in the streets - Some called it a civil war spawned out of discrimination - while others labeled the IRA as terrorists as the violence spilled out into other parts of the world and credited to the IRA.
As the movie details, in response to this England created a law - an Anti Terrorism law that allowed for the police to detain suspects for up to seven days with out the needs of formal charges being filed. During those seven days suspects could be grilled and interrogated such as Conlon, his father, his aunt, his cousins and his friends were. All of which were innocent people who because of their relation to Gerry Conlon, someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, were in the eyes of the Crown considered Irish -
Why? Well...put together that over zealous government - a new anti terrorism law - a corrupt police force looking for that feather in their cap...you have the makings of injustice in the name of justice.
Watching the movie last night reminded me of the new anti-terrorism law passed by our Congress and signed into law by President Obama just one week or so ago. Buried within the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 is something I consider a violation of every American's rights if it is ever carried out.
From Wikipedia
the President's authority to detain, via the Armed Forces, any person "who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," and anyone who commits a "belligerent act" against the U.S. or its coalition allies, under the law of war, "without trial, until the end of the hostilities authorized by the [AUMF]." The text also authorizes trial by military tribunal, or "transfer to the custody or control of the person's country of origin," or transfer to "any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.
Any person meaning ANYONE, including American citizens on home soil or abroad can be detained for however long the government wants without ever having to have charges filed against them - This goes beyond England's anti terrorism act where they allowed for 7 days of detention - the anti terrorism act that was recently signed when Conlon and the others were picked up , detained and emotionally battered through interrogation. All innocent people and not a damn thing anyone could do to help them.
Eventually a form of justice prevailed for Conlon and the others...but it came after 15 yeas of imprisonment and after his father died behind bars as an innocent man.
What would their story be if the law was the NDAA, and if charges were never filed -there were no court hearings -no access to a legal defense or appeal? What if they were just locked up and the key was thrown away never to be found again?
This little 2012 provision in the NDAA quite frankly scares me - and it should in fact scare you too!
Why are there so many sex offenders in the paper? Can't you write about good news?
These are questions I hear on a constant basis...
Just about every week because just about every week I cover a court hearing dealing with a sexual assault of a child.
Mind you that the community I cover stories in is a small rural county - approximately 25k people at any given time call Juneau County Wisconsin home.
Now here is the answer to those questions -
I cover a lot of court hearings, many dealing with sexual assaults of children. And yes, just about every week I can write an article about such a case currently happening in the Juneau County court. The reason for this is this heinous crime is rampant throughout every community in this country...in the world. This crime that rapes the soul of an innocent light happens every day in every community - this crime that is so repulsive - uncomfortable and has such far reaching consequences for the victim, those who love them and even the predator's family is every where we look, unless - of course - we turn our backs to it.
So please don't ask me why there's an article in the paper about a sex offender, a rapist of children - rather ask what can we do as a community to prevent the crime from happening.
The first thing, in my opinion, is acknowledging it is here...it's rampant...and there's a reason why statistics report 1 in 4 girls...1 in 7 boys report being sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday -
Rremember those numbers the next time you're at a school function and in a room with the kids of your community - look at those faces...that group of a dozen girls and realize that at least three are living the nightmare of child sexual assault AND realize the next time you're watching a local high school football game that at least 2 to 3 boys running on that field could also be victims carrying that dark secret in their core - then ask yourself after you see their faces -why wouldn't you want to know WHO would do such a thing to the children in YOUR community...your backyard??
Or, are you more comfortable with just knowing who is writing hots checks and who ran a downtown stop sign last week?
As to the second question -
On average I write anywhere from 6 to 9 articles a week. From court happenings, to school board meetings and community functions. There's always at least one "feel good" article...if not more. There's almost always 1 or 2 pictures with cutlines on a donation or celebration - could it be you're more disturbed by that one article about a person harming a child and it frustrates you that with it in the paper ...in front of your eyes...you cannot just turn your back to it and walk away like it never happened?
If that's the case...then why are we as a society shocked that officials at Penn State would cover up something like the Sandusky scandal?
We owe the victims of child sexual assault more....
We owe the children in our communities a safe place to call home...
We are the core of our justice system....we elect the judges...some communities elect their district attorneys...we pay the salaries of the law enforcement who investigate these crimes...we pay the salaries of all those mandated reporters of child abuse..the public worker salaries...all those teachers, the social workers.....if we are willing to turn our backs on child sexual assault..not want to read about the ones in our commnity, then why would we be surprised when they do? When the justice systems fails the victims?
Yeah, the crime - the picture child sexual assault creates is ugly and uncomfortable...it's repulsive and it should be...
But get the word "sex" out of your brain and realize it for what it is - violence - violence upon an innocent child - it's a crime about POWER and CONTROL -
Do you want the predators to have and keep the control knowing that the shame so many feel uttering the term sexual assault can be silencing to a community - giving them the playground they need to carry out their violence on our children?
Or should our society...our communities take back the control and place the SHAME where it belongs...on the predators and EXPOSE every single one of them for the MONSTERS they are?|
I don't know about you, but I am of the mindset you expose every one of these creeps for what they are - and when you run into one of them you say to them..."Say Cheese, YOU'RE GOING TO BE EXPOSED and JUSTICE will be served"
Our children need to learn that the shame should never be carried by their innocent souls - it doesn't belong to them ......................we can only do that by keeping the message out there that sexual assault is a CRIME and predators are CRIMINALS that WILL BE DEALT WITH.
The following video is very disturbing - a victim tells her story of growing up in a family where sexual assault was the norm and how it affected her soul - it's stories like this....children like she was...that predators need to be exposed and justice needs to be forthright - if you're a survivor please be warned this video may be a trigger for you -
