Dairy Queen manager is arrested after 'bullying worker, 17, until he killed himself':

Probably because she was an employer, not allowed to harass employees?

Still don't see how that equals manslaughter. I believe in some cases charges are warranted-like where the victim is actually encourage to commit suicide. But in this case so far it sounds like she was just mean to him. She is also barely older than him. This is a slippery slope.
 
Still don't see how that equals manslaughter. I believe in some cases charges are warranted-like where the victim is actually encourage to commit suicide. But in this case so far it sounds like she was just mean to him. She is also barely older than him. This is a slippery slope.
I agree. She's the scapegoat in this whole thing. She sounds like a terrible person, but she doesn't deserve to be charged with manslaughter.
 
From post #1 in this thread:

A Missouri jury ruled that a Dairy Queen manager be charged with involuntary manslaughter for her role in the suicide of a 17-year-old employee.

The Howard County coroner heard how Kenneth Suttner wrote several suicide notes to friends and family before he shot himself in the head in the early morning of December 21 outside his family's home.

The Howard County coroner sought an official inquest into his death and after the verdict was read Tuesday, a Howard County sheriff's deputy arrested Harley Branham, one of Suttner’s managers at the Dairy Queen where he worked, reported the Columbia Daily Tribune.

BBM These are all actions that have facts behind them that the general public are not privy to. The facts brought out in the inquest caused the jury to rule as they did and the sheriff to arrest Kenneth's bully.

I'm assuming the facts led them to these actions and they were not guided by someone's uninformed opinion.
 
From post #1 in this thread:

A Missouri jury ruled that a Dairy Queen manager be charged with involuntary manslaughter for her role in the suicide of a 17-year-old employee.

The Howard County coroner heard how Kenneth Suttner wrote several suicide notes to friends and family before he shot himself in the head in the early morning of December 21 outside his family's home.

The Howard County coroner sought an official inquest into his death and after the verdict was read Tuesday, a Howard County sheriff's deputy arrested Harley Branham, one of Suttner’s managers at the Dairy Queen where he worked, reported the Columbia Daily Tribune.

BBM These are all actions that have facts behind them that the general public are not privy to. The facts brought out in the inquest caused the jury to rule as they did and the sheriff to arrest Kenneth's bully.

I'm assuming the facts led them to these actions and they were not guided by someone's uninformed opinion.
I don't understand why the manager is being arrested rather than anyone else. The guy was bullied by teachers, students, it even sounds like the superintendent was negligent. If the manager told him to kill himself then yeah, she should face charges but I don't see any proof of that being the case.

This someone said, this is a slippery slope. If I say something unintentionally hurtful to someone for instance, they kill themselves and name me as the reason for their suicide, am I really at blame? I didn't put the gun in their hand, and neither did the manager. Therapy exists for a reason. The real crime is no one threw a fit to help this kid until they had to.
 
Respectfuly, Wolfbeard, the point of my post was that perhaps you don't understand because you don't have all the facts.

For instance, you wrote the word "unintentionally" in the second sentence of your second paragraph.

But bullying by its very nature is intentional.
 
Respectfuly, Wolfbeard, the point of my post was that perhaps you don't understand because you don't have all the facts.
I understood what you meant, but you don't have the facts either. Thus, I'm not sure you're the right person to insinuate that my opinion is uninformed.

Edit: Bullying isn't always intentional. If I say something cross to you without realizing it, you could argue I'm bullying you. If we're having a debate like we are now, one of us could say the other person is bullying. Bullying isn't cut and dry. Yes, this woman was bullying, but her ruling sets a dangerous precedence for what's to come.
 
Reading this brought back very bad memories for me. That poor kid sounds like me, 50 years ago. Same thing, I was a geeky overweight kid in a small town we moved to when I was 15. I was bullied not only by classmates but by teachers and local law enforcement. My parents complained and it just got worse. The bullying he got at work was probably directly related to what happened at school, it was like he had a target painted on him, it was open season on him. A lot of these little towns are just toxic. Filled with people who just love to single out anyone perceived as different.

In my case I later learned I had a form of Autism. Nobody had any understanding of that back then so I just endured. I was actually contacted about the 50 year reunion a couple years ago. I refused to go. The guy who contacted me was one of the nicer guys I knew back then. He was saying stuff like well, we've all changed, etc. Maybe but I refused to spend time with them.

At least these bullies are getting some comeuppance.
 
Reading this brought back very bad memories for me. That poor kid sounds like me, 50 years ago. Same thing, I was a geeky overweight kid in a small town we moved to when I was 15. I was bullied not only by classmates but by teachers and local law enforcement. My parents complained and it just got worse. The bullying he got at work was probably directly related to what happened at school, it was like he had a target painted on him, it was open season on him. A lot of these little towns are just toxic. Filled with people who just love to single out anyone perceived as different.

In my case I later learned I had a form of Autism. Nobody had any understanding of that back then so I just endured. I was actually contacted about the 50 year reunion a couple years ago. I refused to go. The guy who contacted me was one of the nicer guys I knew back then. He was saying stuff like well, we've all changed, etc. Maybe but I refused to spend time with them.

At least these bullies are getting some comeuppance.

I'm sorry you experienced this. I will NEVER understand people who get pleasure from causing others pain.
 
Hard to imagine what could compel her to treat another human being like that. I hope DQ takes a long look at their management training process.
Well, her name *is* Harley. All joking aside, look into her childhood and I'm sure you'll find your answer.

Sent from my LG-LS997 using Tapatalk
 
Hard to imagine what could compel her to treat another human being like that. I hope DQ takes a long look at their management training process.

Well, her name *is* Harley. All joking aside, look into her childhood and I'm sure you'll find your answer.

Sent from my LG-LS997 using Tapatalk

I have always wondered about those bullies's (Lori Drew, Jennifer Petkov, South Hadley 6, etc.) in the news childhood were like.

Found this from another forum. This may have some insight.
http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=192&start=150

I agree with The Bard. A mob mentality can develop, even with as few as two people, and especially with three or more. I haven't studied this as Miss R. has, but I have looked at certain cases. It seems the everyday inhibitions we all carry around can somehow get short-circuited in a group (mob) situation.

The other issue windfall brought up was whether cases like this where a woman was the 'ring-leader,' so to speak, in a brutal attack on another woman. They are not that common, but they exist. For example:

In 1965, Sylvia Likens, a 16-year-old girl, was murdered over several weeks by a group led by a 35-year-old mother of seven children named Gertrude Baniszewski. Sylvia and her younger sister Jenny, a polio victim, had been left in Gertrude's care as their parents made the carny circuit. Several of Gertrude's own children (including 3 girls) and several neighbor boys joined in the torture and abuse, that led eventually to Sylvia's death.

Karla Homolka clearly 'enjoyed' and participated in the sexual assault and murder of several girls and women over several years with husband Paul Bernardo. (1991-92)

Janet Chandler's gang-rape and murder were facilitated by and participated in by Laurie Swank, her supposed 'friend' and roommate. (1979)

Lori Drew, a Missouri housewife, led a group of young women/girls (including her own daughter) to tease and torment Megan Meier online (on MySpace) by first convincing her (Megan) that a cute young boy was interested in her, and then abruptly ending the 'relationship' by having a bunch of myspace 'friends' join in the taunting, resulting in Meier's suicide. (1996)

In all of the above cases, there was both the element of 'mob mentality' as well as a woman playing a leading or prominent role in the physical (or psychological, in the case of Drew) assault.

One would hope someone is studying these phenomena. In my layperson's mind, it is probably related to deep-seated sexual shame in the perpetrator. It does seem the most evil thing in the world
.


I would suspect Harley Branham has a lot of serious emotional issues coupled with deep seated repressed anger. Probably sexually repressed/shamed/frustrated as well. It often causes aggression, which can be extreme.
 
I can't believe I'm saying this, but why her? Because she was his manager, like a person with authority over him?

Dairy Queen manager is arrested after 'bullying worker, 17, until he killed himself': Teen committed suicide after she made him clean the floor by hand and threw a burger at him
(the Daily Mail article linked earlier)





Bullying seen as cause in the suicide of 17-year-old Kenneth Suttner
The Columbia Missourian (Columbia, MO)
1/31/2017





No matter how tragic and unnecessary his death was, he didn't kill himself because of "a bully." It was much more widespread than that and had been going on for years.

How can you single out one person to blame for what happened?

Because she was an adult and the others were children?
 
Lack of empathy is a core symptom of sociopathy. To be a bully one has to have a lack of empathy for others. It makes sense to me then that most bullies if not all, are sociopaths. It is possible this woman was bullied as a child, but even if she was it's no excuse for her bullying this boy. She tortured him because she it pleasured her to do so.... on some level, in her mind, she wanted to destroy him, even if it was subconscious. And she succeeded. :cry:


"The road to psychopathy? Why bullying in children affects us all"
http://www.parentingscience.com/bullying-in-children.html#sthash.jSFN0oTJ.dpuf
 
Lack of empathy is a core symptom of sociopathy. To be a bully one has to have a lack of empathy for others. It makes sense to me then that most bullies if not all, are sociopaths. It is possible this woman was bullied as a child, but even if she was it's no excuse for her bullying this boy. She tortured him because she it pleasured her to do so.... on some level, in her mind, she wanted to destroy him, even if it was subconscious. And she succeeded. :cry:


"The road to psychopathy? Why bullying in children affects us all"
http://www.parentingscience.com/bullying-in-children.html#sthash.jSFN0oTJ.dpuf

I would not be surprised if she was bullied herself and/or target of abuse. That would make her less sympathetic because many people who are bullied and/or abused do not become evil.

I noticed she married rather early in her life, which is unusual today as people marry later or never get married. It was more common back than, but not common as today. I wonder if she was in an arranged marriage. Not suggesting it had anything to do with this.

She probably comes from a more strict or permissive upbringing. I noticed many criminals come from extreme strict or permissive upbringing.
 
Because she was an adult and the others were children?

Supposedly some teachers in school weren't nice to him either. Teachers are certainly not children. Furthermore, minors can be charged-nothing to prevent a prosecutor from charging minors if he/she so wanted.
 
It's been this long already and I'm just now hearing about this. How unfortunate.

When I was his age I was bullied at school and online. This was almost me. Poor soul. I hope they are resting easy now, and hope every single person who played a role in making their life crap gets what they deserve - or, at least for those who knowingly bullied him, are guilty. Bullying is crappy and I am saddened whenever I hear about things like this.
 
FAYETTE, Mo. — A former rural Missouri Dairy Queen manager accused of bullying a 17-year-old employee who eventually took his own life pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor charge and won't go to prison.

Harley Branham, 23, of Fayette, pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and was sentenced to two years of supervised probation and 30 days of house arrest.

...

Branham testified during the inquest that she never bullied Suttner and he didn't seem to be bothered by the jokes. But jurors at the inquest concluded Branham "was the principal in the cause of death."

Jurors also found that Glasgow Public Schools, where Suttner was a junior, was "negligent in preventing bullying," although school officials have said Suttner never reported the bullying.

Former Missouri Dairy Queen manager charged after bullied teen takes his own life won’t go to prison

So sorry for all of bulling that Kenneth suffered! The bulling is cruel and shouldn't be aloud to happen anywhere. People need to step in and stop it! jmo
 
FAYETTE, Mo. — A former rural Missouri Dairy Queen manager accused of bullying a 17-year-old employee who eventually took his own life pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor charge and won't go to prison.

Harley Branham, 23, of Fayette, pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and was sentenced to two years of supervised probation and 30 days of house arrest.

...

Branham testified during the inquest that she never bullied Suttner and he didn't seem to be bothered by the jokes. But jurors at the inquest concluded Branham "was the principal in the cause of death."

Jurors also found that Glasgow Public Schools, where Suttner was a junior, was "negligent in preventing bullying," although school officials have said Suttner never reported the bullying.

Former Missouri Dairy Queen manager charged after bullied teen takes his own life won’t go to prison

So sorry for all of bulling that Kenneth suffered! The bulling is cruel and shouldn't be aloud to happen anywhere. People need to step in and stop it! jmo

Harley Branham should be prison. It is in the same state where Megan Meier committed suicide after being harassed by Lori Drew and Ashley Grills.
 
The whole story really upset me - I was bullied during grade school and junior high - then much later on as an adult - I have PTSD from the adult bullying incident. I am also a suicide attempt survivor. I understand the pain Kenny experienced and am so sorry he took his own life - which was not his fault. I wish I could bring him back and comfort him.

That stuff stays with you. My husband was telling me yesterday that he was recently added to a Facebook group for his graduating class from elementary/middle school and everyone is posting on there reminiscing about the "good times." He's resisting the urge to post "Hey, remember when you guys used to walk up to me, punch me in the stomach, and say 'Go back to your country, you [expletive] [ethnic slur]?'" My guess is most of them probably haven't even bothered to remember. That happened over 25 years ago and he still has self-esteem issues because of it. It infuriates me so much to think about it.
 

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