A Call To Harms

As most of you have heard by now, the reprehensible Steven Hayes was sentenced to death for the murder of Dr. William Petit's wife and two daughters. If all he had done is murder them, that would have been bad enough. But it was so much more gruesome than that. Murder simply wasn't enough to fulfill the dark, filthy voids in this purely evil man. Dr. Petit's wife was raped, and strangled, his 11 year old daughter was sexually assaulted and burned to death, and his 17 year old daughter was burned to death also. All the while, Dr. Petit was bound, beaten nearly to death by a baseball bat, and forced to watch the monstrous crimes against his wife take place. By some miracle, this man was able to drag himself to safety.

Are you nauseated yet? Good. But you're going to be even more nauseated by what you read next.

As I have repeatedly come across this story on a variety of blogs, there has been one sickening trend throughout that absolutely could not go unnoticed. I have made the mistake of browsing the "Comments" section. I have made the mistake of believing that there is even the slightest semblance of humanity in internet anonymity.  People are actually out there trying to convince others that this Doctor and his family somehow deserved what happened to them. There have also been mutterings about Dr. Petit being a coward because he left the home to try to find help. Commenters are getting into lengthy discussions filled with justification of this heinous crime against these innocent people. We are living in a society where people will go out of their way to defend a murderer, and blame/attack the victim! Some of the gems I've seen recently are:

• "They were rich, and therefore deserve it"
• "He was probably cheating on her anyway"
• "She looks like a snobby white b*tch"
• "I can see why they didn't sexually assault/rape the oldest daughter"

This attitude and this mentality are EQUALLY abhorrent to the murderer Steven Hayes' actions against this family. In some ways, the condition of the people saying these things is even MORE depraved than that of Steven Hayes. I firmly believe that situations like these where people can display their true colors through the safety of internet anonymity should be a wake up call to the rest of us who have maintained even the slightest humanity within us. The internet can give you a dark and twisted peephole view on the people we live and walk among every day. I only included some of the more "tame" comments made, and that is what's truly frightening here. It is so much easier to be dragged down than to stay standing. Let this be a call to self-awareness as well. Don't ever let yourself adopt a mentality as sick as these commenters.