Yes, parents need to be vigilant and children need to be educated over and over again, but we too have a responsibility...
Smith, the animal that killed Carlie, had been arrested at least 13 times in Florida. He had been arrested for domestic violence, carrying a concealed weapon and trying to kidnap a young woman in neighboring Manatee County in 1997. Despite testimony from a 20-year-old woman, who said Smith knocked her to the ground and threatened to cut her before she fled for help, he was acquitted of the kidnapping charge after days of testimony in 1998. Apparently the jury believed him over the victim when he testified it was a misunderstanding and he was only trying to keep the woman from running into traffic. When the police found him, he was hiding in the bushes as all innocent people do. He has had convictions for heroin and cocaine, being sent to prison for a year and released Jan. 1, 2003. Within two weeks of that release, he was arrested again on another cocaine charge. Despite his criminal history, a judge placed him on probation in March of last year.
If this pig had been put in prison where he belonged back in 1998, this child would be home sleeping peacefully in her bed with a family that adores, excuse me, adored her. The problem was not that Carlie went unsupervised. She was only 5 minutes away from her home, her father even left the house to go pick her up. The people in Florida may correct me, but the neighborhood she lived in is a very good one, not known for crime. In no way should that family carry any guilt or pain for what happened to this beautiful child. The people who should feel guilt are those jurors who found Smith innocent back in 1998 and the judge who let the verdict stand.
There is something terribly wrong with our judicial system when the rights of these men, and women, are held in higher regard than the lives of our children. And there is something terribly wrong with us, as a nation, when people are more enraged over Janet Jackson's Super Bowl performance than they are with these vile, lower than scum child killing predators.
Didn't mean to get on my soap box, but I'm a parent who can't imagine a world without my son or the unbearable grief and emptiness Carlie's parents are feeling and will continue to feel for the rest of their lives. I just pray she went quickly and unknowingly and that Smith is made to feel a long and painful death...