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.