Say It Ain’t So

We like to think that child abusers and child killers are monsters who are easily identifiable and, even more importantly, different from the rest of us “normal” people.  A recent news story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reminds us that the reality is more complicated. 

The alleged crime is sadly familiar: a young man was arrested in connection with the death of his girlfriend’s two-year-old son, Karmari J. Curtis, whom the suspect was babysitting.  The boyfriend brought the toddler’s body to the emergency room and claimed that the child had drowned accidentally while in the bath.  Since the lifeless child was reportedly dry and completely dressed, medical personnel and the police doubted the story, and the medical examiner’s report on the cause of death is currently sealed pending charges.  At the time of the toddler’s death, the suspect, Corey Benson, was out on bail awaiting trial on charges of physical abuse of a child and child neglect.  The previous charges stem from an incident in October when Benson admitted to playing tackle football with the same child and doing elbow and leg drops to him afterwards.  The toddler suffered life-threatening injuries, including a lacerated liver, as the result of that incident.  Benson was under a court order to have no contact with the boy after the October charges.

Everything about this tragic incident is ghastly, but here I want to focus on one particularly chilling aspect of this situation: the suspect, Corey Benson, is a young man of great potential who seemed to have beaten the odds against him. 

One of six children, at the age of two he lost his father in a drug-related incident.  He was raised in a tough Milwaukee neighborhood by a single mother.  Although he was in and out of foster care, Benson excelled in school and was the valedictorian of his high school class.  He won a scholarship to Purdue University and graduated from there with an accounting degree.  He overcame the odds; he seemed to have such a bright future and now . . . this.

Research shows that people who were abused or neglected as children are at significantly higher risk of later becoming child abusers themselves, although contrary to popular belief the majority of abused children do not later become abusers.  Adults who were abused as children are also at significantly higher risk of experiencing other difficulties in life such as addiction, relationship problems, and depression.  Yet here, too, there are many formerly abused people who go on to live happy and productive lives.  Much research has attempted to identify why some formerly abused adults have happy life outcomes, while others lead tragic and unhappy lives rife with problems.  We hope that if we can discover the factors that save some abused children from an unhappy fate, we can reproduce those factors for other children and save them, too.

Essentially, child-saving factors can be either internal or external.  Internal factors are individual characteristics of the abused child, like intelligence, that make him more resilient and better able to seek out and get necessary help or affection. External factors are opportunities for the child to have essential developmental needs met by persons other than the maltreating parents.  School, counseling, and mentoring programs are examples of efforts that are thought to give maltreated kids some of the love and support that they have not been able to receive at home. 

We don’t know what happened to Corey Benson when he was growing up, but the fact that he was in and out of foster care suggests there were serious abuse or neglect issues in his family.  He clearly has some characteristics that would improve his chances of breaking the cycle of maltreatment, such as intelligence and a reportedly strong work ethic.  We don’t know what kind of services he received, or why they could not somehow have prevented the current tragedy.  Benson has not been convicted of either the beating or the killing, and he is innocent until proven guilty.  The evidence against him, though, is troubling.  Benson’s admissions in the police record about the October incident at the very least show a troubling lack of understanding about how to take care of a child, what with descriptions of tackle football and acting on “aggression and adrenaline” that built up as the suspect played with the toddler. 

Although our society has made some progress in identifying ways to help maltreated children live healthy and productive lives, the death of little Karmari reminds us that there is a lot we do not know about how and when to intervene.  We have the continual hope that if we get to maltreated children earlier we can save even more of them from harm.  But sometimes we can’t save them, and we do not yet fully know why not.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Sonya Bice

    Thank you for the thoughtful post on this tragedy. I read this story in disbelief and horror. I appreciate your insights.

  2. Joy mullen

    I knew corey from middle school and am saddened ann depressed to hear of such a tragedy. I also grew up in foster care; it is hard but we all can overcome if we are given the opportunity to do so. I keep him and the victim’s family in my prayers; I actually work at Kamari day care center so this is a real hard pill to swallow…

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.