NY - Ellison Butler, 22, shot dead after alleged sexual assault, 27 June 2008

[browneyedgirl]

browneyedgirl, I don't know how old you are. I'm nearly 60 and when I was a child, no one talked about sexual abuse but that does not mean it did not happen. All it meant was that no one talked about it.

I was raped by a school counsellor when I was 12 years old. Back then, children didn't get sex education until later (usually 14-15 years old) and if I had tried to tell someone what he had done to me, I would not have had the words to describe it.

I'd guess that about one quarter of the friends I have who are my age or older were molested or raped as children.

The sexual abuse of children is nothing new, not at all. For instance, read Virginia Woolf's "A Sketch of the Past", an autobiographical essay written in 1939 that graphically describes her sexual abuse at the hands of her half-brother in 1895. Knowing that she suffered intermittent insanity for the rest of her life makes her brave and matter-of-fact description of being molested even more horrifying.

In a sense, though, your parents were correct. The chances of a child being molested or raped by a stranger are pretty tiny. The vast majority of children are at highest risk from their own parents or other adults familiar to them.

Hi Grainne, I am so sorry that you had such a horrifying experience. I agree that sexual abuse wasn't discussed in the past, in fact, growing up in the 70's, my parents never even discussed the possibility of a stranger taking me. And I am thankful that I was able to have that type of security in my childhood. I wish that we were able to give that type of security to our children nowadays, however, being the mother of 3 boys, you bet we have had all of the "talks" that are warranted.
Every year at Halloween as I pass out candy, I also pass out an updated list of the sexual predators in my area with all the pertanent info, address, phone, where they work and what they have done or are wanted for.
Again, I am terribly sorry that some PERV stole your childhood from you, but I am glad that were able to survive and that you are not afraid of telling your story. It's only from the true victims do we ever really learn.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

Hi Grainne, I am so sorry that you had such a horrifying experience. I agree that sexual abuse wasn't discussed in the past, in fact, growing up in the 70's, my parents never even discussed the possibility of a stranger taking me. And I am thankful that I was able to have that type of security in my childhood.

Back then, life did seem more secure... but it was a false sense of security. For instance, do you know when the school killing with the highest number of victims took place? No, it wasn't within the last 10 years, it was in 1921. There was a rule of silence that said that "nice people don't talk about such things."

Stranger rape is the rarest form of sexual abuse that children face, though. By far the most common form of sexual abuse comes from someone that the child knows--a parent, a relative, a caretaker, a teacher, a clergyman, etc.

I think it's much easier to talk to children about the possibility of a stranger hurting them than it is to tell a child that someone they know might try to hurt them.

Again, I am terribly sorry that some PERV stole your childhood from you, but I am glad that were able to survive and that you are not afraid of telling your story. It's only from the true victims do we ever really learn.

I was lucky in many ways; I never told my parents (I didn't speak of it to anyone for many years) but I did have a strong, supportive, loving family. Even though I never told my family, I know I would not have survived without their love and care in general.

It breaks my heart when I realise that not all children have strong, loving parents.

 

[ziggy]

I would convict this woman in a heartbeat. Who is she to become lawless and make decisions whether a person lives or dies? This was a premeditated first degree murder. Her own husband, a police officer, yet she didn't even tell him about the incident and there is nothing that I have read that said this man sexually molested her daughter.

Maybe the mother is the one with the big problem like the other mother who was married to the attorney who told him a neighbor had molested their little daughter and it was all untrue. The child was not molested yet a man who had every right to live his life is now dead and a very elderly mother no longer has her son to take care of her. And what did it do for this child's family unit? It shattered it because he will sit in prison for years for killing a man that did not even harm his child.

We are a nation of laws. Everyone not just some must adhere to those laws we all are expected to follow. When they don't then they must be punished for their own criminal actions.

Imo Nellie's son would have been much better off if she had not made the choice that she did. She reacted violently and in turn that violence was transferred into her son and he committed the unspeakable crime of murder too. So imo violence begets violence.

I do not buy into the snapped defense in this case. She didn't snap she carefully planned it out.

Just because someone can be a jerk doesn't mean anyone has a right to just walk up to them and blow them away. They do have a right to call 911 and call the police immediately if they think something illegal has happened. Or in this case simply tell the girls father who is a policeman. He was never given a choice for it to be handled properly. It seems she didn't want the police involved and was going to handle this all by herself......vigilante style. She has now humiliated her husband and his position too. Imo she has now disgraced everyone, herself, the daughter, her husband and the rest of her family.

imoo

Pardon me but our nation of laws is broken. If you can honestly say our justice system does a great job at protecting children over the protection of the rights of child abusers then I'd give you props, but you can't and that's just a fact of life. Live with it. Reality bites.

If you are a jerk, sometimes as they say in the South (and God Bless Southerners cuz I love y'all) people just need killin'.

Let's just do the math shall we? More innnocent peoples, i.e., childrens' live would be saved if people who were chronic child molesters were killed instead of coddled.

Then there is the RARE case you site, where an innocent is killed and you think that should justify parents allowing this system to let their children down? I don't think so.

FYI, Ellie's family thinks she is a hero and I don't think being in prison and having a tragic end to her life makes her child think less of her, in fact her son is better off knowing how much his mother sacfrificed for him. Not that many kids get a role model with that much "conviction", if you will with regards to morals and conduct. The sacrifice, if you are a Mother, is to protect your children at any cost. She did that. She is their hero.

Let's see how you would feel if some scum diddled your kid and FOREVER changed how they would handle a sexual relationship. FOREVER changed how they would feel about themselves. It cannot be undone. It's a crime which should yield NO MERCY, yet you would give mercy to the perpetrator and label him "diseased", "sick", "in need of help or a cure". Rubbish.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

Let's just do the math shall we? More innnocent peoples, i.e., childrens' live would be saved if people who were chronic child molesters were killed instead of coddled.

"Better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished." --Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the USA

Let's see how you would feel if some scum diddled your kid and FOREVER changed how they would handle a sexual relationship. FOREVER changed how they would feel about themselves. It cannot be undone. It's a crime which should yield NO MERCY, yet you would give mercy to the perpetrator and label him "diseased", "sick", "in need of help or a cure". Rubbish.

I don't know how I would feel if my child were molested or raped, since I was never able to have children. I was, however, raped when I was 12 years old.

I have no way to know how I would have turned out had that not happened to me. I do know that I'm content with how I am; I'm certainly not perfect but I have done and continue to do my best to improve the world I live in. I am very happily married and our love life is just fine, thanks. I actually never had any problems connected with consensual sex (and I've had more than one sexual partner).

It was many years before I told anyone what had happened (people just didn't speak of such things in those days). I did have access to the libraries of a major university with a medical college; everything I read suggested that my life was doomed, that I could never be happy, would never have a normal relationship and quite probably would end up tragically. I can laugh, a bit, about it now because none of those things happened to me but at the time, it was one crushing blow after another.

If I had found even one paper that had suggested that I might not be doomed, it would have meant so much to me. I was so frightened and I felt so absolutely alone. I wish I could go back and tell that scared girl that life would be better, richer, more interesting and more fun than she could possibly imagine! There have been a few studies that show that children can be remarkably resilient and recover from sexual abuse (anywhere from 50-80% showing no bad effects as adults). That doesn't mean that it's okay to sexually abuse children but it does mean that a child who has been sexually abused is not necessarily doomed.

If there is someone reading this who survived childhood sexual abuse and wonders if they will ever be okay, I want them to know that there is hope. There really is.

One turning point for me was when I realised, really deep down understood, that the man who raped me (a school counsellor) was sick and that what he did to me was a result of his sickness and not because of anything I had done wrong, not because of anything about me that "forced" him to do those things to me.

After I realised that, I pitied the man and I still do. There was something broken in him. If there were some way to fix him, I hope he would be fixed. Right now, there doesn't appear to be any fix and I am sorry about that.

I do believe that pedophiles should be imprisoned because it is the only way for society to protect itself from them right now. I hope that some day this changes.

I said above that I'm content with how I turned out but I'm not perfect. In some of my not-perfect moments, I've hurt people I loved (not physically but I have caused emotional pain). For instance, my husband sometimes got the worst of things when I was still learning how to trust him. I didn't deserve his forgiveness for the hateful things I said but he gave it to me freely and lovingly. And out of the mercy he gave me so willingly, we have made a life that is far better than anything I could have ever had without him.

So yeah, I do try to give mercy to others, even to other people who don't seem to deserve it. I don't know if I will ever be the instrument of a miracle for someone else but having received the miracle, I want to try.

 

[MagicRose99]

I would convict this woman in a heartbeat. Who is she to become lawless and make decisions whether a person lives or dies? This was a premeditated first degree murder. Her own husband, a police officer, yet she didn't even tell him about the incident and there is nothing that I have read that said this man sexually molested her daughter.

Maybe the mother is the one with the big problem like the other mother who was married to the attorney who told him a neighbor had molested their little daughter and it was all untrue. The child was not molested yet a man who had every right to live his life is now dead and a very elderly mother no longer has her son to take care of her. And what did it do for this child's family unit? It shattered it because he will sit in prison for years for killing a man that did not even harm his child.

We are a nation of laws. Everyone not just some must adhere to those laws we all are expected to follow. When they don't then they must be punished for their own criminal actions.

Imo Nellie's son would have been much better off if she had not made the choice that she did. She reacted violently and in turn that violence was transferred into her son and he committed the unspeakable crime of murder too. So imo violence begets violence.

I do not buy into the snapped defense in this case. She didn't snap she carefully planned it out.

Just because someone can be a jerk doesn't mean anyone has a right to just walk up to them and blow them away. They do have a right to call 911 and call the police immediately if they think something illegal has happened. Or in this case simply tell the girls father who is a policeman. He was never given a choice for it to be handled properly. It seems she didn't want the police involved and was going to handle this all by herself......vigilante style. She has now humiliated her husband and his position too. Imo she has now disgraced everyone, herself, the daughter, her husband and the rest of her family.

imoo

Thank you for saying what I could not put in words... I totally agree with all you've said. :clap:

 

[dottierainbow]

Ziggy, Do you think that you personally should take the laws in your own hands if someone argued with your child and possibly just shoved them? Does this give you the right to shoot them? What if your child falsely accused someone, and then you shoot them. Then afterwards you find out you didn't have all the facts.Do you think, oops, I made a mistake. It's too late.
Yes, sometimes there are judicial system is broken but it's better than neighbor shooting neighbor isn't it?
Also, if the mom was on Meth, she could of been violent because of her drug use. What should happen to her?