In case you haven’t heard, Shawna Forde has been sentenced to death for the murders of Brisenia and Raul Junior Flores:
Ms. Thomas and fellow jurors were told during the trial that Ms. Forde and accomplices gained entry to the Flores home with the expectation of finding drugs there, which could be sold to finance Minutemen American Defense’s border-control operations. Finding no drugs, the intruders made away with inexpensive jewelry but, prosecutors said, not before fatally shooting young Brisenia and Mr. Flores. Both victims were American citizens born in the US.
“I see Shawna Forde as someone who would have liked to have been the face of a movement,” Thomas says.
Arriving at the death sentence was difficult, Thomas says, but it was aided by a picture of Brisenia presented during trial that was etched in her mind: “A little girl, with bright red fingernails; she’s wearing a white T-shirt and turquoise-colored pajama bottoms. She’s on a love seat. It’s a perfect, innocent picture until you realize that half of her face has been blown off.”
Read Terry Greene Sterling’s jailhouse interview with Forde (from last week) here:
I know in her mind,” Forde said of Gonzalez, “I am guilty and she hates me. I know her tragedy is extremely sad.” But on the other hand, she said “people shouldn’t deal drugs if they have kids.” (No drugs were found in the trailer.)
Forde told me she’d “lost a daughter” and she knows from experience Gonzalez will feel pain “the rest of her life” and her “tragedy is extremely sad.” “I wish I could say I was sorry it happened,” Forde said. “I am not sorry on my behalf because I didn’t do it.”
Monstrous. I don’t think anyone deserves the death penalty, but I am entirely unsurprised that the jury decided in favor of it.
From the Arizona Daily Star:
A Pima County jury convicted Shawna Forde today of two counts of first-degree murder in the May 30, 2009 deaths of Arivaca residents Raul Junior Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia.
The jury also convicted Forde of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of Flores’ wife, Gina Gonzalez, as well as related aggravated assault and robbery counts.
Gonzlez started crying as soon as the first guilty verdict, the killing of her daughter, was read just before noon in a packed courtroom at Pima County Superior Court.
The jury deliberated for seven hours over two days. Jurors will now be asked if the death penalty ought to be considered.
Seven hour deliberation, with a verdict that took ten minutes to read. More info here.
Warning: GRAR ahead.
Last month, Slate published an article titled The Decline of the Serial Killer. “Statistics on serial murder are hard to come by—the FBI doesn’t keep numbers, according to a spokeswoman—but the data we do have suggests serial murders peaked in the 1980s and have been declining ever since,” the author states.
Is this really so? I’m not a criminologist. But neither is the guy who wrote this. And of the two “experts” he quotes*, one of them authored a shitty, shitty book that offers little more than pop-psych analysis and “insight” from people like James Dobson and Dr. Joyce Brothers. We don’t have a lot of perspective on what motivates serial killers, which is why the criminal profilers you see on TV are basically snake oil salesmen. Anyhow, I’m not here to discredit these bozos, I’m just saying: Just because the US crime rate dropped overall and you have a shoebox full of clippings that confirms what you already believe doesn’t necessarily prove that there are fewer active serial killers.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say that yes, there are fewer active serial killers now. But here’s where the article gets into some happy horseshit.
I should just stop riding the bus:
The other day on the B62 bus (a line that wends its way through nearly all the hipster enclaves of Brooklyn) I saw a hipster guy with a giant ironic mustache and this elaborate Hitler-bangs-side-part hairdo, plastered low to his forehead with a prodigious amount of pomade. From the front it was, momentarily, bus-fascinating.
And then! He turned his head, revealing a large and partly concealed bald spot. The monument to vainglory and fixative resins. The Potemkin Coiffure.
In case you’re having a hard time telling them apart, THIS blog is where I hate people who deserve it. THAT blog is where I hate people who (probably) don’t deserve it.
Where did she go?
I am lazy. If you're bored, go visit my tumblr, updated daily with other people's witticisms and erudition.Also by me
Archives
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- December 2005
- October 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- October 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- October 2003
- September 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003
- April 2003
- March 2003
- January 2003
- December 2002
- November 2002
- October 2002
- September 2002
- August 2002