Nine-year-old Aliahna Lemmon of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, joined a too-long list of murdered children at the tail end of 2011. When she was supposed to be looking forward to time off of school for winter break; and to the excitement of holiday celebrations, she was instead being beaten to death by her babysitter on the night of December 23. He plead not guilty in court today, even after detailing his act to police just a couple of weeks ago.
The horror of this story mirrors one earlier in December that occurred just outside Atlanta, Georgia, when seven-year-old Jorelys Rivera was brutally raped and murdered in her apartment complex. Police arrested an employee of the complex several days later; and he was indicted on 13 counts yesterday.
These, and other stories like them, are the ones that send chills up our collective spines. How can anyone commit these unthinkable acts on an innocent child? Jorelys and Aliahna are just two of so many names that will haunt us through history. Adam Walsh, Polly Klaas, Amber Hagerman, Samantha Runion and so many others have a place in the hearts of all parents, because when one child is taken in this way, when one child is brutalized by an adult, it causes every parent to grieve.
How do we fix it? What do we do to stop it? The answers don’t come easy. Over time, our justice system has devised myriad approaches. We put the perpetrators in jail, we castrate them, we make them wear tracking bracelets on their ankles, we paint the Scarlet Letter “Registered Sex Offender” on their chests. None of these approaches has proven to be the solution we all seek.
But why? The reason is simple. Every once in awhile (as in the cases above), one of these monsters will commit an act so heinous that he is hunted down and punished for it; but most of the time, these men operate in the shadows. Most of the time, these men are Jekyll and Hyde. By day, they’re your pharmacist, your son’s scout leader, your daughter’s tutor, your husband, your father, your brother. And by night they’re a monster, praying on children (over 90% of the time it’s children they know) and scaring, threatening or bribing them into silence. Most of the time, they don’t have the Scarlet Letter because most of the time their victims don't speak out. Most of the time, these men are not caught.
So if we can’t stop them by catching them, how can we stop them? The answer lies with the children; and the answer lies with the adults who love them. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and pretend that this isn’t happening. Adult victims can no longer allow their molesters to go free; and child victims can no longer stay silent.
Aliahna’s grandfather was a registered sex offender who molested a child in his care over a multi-year period before he was brought to justice. It’s very doubtful that she was his first victim. It’s a good bet that there were many, many others before he targeted someone who was willing to speak out.
The only way to stop these men is to give the victims a voice, to tell children to shout it from the rooftop if anyone ever tries to touch their privates, or tries to have them touch his. The only way to stop these men is to bring the truth out of the shadows.
That will happen when the 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys who are victimized find their collective voice and shout “Not One More Child” over and over and over again until all the rest of us stand up and shout it with them. When we do, maybe then we’ll see change, maybe then Jorelys, Aliahna, and all of the other innocents will rest in peace.
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