Let's say someone deliberately goes out of their way and hurts someone else. It is enough to send them to the hospital. Despite the brave efforts of the medical staff, this person expires. From there as required by law, the lead doctor pronounces the death at the date and time it says on their clock, which by law is required. Accuracy is of the importance, so this time is scrutinized to get the exact time down to the second if possible, the minute at best.
This is also the case in a accident or a murder seen by a good amount of people, from witnesses to medical personel, even if able, the victim themselves. A shatted timepiece freezing sometimes the time of attack if the clock mechanism somehow stopped. Time stamps on certain cameras are scrutinized. In case of murder in this interconnected age, security cameras public and private are culled by investigators often without hesitation. Other times the civilian population could offer other evidence that can point to time of death. Even public tragedies of certain people and places will not escape the collective time stamp since many people are viewing on all kinds of recording devices. As the secretary of Dallas merchant, Abraham Zapruder, once said to her boss that fateful morning, "It isn't every day that the President of the United States visits Dallas."
It is these timepieces that make crime detection a whole lot easier for law enforcement and the people they interview and scrutinize over the issues of a crime and punishment. Having a definite time of death, along with the time the crime occurred can narrow down a suspect or suspects to a mere formality. Circumstancial evidence aside cannot pin down a person more than time of day itself. No one can be two places at once unless he or she has devine attributes. So if a suspect said he was playing bingo at the local American Legion as their estranged wife is being killed, this can be checked. If this is the case, someone else my dear Melissa is behind the caper.
Then the question is the person who cannot accout for where he or she was when a crime occurred. What were they doing in the area? Did the person have a beef with the victim? Was they foul play involved with them? Are their any witnesses that can pin said person there? The mind goes on and on. Basically speaking, if they were confirmed committing the act via witness, forensics, video and photographic records, phone records, even audio from an answer maching or cell phone, the law has their crook red-handed doing the act of criminality.
Which is where the vast majority of innocents are not is those with good timekeeping and forensic reconstructions of what might have happened. These are the type of cases that are classic "open and shut". All is needed is a guilty plea from the crook and plea for a lighter sentence (mercy).
Not so in cases of a crime that occurs privately without public oversight, where sometime later, if at all, some person or something comes across the body of a person or animal that is either buried, concealed or in plain sight if one looks good. These cases call on the skills and guesswork of the same investigators who deal with cases with more lively victims, witnesses and suspects. In these cases, it is let the best guesswork obtain a plausible reconstruction of what might have occurred. Such public records normally available could be lost. Examples include camera, data, witness and even the victim, who is sadly not alive. This leads to a glaring possiblilty of the cops being right or, if they get one guess off a bit, wrong.
Which leads to this case involving Josh Young, which falls into the found the body but no idea of how the death occurred or where for that matter. Trey Zwicker fell into foul play between eleven-thirty to one in the morning. This gives the doer a ninety-minute window to do their worst. The exact time of death is pure guess worked since there was no life left in the body. So guesswork would be haphazard at best by the people at the scene and in the morgue. The Medical Examiner cannot for the life of them not give an exact time of death, even if it is right in front of them. They would say, "I say the victim expired between such and such a time on such and such a date."
That estimate would be a too-wide window for even an innocent boy of fifteen like Josh Young to say they were at home asleep during at that time period. Even though he also told authorities when he last saw Trey, along with other details of that night, it seems to have gone in one ear and out the other when Detective Scott Russ interviewed Little Josh after Gouker's interview with the same detective in Alabama. Detective Russ acted like Josh was not saying the truth once he accepted Goukers side of the story, backed by Cassie and John telling him about Little Josh meeting with them later that night and spending the night at their house. Though, as I can personally attest their timeline would have rendered Josh too tired to attend school that day at Fern Creek, which I assume he went to the morning after the murder went down.
Which leaves the time scale also being too wide for Josh Gouker, Amanda Campbell (though more victim than suspect) and his cousins, Cassie and John when one also puts the data set on them. We have all sorts of guesswork of what might have gone down, but who killed Trey is definately pinned on Gouker. He had past trouble with his wife, so taking it out on Trey would be easy. Trey has to be assumed is very protective of his mom, so the reason he died is that he first suspected Gouker's true motives about his mother. His sneaking out of the house proved to be an act of rebellion that turned Gouker into his monster mode. Amanda tried to put a stop to it but it was for nothing. My guess is Gouker made her watch him murder Trey. That he beat on her and her surviving kid, maybe even Little Josh over that month to keep the truth from being told. (This is the worse case senerio: the beatings may have been limited to just Amanda herself.) I guess Gouker did not even say anything about him doing it in front of his boy or his little stepdaughter. Though Amanda knew he did the dirty deed,she was going through an act to keep all of them alive and Gouker from becoming the same wild animal he was in the tenth of May, 2011.
Sometime from late May to early June, Amanda Campbell got her chance to get away with her daughter, though for some reason she left Little Josh alone with the Psycho. She filed that protective order, which was of a vague reference that she suspected Gouker of murdering Trey.
This is all I know of the piece, but the ink was merely dry on the protective order when Gouker and Little Josh went off into the countryside with one or two other women. The car they were in broke down. So somehow they thumbed for some rides. Though he had to be ruthless with one lady, whose kidnapping led to the end of the line for Gouker in tiny Madison, Alabama in late June.
Little Josh even had that Amber Alert issued on him with Gouker suspected of kidnapping. Since it crossed state lines, the FBI should have filed federal charges against him. With his sexual history and criminal past, Gouker should have been sent to a Federal Court in Alabama or Kentucky to face justice. Had that occurred Little Josh would have been off the hook for the killing. Further police work, including the breaking of Cassie and John would have exposed Gouker. Boldened by this, Amanda would tell the cops everything. Gouker would be facing a count of Capitol Murder in Kentucky if he ever weaseled his way out of Federal Court on the Kidnapping Charge.
Things unfortunately fell apart. Amanda was to vague in the protection order, which agitated Gouker to do his little OJ Simpson-style act. Cassie and John intimidated everyone they get their hands on, even robbed Amanda that summer. The lead detective, looking for closure fell for Gouker's bear trap. No one had the guts from CPS to file kidnapping charges against Gouker, for they were the ones who put the boy in harm's way. The final blow was Little Josh even talking to the cops on more than one occasion with no lawyer or parent present. All this put an innocent boy behind bars.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Give Me Five: People who justifed trying children as Adults
In my first "Gimmie Five" installment, we look at the five individuals who doomed the future of all kids from 9 to 16, because of numerous quirks in the law in each state affected, overzealous prosecutors and maybe the victim's family going "age blind" when it comes to justice. I go from personal seriousness of their crimes against society.
1. Willie Bosket (1978): New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield in "All Good Children" decribed Bosket in his book as an intellgent man from a long line of criminals of both genders, dating back to slavery days in pre-Civil War South Carolina. The man's daddy even earned a degree from the University of Kansas! Willie started getting into trouble with the law since he was five. Despite all that and his scholastic record, Bosket tried to be a good wannabe, but a rash decision of criminality at fifteen in 1978 left him in juvenile hall. His conviction for murder in juvenile court led to rash changes in New York law that lowered the age of criminal transfer to thirteen in a number of cases from assult to murder. It was borderline racist when it passed overwhelmingly, but Bosket's bad behavior as an adult literally justified the change of the law. Bosket was barely out of trouble when he: tried to break out of a juvenile facility; four years after that, he was out 100 days when he assulted another man at the arpartment complex he and the man were living at; then he was convicted of assult and arson in actions related to his assult conviction. He struck out and was given twenty five years to life in prison for his habitual-offender status. Since then, he had not been a model prisoner. He is currently held in a specially-made cell in isolation with limited contact due to periodic attacks on guards and other prisoners over the years. (Just like Hannibal Lechter!) Now known as 84A6391, Bosket is now housed in that special cell at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility. He not up for parole until 2062, which means he is going to die there.
2. Eric Smith (1993): Thirteen-year-old Smith did a dumb thing which made him fall for the Bosket law in a big way. Not even born when the law was passed, the boy not only killed four-year-old Derrick Robie in their Upstate New York town of Savona, he raped and mangled the little kid. In 1994, he was convicted as an adult for the murder in the second degree despite a valient defense of his actions, which was felt was caused by a mental disorder. He was given nine years to life, the maximum penalty at the time for his crimes. He tried hard to get released after serving nine years, but the little boy's family want him to die in prison, afraid of Smith's intentions of moving back to Savona if released. They have never accepted any of the young man's apologies since that day their boy was found dead. It is like they have no heart of forgiveness despite Eric's letters and interviews with the media which has him forgiving himself for something he would never would have done as a grown-up. Since 2002, Smith has been denied parole five times. Nothing will ever change as long as members of Robie's family still harbor ill feeling and evil thoughts about the older boy for what he did to their little boy. This year will see Smith go up for parole again and get rejected for a sixth time. Sometimes, there is no forgiveness, even for undersized kids with glasses and red hair.
3. Cameron Kocher (1989): Five years before Smith's major crime came this case set in neighboring Pennsylvania. Cameron Kocher was accused of shooting and killing his seven-year-old neighbor and friend Jessica Carr in cold blood over a video game she beat him in over and over again. The prosecutor of this case at the time was making a name for himself in the Pocono Mountain political scene. So he thought he can try nine-year-old Cameron as an adult. He might has well have written his resignation papers that day. The blond-haired, blue-eyed kid, who never was in serious trouble in his short life, was facing life without parole for first-degree murder as an adult. Unlike fellow Pennsylvanian, Jordan Brown (whose own charges were false to the point of insanity), Kocher was released to his parents on $50,000 bail. Three long years past before it was learned that the prosecutor made a big mistake in his accusations agaist the boy. Kocher was sentenced as a juvenile on reduced charges and given probation. Karr's family was further devistated and never forgave either the boy or the state. Though questions of even innocence waft through the Poconos to this day, no one ever looked again at this murder or properly investigated the crime in the first place. The magical bullet that killed Carr was never found that day or ever, leading me to believe maybe the Carrs or their neighbors concealed it or someone else killed her. Also it was never really positive if Kocher even fired the .33 caliber rifle that day. The neighbors, who she was riding snowmobiles with the day she was killed that snowy day in the winter of 1989, were having domestic troubles. The lady left the man, leading the man to kick in the door of a family friend's house in an altercation that October, over six months after Jessica's death. The violation of his restraining order saw the man face jail time for the crime of passion. Also, the prosecutor in the original case who wanted to send Kocher to a life sentence had his career destroyed in a scandal involving child abuse, serving more time than Cameron did in jail. As of this year, Kocher has not gotten into any trouble. Let us hope it stays that way.
4 and 5. Mitchell Scott Johnson and Andrew Douglas Golden (1998): Two boys, one bad day and two different fortunes for the two blood brothers and best friends. Four kids and one teacher killed, with ten other people injured in a shooting spree on Mar. 25, 1998 outside their middle school in Jonesboro during the Golden Age of School Shootings (1998 to 2001). Mitchell was thirteen. Andrew was just eleven and a half. The prosecutor in the case later said if not for their ages, the boys would have been facing the death penalty or an adult charges like life without parole. Though both boys were sentenced in juvenile court, people affected by the shooting never forgave the kids or the state for trying them as juveniles. But I have to thank the prosecutor for the right decision for once. The results in retrospect led to two different fortunes. This is due to the nature of the two families. Andrew had a better family structure, so when released on his birthday in 2007, he started out with a clean slate, leaving Mitchell in the dust. (Andrew also had heard by that time of the older ex-buddy's misadventures.) Mitchell's life after release in 2005 was not so good, he was put in prison twice: once for drug charges and another for theft, financial identity fraud and drug possession. In 2008, the older man was sentenced to four years in jail. These days, it is much easier for Arkansas to persecute kids as young as eleven as adults in a variety of senerios. Time will only tell when another falsely-charged juvenile will show that said laws are patently unfair and illogical.
1. Willie Bosket (1978): New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield in "All Good Children" decribed Bosket in his book as an intellgent man from a long line of criminals of both genders, dating back to slavery days in pre-Civil War South Carolina. The man's daddy even earned a degree from the University of Kansas! Willie started getting into trouble with the law since he was five. Despite all that and his scholastic record, Bosket tried to be a good wannabe, but a rash decision of criminality at fifteen in 1978 left him in juvenile hall. His conviction for murder in juvenile court led to rash changes in New York law that lowered the age of criminal transfer to thirteen in a number of cases from assult to murder. It was borderline racist when it passed overwhelmingly, but Bosket's bad behavior as an adult literally justified the change of the law. Bosket was barely out of trouble when he: tried to break out of a juvenile facility; four years after that, he was out 100 days when he assulted another man at the arpartment complex he and the man were living at; then he was convicted of assult and arson in actions related to his assult conviction. He struck out and was given twenty five years to life in prison for his habitual-offender status. Since then, he had not been a model prisoner. He is currently held in a specially-made cell in isolation with limited contact due to periodic attacks on guards and other prisoners over the years. (Just like Hannibal Lechter!) Now known as 84A6391, Bosket is now housed in that special cell at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility. He not up for parole until 2062, which means he is going to die there.
2. Eric Smith (1993): Thirteen-year-old Smith did a dumb thing which made him fall for the Bosket law in a big way. Not even born when the law was passed, the boy not only killed four-year-old Derrick Robie in their Upstate New York town of Savona, he raped and mangled the little kid. In 1994, he was convicted as an adult for the murder in the second degree despite a valient defense of his actions, which was felt was caused by a mental disorder. He was given nine years to life, the maximum penalty at the time for his crimes. He tried hard to get released after serving nine years, but the little boy's family want him to die in prison, afraid of Smith's intentions of moving back to Savona if released. They have never accepted any of the young man's apologies since that day their boy was found dead. It is like they have no heart of forgiveness despite Eric's letters and interviews with the media which has him forgiving himself for something he would never would have done as a grown-up. Since 2002, Smith has been denied parole five times. Nothing will ever change as long as members of Robie's family still harbor ill feeling and evil thoughts about the older boy for what he did to their little boy. This year will see Smith go up for parole again and get rejected for a sixth time. Sometimes, there is no forgiveness, even for undersized kids with glasses and red hair.
3. Cameron Kocher (1989): Five years before Smith's major crime came this case set in neighboring Pennsylvania. Cameron Kocher was accused of shooting and killing his seven-year-old neighbor and friend Jessica Carr in cold blood over a video game she beat him in over and over again. The prosecutor of this case at the time was making a name for himself in the Pocono Mountain political scene. So he thought he can try nine-year-old Cameron as an adult. He might has well have written his resignation papers that day. The blond-haired, blue-eyed kid, who never was in serious trouble in his short life, was facing life without parole for first-degree murder as an adult. Unlike fellow Pennsylvanian, Jordan Brown (whose own charges were false to the point of insanity), Kocher was released to his parents on $50,000 bail. Three long years past before it was learned that the prosecutor made a big mistake in his accusations agaist the boy. Kocher was sentenced as a juvenile on reduced charges and given probation. Karr's family was further devistated and never forgave either the boy or the state. Though questions of even innocence waft through the Poconos to this day, no one ever looked again at this murder or properly investigated the crime in the first place. The magical bullet that killed Carr was never found that day or ever, leading me to believe maybe the Carrs or their neighbors concealed it or someone else killed her. Also it was never really positive if Kocher even fired the .33 caliber rifle that day. The neighbors, who she was riding snowmobiles with the day she was killed that snowy day in the winter of 1989, were having domestic troubles. The lady left the man, leading the man to kick in the door of a family friend's house in an altercation that October, over six months after Jessica's death. The violation of his restraining order saw the man face jail time for the crime of passion. Also, the prosecutor in the original case who wanted to send Kocher to a life sentence had his career destroyed in a scandal involving child abuse, serving more time than Cameron did in jail. As of this year, Kocher has not gotten into any trouble. Let us hope it stays that way.
4 and 5. Mitchell Scott Johnson and Andrew Douglas Golden (1998): Two boys, one bad day and two different fortunes for the two blood brothers and best friends. Four kids and one teacher killed, with ten other people injured in a shooting spree on Mar. 25, 1998 outside their middle school in Jonesboro during the Golden Age of School Shootings (1998 to 2001). Mitchell was thirteen. Andrew was just eleven and a half. The prosecutor in the case later said if not for their ages, the boys would have been facing the death penalty or an adult charges like life without parole. Though both boys were sentenced in juvenile court, people affected by the shooting never forgave the kids or the state for trying them as juveniles. But I have to thank the prosecutor for the right decision for once. The results in retrospect led to two different fortunes. This is due to the nature of the two families. Andrew had a better family structure, so when released on his birthday in 2007, he started out with a clean slate, leaving Mitchell in the dust. (Andrew also had heard by that time of the older ex-buddy's misadventures.) Mitchell's life after release in 2005 was not so good, he was put in prison twice: once for drug charges and another for theft, financial identity fraud and drug possession. In 2008, the older man was sentenced to four years in jail. These days, it is much easier for Arkansas to persecute kids as young as eleven as adults in a variety of senerios. Time will only tell when another falsely-charged juvenile will show that said laws are patently unfair and illogical.
How Normal was the Life of Josh Gouker and his former Lover, Ms. Young
I wonder how normal her life was over the last fourteen years of her life. She was in most part a teen mother or close to adulthood. I got to see what her age was relative to Gouker and their son. We know that Gouker was seventeen when Little Josh was born.
Typically in the late teens the range of girls when guys are sexually active is from early to late teens, with a good precentage active within their age group. What is troubling with guys fifteen to eighteen (roughly) is those who might either hook up with a young girl or a young woman. The one end with a younger girl looking at a older guy as more mature and more likely to support any baby that comes out of such union. The other end looking for a mature woman as a mother substitute. Tradition might hold that an young girl looks on the older boy as the father substitute and the younger guy looking at the older girl or woman as a mother substitute. Though both couples playing the sharp edge of society's view toward said relaitionships.
Take Christian Fernandez's parents for instance. At twelve years old, it was an older guy who impregnated Christian's mother and in effect paid the price for said pregnancy. In the effect on Christian's mother seeing both mother and son put in foster care, I see society not only going down hard on the daddy, but the mommy too. Such young pregnancy's disrupt both, posing its own unique circumstances for the parents and the child.
Take for instance the daddy. Such unions might meet with immediate disapproval from both sets of the parent's parents. Often the younger member's parents accusing the older member of the relationship for knocking up their daughter. (I wonder why it is the daddy that gets the worst of the social beating.) This is why the greater the age gradient, the bigger chance for the older male partner or the younger male partner to run from their part in the pregnancy and evential rearing of the child.
Also it is the older male parter or the older female partner to face a variety of criminal charges resulting in their sexuality. This often see these parents disadvantaged from the start of the parenthood. Often left with a jail sentence and registering as a sex offender, though as low as a level-one, least likely to reoffend, it could mean their means of supporting the child and the mother and themselves to be dead in the water. There goes their future in the heartbeat of the child produced from the relationship. Even if the pregnacy is ended via abortion or the child placed for adoption or even miscarried (this is a teenage girl), the record follows a person forever in many states. Ruined for life just as the state deems them as such.
Gouker was seventeen when his son was born, so how old was Josh's mom? Maybe from backtracking their couples misfortunes, along with their son's life can we maybe deduce how all three spiraled downward into this tangent which presents a reality where Josh Young is falsely accused of murder by his old man. Something in Gouker's life was disjointed in the year after Josh's mom and Gouker's ex-lover left this planet. I wonder what it was. The most-common explaination is jealousy of Little Josh's prospects compared to Gouker's own. Overlapping that was the growing suspecions in that of his stepson, who was suspecting that Gouker was physically and mentally abusing his mom, Amanda.
That night in May it just snapped for Joshua Gouker to the point that Gouker killed him, maybe behind the high school or somewhere close. Remember the area is in the middle of huge shopping area southeast of the airport with a nearby suburban neighborhood, so there would be few places Gouker could have done the dirty deed. Also, as I read these pages of drivel, I gauge that between eleven and one is the timeframe the crime might have occurred. So the victim did indeed sneaked out of the house while Gouker and Amanda had their alone time. One of them must have realized that Trey was not there. Whether Gouker went alone or had Amanda with him is anyone's guess, but I was erring on Gouker maybe by himself. If Amanda was with him, she was not with him when the murder occurred, but he would have either lied about it or told her of the deed, threatening to kill her too if she talked about it the cops. Why indeed that July would Gouker's cousin and boyfirend rob her of some property if they were not part of a conspiracy? Why did Amanda not do much talking either in Gouker's presence or alone with a cop? Her protective order was the first indication that something was out of the ordinary with Gouker and his treatment of her since the murder of her boy. Gouker's running off with one or two females and his son was equivalent of a signed confession. (The case of the dad in Seattle who blew himself up, along with his two sons in front of a social worker waiting outside is much as saying, I killed someone, now watch me avoid criminal responsibility.)
Gouker's talking with the cops after his arrest later that month and their waiting until he was back in their correctional system to formally charge his son is the result of a conspiracy of three people. Namely, Gouker's cousin and boyfriend (cousin in terms of relationship), who lied to the cops about Little Josh coming over to their house later that night. This is going on as Gouker changed clothes and dragged Amanda along for that Circle K ciggy run. This would have left Little Josh alone with his little step-sister, oblivious of what went on while they slept. It is quite possible that sometime between leaving the Circle K to the afternoon of the discovery of Trey's body that Gouker got together with his cousins Cassie and John to statergize and keep Amanda from spouting off to the cops about what he did to her boy. (Mr. Zwicker did notice at the scene of the crime, Amanda's appearence and emotions toward the crime and Gouker. He thought his ex-lover was being abused.) Gouker just got Amanda to pretend the moment the body was discovered that they were just getting home and found Trey has not gone to school that day. That they were not informed by Seneca High School of this anomaly before one that afternoon is pure speculation at if they even got the call. They knew a whole lot more than they let on to the cops that day or up to the middle of June when Amanda had enough of Gouker, filing the protection order. Afraid of his own arrest for murder, Gouker fled with Little Josh.
So in order to prevent his evential prosecution, the second part of his frame-up came into being, namely to spout of his falsehoods to a stumped lead detective, whom he had deceived from day one. The next was to use his cousin and their friends to intimidate any possible witness who could refute him, even down to what Cassie and John did to poor Amanda that July. The protection order shocked Gouker, who took Little Josh. That prompted the Amber Alert. Next Gouker and company's missteps on the road from Louisville to Tennessee to Alabama was guarenteed to eventially result in arrest. (It was the dumbest crime spree I ever heard of!) When it seemed that Little Josh was rid of his old man, the old man comes back and frames for Trey's death. Then it takes until November to even charge the boy with the murder. By that time, Gouker and company, not to mention the prosecution, had all their ducks in a row. They will not budge, not until this fall. God only knows if Josh, nearly the same age his old man was when he was born, will be found innocent. What will the State do to Gouker once they know they were duped? Even if the jury hears this one, what if the jury is hung, but the net effect the truth about Gouker is the reason? One would speculate innocence or a hung jury would result in Gouker be the time his son turns seventeen will be the one facing the capital murder charges, on top of the actions he and his people did to frame Josh, resulting in not just him but at least two other people getting jail time. It is a matter of time, Mr. Gouker, before your sin is paid in full in this world and in the next. The clock is ticking. The Death Chamber in Frankfort is awaiting a possible victim; it might be you.
Typically in the late teens the range of girls when guys are sexually active is from early to late teens, with a good precentage active within their age group. What is troubling with guys fifteen to eighteen (roughly) is those who might either hook up with a young girl or a young woman. The one end with a younger girl looking at a older guy as more mature and more likely to support any baby that comes out of such union. The other end looking for a mature woman as a mother substitute. Tradition might hold that an young girl looks on the older boy as the father substitute and the younger guy looking at the older girl or woman as a mother substitute. Though both couples playing the sharp edge of society's view toward said relaitionships.
Take Christian Fernandez's parents for instance. At twelve years old, it was an older guy who impregnated Christian's mother and in effect paid the price for said pregnancy. In the effect on Christian's mother seeing both mother and son put in foster care, I see society not only going down hard on the daddy, but the mommy too. Such young pregnancy's disrupt both, posing its own unique circumstances for the parents and the child.
Take for instance the daddy. Such unions might meet with immediate disapproval from both sets of the parent's parents. Often the younger member's parents accusing the older member of the relationship for knocking up their daughter. (I wonder why it is the daddy that gets the worst of the social beating.) This is why the greater the age gradient, the bigger chance for the older male partner or the younger male partner to run from their part in the pregnancy and evential rearing of the child.
Also it is the older male parter or the older female partner to face a variety of criminal charges resulting in their sexuality. This often see these parents disadvantaged from the start of the parenthood. Often left with a jail sentence and registering as a sex offender, though as low as a level-one, least likely to reoffend, it could mean their means of supporting the child and the mother and themselves to be dead in the water. There goes their future in the heartbeat of the child produced from the relationship. Even if the pregnacy is ended via abortion or the child placed for adoption or even miscarried (this is a teenage girl), the record follows a person forever in many states. Ruined for life just as the state deems them as such.
Gouker was seventeen when his son was born, so how old was Josh's mom? Maybe from backtracking their couples misfortunes, along with their son's life can we maybe deduce how all three spiraled downward into this tangent which presents a reality where Josh Young is falsely accused of murder by his old man. Something in Gouker's life was disjointed in the year after Josh's mom and Gouker's ex-lover left this planet. I wonder what it was. The most-common explaination is jealousy of Little Josh's prospects compared to Gouker's own. Overlapping that was the growing suspecions in that of his stepson, who was suspecting that Gouker was physically and mentally abusing his mom, Amanda.
That night in May it just snapped for Joshua Gouker to the point that Gouker killed him, maybe behind the high school or somewhere close. Remember the area is in the middle of huge shopping area southeast of the airport with a nearby suburban neighborhood, so there would be few places Gouker could have done the dirty deed. Also, as I read these pages of drivel, I gauge that between eleven and one is the timeframe the crime might have occurred. So the victim did indeed sneaked out of the house while Gouker and Amanda had their alone time. One of them must have realized that Trey was not there. Whether Gouker went alone or had Amanda with him is anyone's guess, but I was erring on Gouker maybe by himself. If Amanda was with him, she was not with him when the murder occurred, but he would have either lied about it or told her of the deed, threatening to kill her too if she talked about it the cops. Why indeed that July would Gouker's cousin and boyfirend rob her of some property if they were not part of a conspiracy? Why did Amanda not do much talking either in Gouker's presence or alone with a cop? Her protective order was the first indication that something was out of the ordinary with Gouker and his treatment of her since the murder of her boy. Gouker's running off with one or two females and his son was equivalent of a signed confession. (The case of the dad in Seattle who blew himself up, along with his two sons in front of a social worker waiting outside is much as saying, I killed someone, now watch me avoid criminal responsibility.)
Gouker's talking with the cops after his arrest later that month and their waiting until he was back in their correctional system to formally charge his son is the result of a conspiracy of three people. Namely, Gouker's cousin and boyfriend (cousin in terms of relationship), who lied to the cops about Little Josh coming over to their house later that night. This is going on as Gouker changed clothes and dragged Amanda along for that Circle K ciggy run. This would have left Little Josh alone with his little step-sister, oblivious of what went on while they slept. It is quite possible that sometime between leaving the Circle K to the afternoon of the discovery of Trey's body that Gouker got together with his cousins Cassie and John to statergize and keep Amanda from spouting off to the cops about what he did to her boy. (Mr. Zwicker did notice at the scene of the crime, Amanda's appearence and emotions toward the crime and Gouker. He thought his ex-lover was being abused.) Gouker just got Amanda to pretend the moment the body was discovered that they were just getting home and found Trey has not gone to school that day. That they were not informed by Seneca High School of this anomaly before one that afternoon is pure speculation at if they even got the call. They knew a whole lot more than they let on to the cops that day or up to the middle of June when Amanda had enough of Gouker, filing the protection order. Afraid of his own arrest for murder, Gouker fled with Little Josh.
So in order to prevent his evential prosecution, the second part of his frame-up came into being, namely to spout of his falsehoods to a stumped lead detective, whom he had deceived from day one. The next was to use his cousin and their friends to intimidate any possible witness who could refute him, even down to what Cassie and John did to poor Amanda that July. The protection order shocked Gouker, who took Little Josh. That prompted the Amber Alert. Next Gouker and company's missteps on the road from Louisville to Tennessee to Alabama was guarenteed to eventially result in arrest. (It was the dumbest crime spree I ever heard of!) When it seemed that Little Josh was rid of his old man, the old man comes back and frames for Trey's death. Then it takes until November to even charge the boy with the murder. By that time, Gouker and company, not to mention the prosecution, had all their ducks in a row. They will not budge, not until this fall. God only knows if Josh, nearly the same age his old man was when he was born, will be found innocent. What will the State do to Gouker once they know they were duped? Even if the jury hears this one, what if the jury is hung, but the net effect the truth about Gouker is the reason? One would speculate innocence or a hung jury would result in Gouker be the time his son turns seventeen will be the one facing the capital murder charges, on top of the actions he and his people did to frame Josh, resulting in not just him but at least two other people getting jail time. It is a matter of time, Mr. Gouker, before your sin is paid in full in this world and in the next. The clock is ticking. The Death Chamber in Frankfort is awaiting a possible victim; it might be you.
Friday, March 2, 2012
On the Road to Ruin, It is Often the Adults' Fault Some Ordinary Kids Get Ruined for Life
Adults do not trust children. In fact I think a majority of people, mainly men, are afraid of kids, especially boys. It is as if society lost trust of their kids with adults, even those who are in their kid's life most often, such as school teachers, mentors, family friends and even relatives. The way we superorganize our kids makes us wary of anything that would knock them off their schedule of soccer games, swim meets and structured playtime with their friends. We overprotect our kids to the point that we do not realize that as a boy or girl grows older, they would desire some independence from the rat race of life. Whatever happened to playing alone, wandering away from home with a friend or visiting anyone that they are concerned about, from their grandparents or maybe the guy who daddy works with everyday (whether or not he has kids of his own). It is as if we lost our trust in anyone, even the cops on the street.
When I was a kid, a cop would not make me scared half to death. Whenever I seen one at school, it was just the cop who comes to the school only when he was needed. Most of the time, he was there to give advice on crime prevention, when to call for help and other benign events. He and his people would only be needed for their real job when some idiot really acted up. Though pulling a knife was the only time a kid needed a trip downtown, not when they burped in class or talked back at their teacher.
The fear of lawsuits is just one of the reasons why schools call the law and start expulsion procedures at the drop of a hat. It is easy to just cuff and send the kids downtown than let the educators themselves deal with minor problems or even when a kid accidentally brings a bad thing to school with no intention to use it on anyone.
They think: if we just gave this kid detention and other parents learn about it from their kids, things will be thrown, parents will be waiting to let it out. "How dare you just gave Billy detention for that knife he had in his backpack. I do not care if it was an accident. You should have had the cops arrest him. I am going to sue if you do not call the cops and throw Billy's rear end in jail now." Really, if I was a principal I have to calm this lady down. I have to try to give her my reasons I did not call the cops. I talked to his parents. The boy and his daddy take backpacks to their work. Daddy had a nail file in his, but that morning he took Billy's pack by mistakes. I do know if you know this, he opened the pack and saw his kid's books and papers. Billy opened his and found his daddy's ipad and memos. His daddy even got to the front office the same time Billy's pal noticed the nail file and told the teacher. Billy was sent down to the office to see me. There was daddy with the other backpack! I have to say we all had a good laugh over coffee and donuts. I just gave the boy him janitor duty for a week and that was that.
Ms. Judy would be ashamed she got paranoid about a kid who never had as much as a police record. Accidents happen, she said sadly. I got to say I am sorry I got mad without knowing why I am mad at Billy or you, Mr. Smith. Glad we talked. I do not get out much anymore.
The good thing that comes out of that talk is that Ms. Judy's kids now hang out with Billy. The only thing remotely dangerous is sledding down Suicide Hill on their sleds or jumping over fences.
The above is just a story I made up, but it could be true. Though some people cannot be ever persuaded that the majority of kids are decent people to be around with 24/7. It is those problem kids we need to look out for. These are the ones that need more supervision, control, reform and other ways to prevent further trouble for themselves and others. Though "problem child" can be anyone... even good decent kids could be labeled that whenever an adult gets that fear.
When I was a kid, a cop would not make me scared half to death. Whenever I seen one at school, it was just the cop who comes to the school only when he was needed. Most of the time, he was there to give advice on crime prevention, when to call for help and other benign events. He and his people would only be needed for their real job when some idiot really acted up. Though pulling a knife was the only time a kid needed a trip downtown, not when they burped in class or talked back at their teacher.
The fear of lawsuits is just one of the reasons why schools call the law and start expulsion procedures at the drop of a hat. It is easy to just cuff and send the kids downtown than let the educators themselves deal with minor problems or even when a kid accidentally brings a bad thing to school with no intention to use it on anyone.
They think: if we just gave this kid detention and other parents learn about it from their kids, things will be thrown, parents will be waiting to let it out. "How dare you just gave Billy detention for that knife he had in his backpack. I do not care if it was an accident. You should have had the cops arrest him. I am going to sue if you do not call the cops and throw Billy's rear end in jail now." Really, if I was a principal I have to calm this lady down. I have to try to give her my reasons I did not call the cops. I talked to his parents. The boy and his daddy take backpacks to their work. Daddy had a nail file in his, but that morning he took Billy's pack by mistakes. I do know if you know this, he opened the pack and saw his kid's books and papers. Billy opened his and found his daddy's ipad and memos. His daddy even got to the front office the same time Billy's pal noticed the nail file and told the teacher. Billy was sent down to the office to see me. There was daddy with the other backpack! I have to say we all had a good laugh over coffee and donuts. I just gave the boy him janitor duty for a week and that was that.
Ms. Judy would be ashamed she got paranoid about a kid who never had as much as a police record. Accidents happen, she said sadly. I got to say I am sorry I got mad without knowing why I am mad at Billy or you, Mr. Smith. Glad we talked. I do not get out much anymore.
The good thing that comes out of that talk is that Ms. Judy's kids now hang out with Billy. The only thing remotely dangerous is sledding down Suicide Hill on their sleds or jumping over fences.
The above is just a story I made up, but it could be true. Though some people cannot be ever persuaded that the majority of kids are decent people to be around with 24/7. It is those problem kids we need to look out for. These are the ones that need more supervision, control, reform and other ways to prevent further trouble for themselves and others. Though "problem child" can be anyone... even good decent kids could be labeled that whenever an adult gets that fear.
A Crash Course in Juvenile Misjustice
Where did we all go wrong in the field of juvenile justice? I am sorry to say that it was over forty years in the making. The current system began to implode in the mid the late 1970's. This was a backlash at the 1960's, directed at two groups that were empowered by that decade but did not take the time to even notice the system changing to reflect that reality.
The first group affected was all minority groups. The old saying, "if black, stay back" coined by Michael Harrington back in the late 1950's in "The Other America" was so much in force in the seventies. White people, having lost the struggle for racial intergration, started to enact laws that would negatively affect the minority community for years to come. Starting with youth, the whites passed laws that made it more easy for prosecutors to charge all youth as adults for certain crimes. Largely limited to serious, capital crimes, the laws saw thousands of youths of all colors and creeds moved in the adult system than ever before. The laws mostly affected non-whites due to their innate limitations. One of them being the innate reactions by whites to blacks in general.
Then there was youth in general, especially the poor and minorities. They were empowered with great strides in the right to vote, greater recognition of their civil rights and a sense of civic responsibility. That changed with the seventies when a bad economy, compined with a spike in crime brought another wave of unfounded fear in the adult community, the ones that make the laws of the land. By the eighties, times got a little better for the country, but not enough to sate the scared people. Their unfounded fears of violent youth, more specificly minority youth continued.
The ninties brought this unfounded fear to a head. This was the era where the boogieman became the superpreditor. Suddenly, laws were strengthened to protect against this new emerging menace which never came and never would come. Most of the country thanked these stregthened laws to bring down the crime rates in the late 1990's, but was not the real reason.
The real reason for the drop in crime, as described in the book, "Freakinomics", publish the following decade is the legalization of abortion via "Roe vs. Wade" in 1973. The book decribed the phenominon, saying that because of this empowerment to females, unwanted babies were aborted instead of brought into this world to be neglected, abused and empowered to break the law as a result of their parent's indifference to their upbringing.
It seems like something out of the Twighlight Zone, but for all those left to be born, the paranoia hangs like a hammer to smash their dreams at the slightest hint of wrongdoing.
The first group affected was all minority groups. The old saying, "if black, stay back" coined by Michael Harrington back in the late 1950's in "The Other America" was so much in force in the seventies. White people, having lost the struggle for racial intergration, started to enact laws that would negatively affect the minority community for years to come. Starting with youth, the whites passed laws that made it more easy for prosecutors to charge all youth as adults for certain crimes. Largely limited to serious, capital crimes, the laws saw thousands of youths of all colors and creeds moved in the adult system than ever before. The laws mostly affected non-whites due to their innate limitations. One of them being the innate reactions by whites to blacks in general.
Then there was youth in general, especially the poor and minorities. They were empowered with great strides in the right to vote, greater recognition of their civil rights and a sense of civic responsibility. That changed with the seventies when a bad economy, compined with a spike in crime brought another wave of unfounded fear in the adult community, the ones that make the laws of the land. By the eighties, times got a little better for the country, but not enough to sate the scared people. Their unfounded fears of violent youth, more specificly minority youth continued.
The ninties brought this unfounded fear to a head. This was the era where the boogieman became the superpreditor. Suddenly, laws were strengthened to protect against this new emerging menace which never came and never would come. Most of the country thanked these stregthened laws to bring down the crime rates in the late 1990's, but was not the real reason.
The real reason for the drop in crime, as described in the book, "Freakinomics", publish the following decade is the legalization of abortion via "Roe vs. Wade" in 1973. The book decribed the phenominon, saying that because of this empowerment to females, unwanted babies were aborted instead of brought into this world to be neglected, abused and empowered to break the law as a result of their parent's indifference to their upbringing.
It seems like something out of the Twighlight Zone, but for all those left to be born, the paranoia hangs like a hammer to smash their dreams at the slightest hint of wrongdoing.
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