Just last week we reported on a 9 year old girl from Missouri, Elizabeth Olten being murdered by a 15 year old female and they have decided to charge her as an adult on murder. I was beside myself when I heard that a 15 year old child could have done this, thinking what is going on here.
Now I read this morning where another child has been found dead. 4 year old Alex Christopher Mercado from Mendota, California was found inside a clothes dryer and a 14 year old boy that lives in the home is being held and will be charged in the killing of the child.
Alex’s parents reported him missing Friday afternoon which set off a wide search with 50 volunteers helping. Around 3 am Saturday morning the sheriff’s office started searching in the fields and waterways and canals in the area. About 6 hours later they began searching again in the neighborhood which is when they found his little body.
Neighbors claim the home where the child was found belongs to a woman believed to be in her 30’s and her teenage son. It is said that this woman used to baby-sit Alex and his siblings.
A cause of death has not been announced yet. Sheriff Margaret Mims said the child was placed inside the dryer after he had been killed but no other details were given about how he died.
It is bad enough when we have sex offenders attaching our innocent children or some deranged person that loses control of their tempers only to take it out on a child that can’t fight back but now we have to worry about children killing other children. Is it a power trip in their minds telling them they are more powerful and to prove it they kill the weaker ones? Is something like this hereditary? Is it in their genes? Too often when a child lashes out it is blamed on their upbringing but I can’t always say that is true. Too many these days have been raised properly and still end up as killers or criminals in one way or another.
Do children like Adji Desir, Somer Thompson, Haleigh Cummings, Caylee Anthony or Elizabeth Olten and now Alex Marcado deserve what has happened to them? (God the list keeps getting longer) Poor little Adji and Haleigh are still out there somewhere missing. NO they didn’t ask for this. They had just as much a right to live in this world as we do. This is so unfair.
Kids that become involved in drugs don’t always come from families that do drugs. I blame the laws we have more than anything. If our laws were stricter it might make a small difference at least. When someone is sentenced for life then that is what they should get. If the sentence is 20 years, forget the possibility of getting out on parole. I have seen someone go to jail for a minor charge and spend more time behind bars than someone in there for killing someone. Where is the logic in that?
I personally knew someone that had been charged with a DUI 5 times and three of those times were for a first offense charges because she had the guts to stand up in court and tell the judge it was her first offense and the courts didn’t even bother to check her records. The funny part was the last time she stood before a judge she told him it was her first offense and at the same time she was on probation for another ‘first offense’ charge and hadn’t even paid the first dime on her fine. They didn’t even catch her. She was on probation for two first offense DUI’s in the same parish in Louisiana and NO one caught it. Then to top this all off she walked out with a valid driver’s license. So what is wrong with that picture?
OK I know a DUI is nothing to compare to killing someone but my point is our court systems need to be more accurate. They release people that should never see the light of day again and they hold people on a minor charge such as stealing a pack of gum or something simple as that and hold them for so many days not releasing them until they serve their full time. Something is wrong with our court system and I don’t understand how they can’t see that.
My prayers are with Alex Mercado’s family. I can’t begin to imagine what they are going through right now. My heart really goes out to them. I pray that someday they can find some peace.
Jan Barrett
As a favor to our readers I am posting these web sites:
Stop the abuse and murder of the children in the U.S.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/16/stop-the-abuse-and-murder-of-the-children-in-the-us
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/change-sex-offender-laws
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14 users commented in " 4 Year Old’s Body Found, 14 Year Old Arrested and Charged "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI have signed the petition to stop abuse and murder. I feel for this family. We have to find a way to stop these crimes on children!! This is truely heart breaking. Praying for this family.
Couldn’t agree more. A 20 year sentence is a 20 year sentence. Period. I live in a area where violence is a way of life. When a murder or rape occurs, and the perp is caught, he/she almost always has a record of other violent crimes. Many times the offender has already beaten several people or used a weapon to commit a robbery. The courts are too lenient. American urban areas are suffering an epidemic of violence and much of it is against kids. The state I live in is awash with child molesters who are on record. They seldom lose the urge and many go right on molesting again and again. I can count at least three who have gone on to kill their next victim(s). If these scumbags had remained in jail, their victims would be alive and well. Intentional harming of a child is a crime that should be punished by life without parole.
the justice system lets loose OJ and robert Blake for murder and you complain about some poor girl with a dui? shame on u
Hey, A Little Bird told me said: The girl with the DUI was just being used as an example of how lax the courts are, by not checking the backgrounds of those charged with a crime, and giving out much lighter punishments. The DUI girl was just an example that the courts are not doing their job correctly, and that the DUI case, was not an as heavy duty case as a murder case. So if the courts can not handle a lighter case, it goes to show that they surly do not know how to handle a heavy duty case correctly. You read and took her story the wrong way. So, you SHOULD NOT say “shame on u”, to Jan. Her story was good
I live in Missouri, and hearing about Elizabeth hurt me so bad. To think a id my age killed a 4-year-old is breaking my heart. What kind of world have we come to?
jan,
this is absolutely heartbreaking. thank you for writing the articles you do. i think, bringing attention to the fact we need to do a better job protecting our children, will make a difference.
my deepest sympathies go to Alex Mercado’s family and friends.
Jan, thank you for the article, I know this is heartbreaking, and I so wish I had answers for why these things occur, and how they could be stopped. I don’t know. My heart goes out to the Family of this little one. I have recently heard on TV, that it appears a war on women and children has begun.. I think it began many many years ago, and its just truly coming to light, and has our attention.
I have a 14-year-old daughter and to think that she could be capable of something as horrendous as this is just astronomical but I’m sure that the parents of these other 14-year-old children thought the same thing. I’ve had extensive conversations with my children about the dangers of repressed anger and holding in feelings. I do all that I can to be available for my children when they need me and I try to know where they are and what they’re doing at all times but you can’t be with them every second of the day. It scares me to think that I could allow my children to walk down the street to their friends’ houses and never see them again. What a horrific world!
In my state they don’t have parole, they have something instead called determinate sentencing.
Under determinate sentencing all prisoners except murderers are eligible to earn up to half off their sentences but ONLY measured objectively by their own good behavior - not some politically appointed board.
Every day they are good, they earn a day off their sentence. (Some serious non murder cases like aggravated rape can only earn 15% off and murders as of 1993 can not earn any time off.)
My only issue with this is…just how hard is it to behave in prison when you’re locked up?
katfish, I am sure you are not so naiive as to be unaware of the violence in prisons, gangs, beatings, rapes, murders and riots? You didn’t really mean “How hard is it to behave in prison?”
The “determinate sentencing” you describe sounds completely self-serving on the part of the prisons. I understand it. They want to avoid the violence. It’s a nuisance and costs the corrections system money.
But who pays the price? The public. Sure, the prisoners MIGHT behave and therefore have little to fear from each other, but when they get out?
OMG! There’s nothing to protect us from them.
Hi, scareypoet! I agree with you! You said, “Intentional harming of a child is a crime that should be punished by life without parole.”
We do not want those criminals to walk free again. To even have the CHANCE to molest, rape, abuse or murder anyone - especially a child again.
To me this isn’t even a question of how good or bad our parole system is. We just do not want them back in society. The penalty for hurting a child should be LWOP.
LWOP yes!!!! Think how many victims would have been spared if all these repeat offenders had of been sentenced to LWOP the first time.
Even when perpetrators do end up in jail - - - -whoops!- - - - they are set free due to an “administrative error” in a clerk’s office. This has happened in my county. The perp is not sought after. Perhaps administrative errors are more frequent than expected. Why would any agency involve yet other agencies to undo embarassing “administrative errors?
I agree that the laws should be stricter but America’s laws are better then the laws in some other countries. If Elizabeth Olten and Alex Christopher Mercado had been murdered in Canada, they wouldn’t stand a chance at getting justice. Their killers would have been tried as kids, had their identities protected forever and likely placed in a juvenile detention center until they where 18. After that they would be free to go on with their life like nothing happened.
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