Hi
I'm new around here, but am rather familiar with the site (okay, I've been lurking since the Shawn Hornbeck case broke!). :blushing:
I just wanted to add my .02 to the discussion. Reading this article gave me chills, it reminded me so much of my own experience as a girl. I grew up with a physically abusive father, and I remember one night (when I was 12 years old, actually) things got particularly bad. I have never in my life wanted to kill someone like I wanted to that night. It was like an explosion of emotion. I wanted to shoot him and kill him in his sleep--I remember thinking that I wanted to get him in the kneecaps first, play with him for a while. (I know, I know! Sounds terrible!) I knew he had guns--a military guy into hunting and such. What saved my father's life (and my own, I guess) is the fact that I simply didn't know where the guns were stashed.
I was a very shy, very quiet girl then, and I grew up to be a non-violent person, a primary school teacher, and a devoted parent and wife. And even today, I don't have the greatest relationship with my father, and I probably never will, but I have to say that he has softened so much with age. IOW, I'm glad I didn't kill him. lol
I guess my point is that an abusive situation creates such emotional upheaval in a child that she will consider choices that are not in keeping with her personality at all. Abuse evokes a fight or flight mentality. As an adult, it's best to get out and be done with it. But as a child, where can you go? You are captive to your abuser. She probably thought, "It's either him or me."
I really hope that the authorities approach this case with sensitivity to the fact that she is a child and that she was abused. I don't want to see her life ruined for what comes down to self-defense. I know that she wasn't being attacked at the time, as she shot him in his sleep, but when you know for sure that tomorrow is going to be just like today and yesterday, and all the yesterdays before that, then you take your advantage when you can get it.