It seems like we ought to at least try

I hope everyone is doing ok. I’ve been very depressed these last few months but I start psychotherapy again tomorrow. I’m really hoping that will help.

I’ve just been really struggling to get anything done. Tired all the time, too tired to do much, but at the same time not sleepy. Then I feel like a useless slug for my lack of productivity and get even more depressed.

Today is the first day in a bit that I’ve felt well enough to get anything properly done. Instead of just lying there playing on my phone and feeling horrible.

I found a report of an awful case in Nepal where a four-year-old girl was walking home from school through the woods when a 16-year-old boy, who also attended her school, grabbed her and attempted to sexually assault her. He didn’t get very far, just lifted her dress when she screamed and he slashed her throat and ran away. Fortunately the wound was relatively superficial, as far as attempted murders go, and the girl survived. The report, titled “Futile Sexual Homicide in Nepal“, describes her injuries and the treatment in medical detail with photos. Considering the resource-poor setting, I thought they gave the girl very good care.

I was quite appalled that someone as young as sixteen was going around already trying to rape and kill little girls. I mean, I’ve heard about this sort of thing before, but I get appalled every time.

I posted the report on Reddit, and remarked that the offender needed psychological treatment very badly and he needed it now. Then I had a few people saying I seemed disturbingly concerned about the offender’s well-being, as opposed to the victim’s.

I look at it from a utilitarian perspective: the girl got the help she needed, now we must help this boy. Because they can’t keep him locked in prison forever — even life terms in Nepal are fixed at 20 years — and it would be nice if, when he got out, he was less dangerous than when he came in. I know juvenile sexual offenders can sometimes be salvaged with appropriate treatment and become law-abiding and productive adults with normal sex lives. It would benefit the community as well as this boy if he were to get treatment.

I can understand the reaction, though, because of the brutality of the attack on the little girl. It does make you want to throw away the key.

And sadly, because of the aforementioned resource-poor setting, I doubt the boy is going to get the kind of treatment he needs to contain his urges to attack people. So his life will go down the drain, more or less, and he’ll try to take more people with him. Very sad situation.

Most people weren’t yelling at me about my concern for the boy, though. They were just mad that I said the attack on the four-year-old was carried out by “another child” and they were expecting like an eight-year-old, not a sixteen-year-old. I should probably have said “teenager.” I will make a note of this.

And now, in the missing persons news:

1. Somebody in Texas is claiming to be Diamond Bradley, a three-year-old girl who disappeared with her ten-year-old sister Tionda from Chicago back in 2001. I doubt this is the real Diamond, but presumably this will be investigated.
2. The police will start searching a reservoir tomorrow, trying to find the body of Madeleine McCann. Suspect Cristian Brueckner had visited the reservoir. I don’t know if they have an specific reason to think Madeleine’s there, besides the fact that he had visited.
3. In New Zealand, there will be a hearing to decide whether John Breckenridge and his eleven-year-old stepson Mike Zhao-Breckenridge, are dead or not. John picked up his stepson from school in 2015 and a week later they found the car in the ocean surf; it had gone off a cliff. No bodies. Mike’s mother hopes he’s still alive.
4. Christine Lester has been identified. The young Navajo woman, who was 24 when she disappeared in 1987, was found lying on the side of a rural road in California just sixteen days after she was last seen. Her murder is still an open investigation.
5. Peggy Anne Sweeten‘s husband James, who as far as I know is the only person of interest in her disappearance, has killed himself. This may or may not be connected to the discovery of a burn barrel which may or may not have contained Peggy’s remains.
6. Because there is no justice in this world, Ronnie Busick is somehow out of prison despite his involvement in the murder of four people and the kidnapping and rape of two of them. I’ve written before about my thoughts on the Freeman/Bible case. My opinions have not changed.
7. It’s been five years since the abductions of Luis and Kahmila Ramirez, though this is the first I’ve heard of the case. It was a family abduction case. The kids were in foster care and their parents, Luis Herrera-Ramirez and Andrea “Vanessa” Ramirez, kidnapped them during a supervised visitation. They may be in Mexico.
8. Patrick Michael Combs has been located. Cattle ranchers in Washakie County, Wyoming found his skeletal remains.