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We don't like being the bearer of bad news, but when bad news is essentially all you find, one doesn't have much of a choice. Thus, we were saddened and disgusted to read that a woman in Wilmington was found guilty of accepting $10,000 to look the other way as Lawrence Lee Southwood, a 69-year-old convicted sex offender, molested her disabled, wheelchair-bound 14-year-old daughter. She has been sentenced to 65 months in prison for obstruction of justice and concealing a fugitive. Southwood, who has a history of sexual and violent crimes, was sentenced to 104 years for this molestation case.
The woman's attorney feels that the sentence is too harsh and will appeal for a shorter stay in prison. Her sister also feels that keeping the mother from her children for 5 years is unfair to the children; she spoke on her behalf saying that "it would do the people of the State of Illinois no good to incarcerate this woman and cause further damage to her children."
Furthermore, the children's foster care case manager noted that when the mother was barred from seeing her children for the nine months following her arrest, the children's behavior declined, and there were "regular disturbances." Once the mother was allowed to see her children, their behavior turned around.
Before we continue, we would like to point out that back in 2003 this woman crashed her car while driving drunk, with her children inside, sending two to the hospital with broken bones. Now, we understand that removing a mother (and/or father) from her children would be traumatic, but when the very person the children "need" is the person who has caused them harm, where is the rationalization to keep that person around? And do the kids just need the consistency and comfort of having their mother around, despite the harmful choices she makes?
On the one hand, we angrily shake our fists in the air and severely chastise this woman for the horrible things she has allowed to happen to her kids, insisting that her sentence was not harsh enough. On the other, we are supremely concerned for these children who seem to be in a lose-lose situation.
We have so many questions circling in our head, and very few answers. What do you think? What's the best thing for these kids?
Image via kudzuplanet.
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The appropriate thing is to put the children in the care of a non-monster. Whether that means grandparents, neighbors, foster-homes: whatever.
Just keep them away from their creepy biological mother. Simply bearing offspring is no guarantee that a mother won't eat them (so to speak).
Agreed. If you ask me, five years isn't nearly enough. In the long-term, her children will be FAR off better without her...
Take the kids from her, period. No excuses, no BS. In my opinion, she should get more than 5 years.
Anyone defending her actions, seeking to mitigate them or feeling they are not worthy of punishment needs to spend some time talking to victims of child sexual abuse. This is a crime that breeds more crime.
Victims tend to either become abusers themselves, perpetuating the cycle further, or are more likely to slip into self destructive behavior which puts them into a position to be further victimized. I have no tolerance for people who perform these acts of abuse nor do I have any for those who facilitate such acts. There are no "sides" to this kind of case. Was a child assaulted? Yes? Then any adults involved go to prison for a long time, end of story.
As for the children, the state has proven over and over again that it's more interested in providing high paying jobs to politically connected losers than it is in protecting kids who have already suffered enough at the hands of the adults who were supposed to protect them. That said, parents such as the one in this case who betray their children in such fundamental ways, should be separated from their children for good.
All that idealistic, rainbows and unicorns "uniting families" malarkey has been shown time and again to be detrimental for the kids involved and only serves the parents and their morally bankrupt "counselors". In the short term, sure the behavior of the kids will suffer after being removed from the fumbling hands of their parents. The kids don't know anything else, they don't understand what is happening, so they will naturally gravitate back to even the worst parent. However, if they are entrusted to people who actually nurture and work to earn their trust, the kids will thrive away from their natural parents.
You paid $10,000 to molest a 14 year old in a wheelchair? I have no qualms with letting you rot till your last day in the worst prison in the country.
Everyone has their price.
Hang on. She took money to allow some pervert to rape her daughter? And she should be able to ever see her children again...because why, again?
This woman does not deserve her children. She should never be allowed to see them again. Their behavior will improve the longer they are around normal, responsible adults who will teach them right from wrong. Get them some counseling, but don't let that woman near them ever again. 5 years is not long enough for a woman who accpeted payment to allow her daughter to be molested.
Oh, man. I'm almost embarrassed my photo is part of this tawdry tale of horrific parenting. Believe me, the parents of the little kid in the red coat were only steps away out of frame!
She shouldn't see her children, and neither should her relatives. This insanity is bred in the family, afterall.
I believe in a one shot and you're done approach to sexual crimes. I also believe in compassion and as full a life as possible for perpetrators, knowing the vast majority are recreating their own abusice situations.
If we didn't have counter-productive policies for crimes such as minor drug offenses there would be more resources available to create such programs. Nevermind addressing the societal issues that help create sexual criminals, that is something Americans will ever deal with honestly.
I wonder if there isn't a way to find out who lobbies for certain laws v. others? Interesting to find out if businesses who use prison labor or alchohol and drug companies have anything to do with the crackdown on certain vices v. other.
She'll get what's coming to her in jail. Those will be the harshes 32.5 months of her life. Any crime against children is not a badge of honor in jail and she will be beaten daily. She better sign up for library or kitchen duty really quick.
And while the children's behavior changed in their hands, that may show that she's a good disciplinarian with the worst grip on common sense in the world. Either way, I need a Goddamn license to go fishing yet this piece of shit doesn't need one to be a parent.
***Not a religious message*** All you athiests and non-believers out there have to really wonder that someone like this ends up in the same place we do.