Imagine this, detectives visit a house to do some routine questioning about a missing person which ends up in a hostage negotiation, standoff, shoot out, and the discovery of a severed head and hands of the missing person who was once friends with the suspect. This is not a television show, but actual reality for the friends and neighbors of Chad Moretz (suspect who was shot on his front porch by a sniper after the standoff) and Charlie Ray (the victim who's head and hands were discovered in the house after the standoff and the rest of his body in a storage unit in Jasper, SC.). NBC News reported the story Jan. 21, 2013 under their US Headline's page. This deadly confrontation was not the first time Moretz found himself in trouble with the law. According to the report, this was at "least the fourth time in 18 months deputies had gone to see Moretz. Neighbors and relatives had accused him of chasing his wife with a machete, threatening to kill a man with a handgun and stabbing a dog with a pocket knife." But none compared to the standoff that resulted in a sniper shooting him on his front porch.
There were other points made in the story. Moretz was struggling with Tourette's syndrome (the video above talks about the myths of Tourette's syndrome) and the murder of his mother (in which his father is scheduled to stand trial for in April). His wife told authorities that "her husband and Ray had been drinking and talking, then started arguing. She said Moretz grabbed a knife and started repeatedly stabbing Ray in their kitchen." The autopsy showed that Chalire Ray had been stabbed more than 40 times and had been dead for at least a week before the authorities found his body.
In light of all the media coverage about death surrounding firearms one needs to realize there are more deadly crimes out there that are not as widely publicized but just as vicious. It brings us full circle back to the statement that we need to look more into the mental health of invidiuals who exhibit behaviors that are spiraling downward not what weapon they use to perform the act.
What are your thoughts? Do you think a more proactive approach to preventing crime in this great nation is about limiting access to guns or more about identifying potential people who are exhibiting violent tendancies and giving them the help they need to get better? In this case investigators believe that Moretz acted alone in the murder of Charlie Ray, but his wife and brother in law are now facing charges of concealing the death. Read the full story here.
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