Did Jackie Shroyer murder her husband?

To cut to the chase, the answer to the question I just asked is "no," although she was charged this week as "co-author" of his murder and will be facing trial sometime in the next year or so in Angola.
According to this Minnesota news website, Beau Shroyer was killed in "an act of violence" on October 25, 2024 on the outskirts of Humpata, Angola, where he and his wife Jackie were serving as missionaries with their children.
As more news came out, it appeared that Jackie was implicate in his death, the story being that she had hired one of their security guards to stab him, using a knife from their kitchen, for figures variously cited at $5000 or $50,000. This due to her being in an affair with the guard, and wanting her husband out of the picture.

Now, I'm not saying that missionary wives never cheat on their husbands, or vice versa--despite the rigorous screening that occurrs as part of the missionary application process, it does happen; but these allegations simply defy logic, and it appears that all of them are coming from Jackie's co-defenents, all of whom are said to have criminal records.
Now, I'm not saying that missionaries have never been known to murder their spouses, or even to feign distress when they learn of the news, but the story here is totally different. Jackie was present (if temporarily out of the scene) when her husband was murdered, so there's no question of her killing him; she didn't. The only question is whether she conspired to have it done, and it appears that the only allegations that she did, are coming from the killers themselves. That doesn't strike me as credible testimony whatsoever.
Furthermore, the money. Missionary families don't have $5000 laying around that they can spend on hit jobs, much less $50,000. Yes, they may have spent thousands of dollars on a security fence in their high-crime neighborhood, and maybe that's what planted that outlandish figure in the security guard's head, but such funds are carefully allocated, and there's no way Jackie could have slipped $5000 out of the pot to fund her husband's murder.
Without having access to any more of the facts than have come forth so far, I'm calling foul on these allegations, and unless further evidence comes out that actually implicates Jackie, I don't believe them.

I'm praying for Jackie, currently incarcerated in an Angolan hellhole, and their five children, now back in Minnesota with relatives. They NEED our prayers. Here is a video of the Shroyers' testimonies.
I'm also praying for Isalino Kayoo, Gelson Ramos, and Bernadino Elias, the other three implicated in this murder.

One more blow against the death penalty

It has come to my attention that another chronological record had been broken--Iwao Hakamada was sentenced to death on September 11, 1968, which makes his time spent living under a death penalty the longest in recorded history--almost 58 years now. Due to the great likelihood that he was framed, no Japanese Minister of Justice has ever been willing to approve his execution, and he was actually released in 2014 pending a retrial, making his probably also the first-ever case of death row by home detention.

The Magic Piece of Cloth

The abduction and murder of Sasha Marie Krause has raised an issue that comes up every time something like this occurs: What About Her Protection?
Conservative Mennonites (CM) have many beliefs and practices that set them apart from the general population. Shasha's family, for example, doesn't use social media. But unlike most Amish, they are okay with photos--thus we have a good idea of what Sasha looked like and how she dressed. Visible in every photo of her is the headdress that conservative Mennonites refer to as a veiling, also commonly called a head covering. A CM woman would not think of appearing in public without being covered, based on a belief that, when you come right down to it, treats it is a sort of talisman. Young conservative Mennonites reading Sunday School literature are regaled with tracts, tales, and poems about harm that DIDN'T come a Mennonite woman's way because of her Covering.
What isn't talked about so much is that sometimes, even doing everything right isn't enough. Mennonite girls wearing the most modest clothes possible, and a covering that barely even reveals their hair color, still suffer from the occasional rape and murder. If that Covering is a magic piece of cloth, it doesn't appear to be completely effective.
Sasha appears to have been specifically targeted for abduction. Who knows what was going through the mind or minds of the person or persons who made off with her so suddenly? But if they thought anything about her modest attire, it was probably how easy it would be to remove, once they had her in their control. And since CM girls are raised to submit to the authority of men--the covering itself is supposed to serve as testimony of that--they actually make rather easy pickings for predators who get them in their sights.
Will conservative Mennonites continue to  teach their children the doctrine of the Covering as Protection? Or will they bow to the reality that it's not a magic piece of cloth?

UPDATE May 16: It's been commonly reported that Mark Gooch, and now his brother Samuel, have been arrested in connection with her murder, with at least one other family member involved. What isn't so well known is that the Gooch family has past relations with the Conservative Mennonites, and that Mark has a known animosity against them. Thus it's pretty clear that she WAS targeted, at least in part, due to her head covering--which is part of the evidence against Mark: he did indeed rip it off her and it was recovered in his possession.

UPDATE May 20: As reported elswhere, it's apparent that Sasha was only murdered, not raped. Did her head covering perhaps tip the balance in that direction? CM women aren't taking any chances.

Life in Prison for helping women and babies? Time to get out of New York!

Government oppression has now reached the point that the White Man recommends that his readers move out of New York state as soon as practical. Just as an example of how topsy-turvy their legal system is, note that the same state whose legislators rose to their feet and cheered after passing a law that permits homicide of newly-delivered babies has now charged a midwife with homicide for doing her job of referring an unborn baby to the higher level of care that it apparently required. She's also been charged with the ridiculous charges of fraud and identity theft just for filling out the onerous forms that the government requires in order for her to do her job of assisting mothers with the birth of their babies--no such forms being required of the murderers who kill babies at their mothers' request. To reiterate, according the government of New York State, a doctor who strangles a newborn baby with his own hands is not guilty of homicide if the baby dies; An assailant who stabs a baby in its mother's womb, thus killing it, is not guilty of homicide; but a midwife who refers a pregnant woman to a hospital to finish out her delivery IS guilty of homicide if the baby dies. I'll be posting further updates here.
UPDATE FEBRUARY 8:
Apparently Mrs. Catlin has a sensible judge, who released her on her own recognizance (i.e. without bail) until the trial, which probably won't be for at least a year.

What is Privilege? Does The White Man have it?

The short answer is that the White Man doesn't have privilege, but homeless illegals and Jussie Smollett do. The long answer follows a definition.

Privilege is defined as "a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group." But the modern use of that term implies something more: privilege implies being a member of a group that gets special treatment because of who they are, not because of what they have accomplished.

For an example, we begin with the special immunity granted to homeless illegal immigrants by the Sanctuary City movement, exemplified by Denver's odd move to decriminalize public defecation.  The problem was not so much that homeless aliens without official permission to reside in the US were relieving themselves on public sidewalks, but that when they were arrested and convicted of such behaviour, they risked automatic repatriation under the US federal government's new policy of expelling criminal aliens. By reducing the offence from a misdemeanour to an infraction, the Democrats who control Denver's city government were able to make an end-run around this policy, and keep their Sanctuary City status at the expense of clean streets and sidewalks. In Denver, homeless illegals have privilege.

How about Jussie Smollett? In the early morning hours of January 29, 2019, Chicago Police received a report from Jussie that he had been assaulted on the sidewalk of his upscale Chicago neighborhood. Now, here is were Jussie's privilege kicked in. Chicago police receive hundreds of reports of assault every day, the vast majority of them far more serious than what Jussie reported. But Jussie was a celebrity, even claiming that he was identified by, and targeted for, his celebrity. So instead of sending him off to have his superficial wounds checked out at the hospital and filing his report in the bottom drawer, the Chicago Police force went into high gear. They notified the FBI. They began the exhaustive process of viewing footage from every surveillance camera that may have caught the alleged incident on tape. They began a publicity campaign to keep the public appraised of any progress in the case. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were invested in tracking down the attackers and bringing them to justice. In the end, Jussie turned out to have fabricated the whole thing, paying a couple of his buddies to act out the attack. Again, privilege kicked in. For weeks into the investigation, Jussie continued to keep up his story and demand justice. Democrats around the country, including several Presidential candidates, circled the wagons to defend him and share in his outrage. It was only when the Chicago Chief of Police read a scathing statement accusing Jussie of choreographing a hateful fraud that was a discredit to everything he should have stood for that the house of cards finally began to wobble and sway. Jussie was protected at every stage by his privilege, and that privilege means that although he's committed any number of crimes, up to and including federal Mail Fraud in the process of mailing himself white powder, he may well never end up seeing the inside of a prison cell for it. At far greater levels and to a far greater extent than your average Joe Homeless in Denver caught with his pants down, Jussie Smollett has privilege.

But privilege extends much farther than even that. Look at Ted Kennedy, whose father started out with a small degree of privilege as the son of a rising Boston politician, forced his way into Harvard despite failing grades in high school, and leveraged his way into a political dynasty so powerful that not even Ted's obvious culpability in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne could cost him his Senate seat. Joseph Kennedy himself was not above murder to consolidate his political power; an underage prostitute whom he hired to accuse a competitor of rape died under mysterious circumstances just as she was about to come clean with her story. As a result, the competitor was ruined, and Joe got an even bigger corner on the movie industry. Through an endless succession of such dirty deals, Joe was able to enlarge his empire to the point that he could coerce an editor to put his son Jack on the cover of Time Magazine, helping to ensure his success in the upcoming election. The Kennedy brothers had privilege.

But the White Man does not have privilege. I was turned down by the elite university to which I applied, even though I was far more qualified academically then either Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. or Thomas Watson Jr.--the least-qualified-ever president of IBM--neither of whom could have even gotten into college without privilege. I don't have a father who gets invited to the White House. I can't call upon the vast resources of a metropolitan police force to investigate a minor complaint, or expect to escape prison if my complaint turns out to be a hoax. I can't even expect to get away with relieving myself against one of the signs at the St. Louis Transit Station stating for all to see that public urination is a crime. Unlike homeless illegals, sons of politically powerful people, and self-important TV stars, I don't have privilege.

More on the Untimely Demise of the Life Sentence

Although it's not listed in the heading of this blog, one of the things I've written about is the erosion of any connection between crime and punishment: specifically, the demise of the death penalty, rapidly followed by the elimination of the life sentence. Today we shall look at one of my predictions, and see how it's played out.

In this 2012 post I wrote: "I venture to predict that no American criminal, sentenced after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on execution in 1976, will ever again serve over 30 years in prison for any heinous crime--and, for those committed to mental institutions for murder, I predict an even shorter timeframe. "

Enter the case of Patrick Lizotte, who shot his High School teacher in cold blood one March day of 1982, and was almost immediately taken into police custody for murder.

Patrick was sentenced to the incongruous "Two Consecutive Life Terms Without Possibility of Parole." I'm sorry, but such a ridiculous sentence brings to mind the medieval sentence of being hanged, drawn and quartered, and burned at the stake. What possible effect can a second consecutive life sentence have on anyone but Jesus?

Ironically, Patrick's prison term (delayed, of course, by the slow-grinding Wheels of Justice until 1986) did actually reach the 30 year mark after I wrote the above--but came to an abrupt end only months later after extensive legal proceedings that began with the Nevada Assembly Bill 267 of 2015, which “revises provisions concerning the sentencing and parole of persons convicted as an adult for a crime committed when the person was less than 18 years of age.” He is now on parole.

Thus, it was as I predicted: "The idea that a person still represents a threat to society as an eighty year old man, based on something he did as a teen, may not endure that long." Or in this case, only a fifty year old man. Had Patrick held off on committing the murder until his senior year--after he turned 18--he would probably still be in prison. But not for another thirty years.

In which Kin Selection Theory is unsupported by real-world evidence

One of the pillars of Darwinian Theology is the doctrine that every organism is driven by a compulsion to pass on its own genes to a future generation. Now, meiosis means that only half of the parent's genes can ever be passed on at any given time. Famous evolutionist J B S Haldane alluded to this when he was asked if he would give his life to save his drowning brother. He is supposed to have said: "No, but I would to save two brothers, or eight cousins."

But what human realistically could be expected to make such a calculation? By this line of reasoning, the discovery that a pregnancy consists of twin fetuses would suffice to change any parent's mind against getting an abortion, when in fact we know that multiple pregnancies are even more likely to bring up the question of termination to those who hadn't otherwise considered it. And this report is just one of many to that could be offered in refutation the doctrine:

Eight-year-old Tyler Doohan will be laid to rest on Wednesday as the most honored of honorary firefighters, saluted by his local fire company as one of its own who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. . . . Tyler then heard calls for help and realized that his disabled grandfather and step-great-grandfather were still inside. Tyler had a particular bond with the grandfather, who was the kind of guy who was always quick to assist a neighbor or to help somebody in need even though he did not have all that much himself. The grandfather, 54-year-old Steven Smith, had lost part of a leg and got around in a wheelchair or on crutches.

So: a pre-pubescent organism risked, and as a result lost, his future ability to procreate in a rather ill-fated attempt to save the life of his grandfather, who was not only past the point of procreation, but even of the sort of organism that is typically selected for culling. Why would he do such a thing? There is no Darwinian explanation for his motivation, but it is exactly the same motivation behind the attempt of a father to save the life of his son--or a grandfather to save the life of his grandson. The evolutionary explanation is nothing but the hopeful figment of an unbeliever's imagination, and posts like this one show that even some evolutionists see Kin Selection Theory as simply a case of wishful thinking: a hypothesis in search of actual evidence.

Indiana Revival Report - Day 182

It's been six months since Time To Revive first came in force to Indiana. It must be said with some amazement that they haven't left yet. The original six days in Goshen were extended to 52, then another week after a month of rest. This was followed in quick succession by a week in Kokomo, then a week in Bloomington, a week in South Bend, two weeks in the Valparaiso-Gary-Hobart area, and a week in Terre Haute. Finally, a week in Fort Wayne. Each city was followed by a week off, to give the team time to prepare for its next city.

Because every Revive Indiana city was within a 2 hour drive of a previous location, there was a growing army of Revive veterans from each city helping to jump-start the outreach in the next city, or the one after. An array of red T-shirts were designed with the logo of a respective city on the front, all with a map of Indiana on the back, with the "seven rays" design from the state flag superimposed.

Things were supposed to have wound down last week in Fort Wayne, but it didn't happen. From the first day to the last, turnout for the morning and afternoon outreaches was strong and steady. Reports soon came out of people being healed, both in the meetings and on the streets. Over thirty churches got behind the movement in a massive display of unity, and it became clear by the middle of the week that this outpouring was a repeat of Elkhart County half a year earlier. Sure enough, Revive Indiana (Ft Wayne) has been extended through this week. [UPDATE: it's been extended yet another week.]

First Assembly's Senior Pastor Ron Hawkins wasn't eager to get on board when it was first suggested that his church building would be the ideal place for Revive Ft. Wayne to meet. He'd been heavily involved in a general revival that had swept Ft. Wayne 20 years earlier, and wasn't interested in any other than the real thing. These were the five characteristics of revival that he was looking for before he'd get involved. And yes, once he found out that they were all characteristics of Revive Indiana, he jumped on board.

1. God said, I will pour out My Spirit in greater measure in the last days.
2. It will be more in the street than in the building.
3. It will be when "all the brothers are in the house."
4. There will be signs and wonders that rival those in the New Testament.
5. It will not be about a man, a ministry, or a manifestation; it will be about Jesus.

I've written about the lack of impact this revival has appeared to have, for example, on the local crime rate in Elkhart. But that seems to be changing; last night's testimonies included a report of a potential reprisal murder miraculously stopped, and the would-be murderer was there in the meeting to attest to his change of heart--and life.

I'm thinking that the Holy Spirit has a lot more to work with in the Black community--perhaps more on that later.

Indiana Revival Report: Day 90

News of what is happening in Indiana continues to spread like ripples on a pond. And as in the game called Telephone, details can get a bit murky. Titles like "Time to Revive" and even "Revive Indiana" get stripped away, and people end up searching for terms like "Amish Revival" and "Indiana Tent Meetings." Kyle Martin gets mixed up with other Martins of Mennonite renown, and--to Wes Weaver's potential dismay--the muddling extends even to the meetings he condemned, with the meetings in which he condemned them. But for hundreds of miles to the north and south, people are hearing that wonderful things are happening in Indiana within and amongst the spiritual descendants of Menno Simons and Jacob Amman. This is one case in which good news seems to be traveling faster and farther than bad.

As for ReviveINDIANA, the news has never been better. The Kokomo meeting Sunday night at the Christian Heritage Worship Center overflowed the overflow. In a tableau almost never seen in the First World, members of the extended audience were not only standing outside the doors, but even clustered around the windows. It may not have spread very far into the assemblies of the inebriated, and may only be starting to emerge amongst the suspendered and bonneted, but a hunger for Christian unity in the church at large is rapidly increasing.  

The Elkhart Truth notes:

Since Oct. 3, 2012, there have been at least 28 incidents involving gunfire in the city, resulting in 13 deaths (including four by Elkhart police) and 13 injuries, according to Elkhart Truth archives. That works out to about one incident per month and a death by gunfire about once every two months.

What does the city of Elkhart have to show for 90 days of revival? Even one violent death would have been within a standard deviation of the mean; there have been at least two injurious shootings in Elkhart in the past 90 days, but no associated fatalities so far this year. But given the cold weather (and associated cooler tempers) of the period, this is probably no less than could have been expected. Warmer weather has returned, allowing a true glimpse over the next few months of the impact of this revival on those not just literally, but figuratively outside the church.

UPDATE April 14: Today saw Elkhart's third shooting, and first related death of the year. Typical.

The Weather Channel Joins the Conspiracy

Checking the weather this morning of December 20, 2014, I saw an ad for a video clip called "Mystery of John F. Kennedy's Plane Crash Solved?" and, of course, watched it.

Incredibly, the video text itself made no claim whatsoever to have any new information on the 15-year-old crash. In other words, there was no news--just a lot of lies: JKF Jr. didn't have his instrument rating, therefore, 'when other planes remained grounded,' he took off in the growing haze to the doom of 'all three on board' after the advice of an unnamed onscreen expert to 'get more training before flying solo' "fell on deaf ears."

It's amazing how many boldface lies can make it into a single video minute. As a pilot, I know that flying on instruments is part of basic flight school. If you can't fly through haze without 'spiraling out of control,' you're never even going to get your private license. And the video shot of 'all the other planes that remained grounded?' Well, 'remaining grounded' is another way of saying 'parked at the airport,' and that's what the majority of private planes spend the majority of their time doing, regardless of the weather.

Now, it's true that JFK did not yet have his instrument rating--just as my adult daughter does not yet have a driver's license. Big deal; she has been driving for years, but has to clear so many legal hurdles to be able to 'drive solo,' the paperwork has yet to catch up with the reality of her being a capable, experienced driver.

Thus with JFK Jr. He had all of the training, most of the experience, and almost all of the paperwork needed to be a full-fledged instrument-rated pilot. No way was he still at the level where he would go into a spin at 2500 feet while on approach to a lighted runway; instrument-rated pilots have to be able to safely navigate within 100 feet of the ground without being able to see it. But he still used an instructor every time he flew in unfamiliar conditions.

So, the video hits all the talking points of the original cover-up, whilst ignoring the salient fact that rescuers were intentionally misdirected for an entire day:
1. JFK Jr. was not competent to make that flight (he was).
2. He was warned not to fly solo in hazy conditions (he never flew solo in hazy conditions).
3. The plane spiraled out of control (the plane's engine was turned off and it was flown into the sea).
4. There were three on board (the fourth person on board was removed by a covert dive team, seat and all).

Why, Weather Channel? Why?

Another month, another post

Here in the USA we recently passed the 51st anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. There's always a bit of news coverage every year, but especially on the big anniversaries. I may be a bit behind the times, as I'm just now getting back to it, a year after the big 50.

It's been over seven years since my previous post on the topic of Kennedy assassinations, and in the interval the internet has filled with material on both JFK assassinations--more videos than one person can keep up with. But I have been doing some viewing--and reading--and coming to a clearer picture of what may have, or may not have, happened.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the idea that Lee Oswald fired, in less than six seconds, three bullets from a 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano 91/38 in the direction of the Presidential motorcade, striking the President with two of them.

Ballistic tests proved that this was possible. Not easy, not even likely--just possible. One thing, then, is certain: if there was a concerted plan to shoot AND kill the President that day in Dallas, it is impossible that Oswald was the only gunman. As lone-wolf assassination attempts on both Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan have shown, even a semi-automatic weapon at short range is unlikely to put even a single bullet into a President's body. Oswald was not at short range, and did not have a semi-automatic weapon. His chances of hitting the president even once were very small; twice, infinitesimal--and it was only the third shot that killed the President.

If there was a concerted effort to kill the President, there was at the very least one other gunman--who was much closer to the President than Lee Oswald. In fact, I strongly doubt that any sort of organized effort would have had any fewer than three men with a bead on the President as he entered Deally Plaza.

If Oswald was a lone wolf, he was not only a remarkable marksman, he was incredibly lucky. He had one chance to shoot the President, and he was able to get three shots off--the maximum possible with that gun in that amount of time. Furthermore, he connected squarely with the second shot--then fatally with the third. And, the range to the target was farther and farther with each shot. As range increased, his effectiveness increased!

So why, a few minutes later, would he have expended three rounds at point-blank range into Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit--and then require a fourth shot directly to the head to kill him? There goes the remarkable marksman theory.

The conclusion that Lee Oswald was acting alone--that he, on a whim, took a junk rifle up six floors, stood at a window, and hit a six-inch-diameter moving target over 100 yards away not once, but twice--is simply preposterous.

Therefore, the Warren Commission was wrong. How could the Commission be wrong? Well, they used the FBI and the CIA as their investigators. The FBI and the CIA must have provided them false information.

I leave it to the reader to draw his own conclusions.

Oh, one more thing. I don't recommend that Ben Carson run for president. It's clear that the office of the president is only a position that can be filled--or at least held--by a puppet. Break free of the strings, and see what happens.

ADDENDUM MARCH 2017
Well, well. This little article hadn't attracted much attention--only 57 views in the two and a quarter years it's been up (perhaps due to having such an innocuous title)--but I return now to admit, to anyone whose hap may be to pass this way in the future, that I'm quite sure I was wrong in that last paragraph. Donald J. Trump is no puppet. Now, whether he dies peacefully after having served out a full term--that remains to be seen.

A Review of R. H. Allen's "Guidance on Abortion"

I recently came across what purported to be a Bible-based look at the abortion issue, written by a youth pastor. Since probably most abortions are of a child of a youth group member, this would be an important issue. The link to the pdf can be found here.

The full title of Allen's article is, "A Christian Looks to the Bible for Guidance on Abortion," but when Allen looks to the Bible, he doesn't look very far. In fact, he doesn't get much past Exodus 21:22-25, which he quotes from the King James Version:

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

Convenient that he did this, because just about any other English translation will totally defeat his purpose, which is to show that abortion is biblical, based on the conclusion that
"The scripture directs that if the fetus is aborted as a result of the injury, the offending man must pay retribution as determined by the woman’s husband. However, if the woman herself dies, then the man must die (i.e., “give life for life”)."

Take, for example, the ONIV:

"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[a] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life"
 [a] Or she has a miscarriage

The NNIV, of course, changes 'men' to 'people,' which brings in the off-the-wall possibility that the mother herself is at least partially responsible for the abrupt delivery of her child. But there's still nothing about the woman being killed in the process.

Here are the possible interpretations of the English text:

1) Child dies: man fined. Woman dies: capital punishment. (Allen's view)
2) Child is born prematurely but lives: man fined. Child born prematurely but dies: capital punishment. (possible view based on NIV text)

The view derived from the NIV marginal reading is a bit hard to pin down. If causing a miscarriage isn't 'serious injury' (and it is so considered in all 50 states), then what is, short of the woman herself dying? The passage really just doesn't make sense as translated from Hebrew to English.

What happens, though, if we look at the Greek translation of this passage?

22 ἐὰν δὲ μάχωνται δύο ἄνδρες καὶ πατάξωσιν γυναῖκα ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσαν καὶ ἐξέλθῃ τὸ παιδίον αὐτῆς μὴ ἐξεικονισμένον ἐπιζήμιον ζημιωθήσεται καθότι ἂν ἐπιβάλῃ ὁ ἀνὴρ τῆς γυναικός δώσει μετὰ ἀξιώματος 23 ἐὰν δὲ ἐξεικονισμένον ἦν δώσει ψυχὴν ἀντὶ ψυχῆς   --Septuagint

Daniel L. Christiansen has provided the following translation:

"If two men are fighting, and they strike a pregnant woman, and her not-fully-formed child comes out, the man should be punished by a fine: in keeping with the court's decision, he is to pay as much as the woman's husband might demand. 23 But if [the child] was fully-formed, the man is to give [his] life in exchange for [the child's] life."

A more literal translation would be:

"If two men are fighting, and they strike a pregnant woman, and her not-fully-formed child comes out, the man should be punished by a fine: in keeping with the court's decision, he is to pay as much as the woman's husband might demand. 23 But if it was fully-formed, he is to give life for life."

Both of these offer a third possible interpretation:

3) Child is born so prematurely that it can't survive: man fined. Child is born prematurely, though viable, but dies anyway: capital punishment. (Daniel L. Christiansen's view)

One thing that all these interpretations have in common is that they accept the fact that striking a pregnant woman may cause her pregnancy to terminate early. There are actually not just three, but four possible results from this:

1) A pregnancy that could have proceeded to term is ended before the fetus is viable, causing avoidable death;

2)  A pregnancy that could have proceeded to term is ended after the fetus is viable, but before it is strong enough to survive outside the womb, still causing avoidable death;

3) A pregnancy that could not have proceeded to term anyway--because of a defective fetus--is ended before the fetus has a chance to spontaneously abort, causing death that would have happened later anyway;

4) A pregnancy that could have proceeded to term is ended after the fetus is viable, and strong enough to survive the experience, resulting in emotional harm to the mother, but not physical harm to her child.

This third possibility comes out in Breton's translation of the Greek:

"And if two men strive and smite a woman with child, and her child be born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty: as the woman's husband may lay upon him, he shall pay with a valuation. 23 But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life"

Neither the second nor fourth possibility is in view in either translation of the Greek. It is assumed in verse 23 that the expelled child dies; the only possibilities are the death of an imperfectly formed fetus that couldn't have survived outside the womb, or the death of a fully formed fetus that could have.

Now, we know more about human physiology than did the Greek scholars who first translated the Pentateuch. Unless we get our education from watching television and movies, we know that a fetus is well-protected inside its mother's womb, and a blow to the outside of her body is not going to hurt it directly. While the trauma may send her into labor early, the only danger to the child is that it may not yet be ready for the experience.

So the idea of a perfectly formed fetus dying from this sort of trauma only makes sense if it were extremely premature--basically, first or second trimester (although, with modern medical intervention, viability is pushed back a ways into the second trimester). Thus, according to the Greek translation of this passage, causing a woman to abort her child IS grounds for the death penalty, the only defense being that a postmortem revealed the fetus to have been doomed regardless of when it was born.

So, here's the scenario: A woman gets involved in a fight between two men, gets punched in the gut, and stumbles off to recover. Before she is fully recovered, however, she experiences a miscarriage. The question is, was this just a coincidence, or is the miscarriage a direct result of the blow she received?

The only way to determine this is to examine the fetus. If it proves defective, like other fetuses from miscarriages not know to have been associated with an abdominal blow, the man is not subject to charges of murder (of the child), but only assault and battery (of the mother). The possible death of the mother is not at all in view here, contra Allen.

Now, that's what the Greek translation says. But what about the Hebrew?

22 וְכִֽי־יִנָּצ֣וּ אֲנָשִׁ֗ים וְנָ֨גְפ֜וּ אִשָּׁ֤ה הָרָה֙ וְיָצְא֣וּ יְלָדֶ֔יהָ וְלֹ֥א יִהְיֶ֖ה אָס֑וֹן עָנ֣וֹשׁ יֵעָנֵ֗שׁ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֨ר יָשִׁ֤ית עָלָיו֙ בַּ֣עַל הָֽאִשָּׁ֔ה וְנָתַ֖ן בִּפְלִלִֽים׃  וְאִם־אָס֖וֹן יִהְיֶ֑ה וְנָתַתָּ֥ה נֶ֖פֶשׁ תַּ֥חַת נָֽפֶשׁ׃ 23

"If men strive, and strike a pregnant woman, and her children come forth, and no mishap comes about*-- fining he shall be fined, according as the woman's husband will impose upon him; and he shall pay in pleadings. 23  And if mishap comes about*, then you shall give soul in place of soul."

It's important that the Hebrew word here is not that of an embryo, but of a baby. It's probably in the plural to avoid the misconception that only a male child is in view here. The text is ambiguous, but only to a limited extent: the LXX interpretation is certainly possible, but only as Breton translates it; it's not an unformed embryo, but a baby.

So, in conclusion, R.A. Allen is way off base linguistically. He takes an obscure translation of an obscure passage, twists it like a pretzel, and viola--gets the interpretation he started with. Ironically, most of his article is a warning against doing this very thing.

Now, perhaps you're in agreement with me, that there is nothing in this verse laying a different valuation on the life of an inviable fetus, versus a viable one.  But, it turns out, that's not the way the ancients understood it.

Thanks are due to Thomas F. McDaniel for the following quotes.

Philo (Congressu Quaerendae Eruditionis Gratia, xxiv 137):
"And with respect to these matters the following law has been enacted with great beauty and propriety: “If while two men are fighting one should strike a woman who is great with child, and her child should come from her before it is completely formed, he shall be mulcted in a fine, according to what the husband of the woman shall impose on him, and he shall pay the fine deservedly. But if the child be fully formed, he shall pay life for life. For it was not the same thing, to destroy a perfect and an imperfect work”

He goes on, (De Specialibus Legibun, iii 108–109):
"But if any one has a contest with a woman who is pregnant, and strike her a blow on her belly, and she miscarry, if the child which was conceived within her is still unfashioned and unformed, he shall be punished by a fine, both for the assault which he committed and also because he has prevented nature, who was fashioning and preparing that most excellent of all creatures, a human being, from bringing him into existence. But if the child which was conceived had assumed a distinct shape in all its parts, having received all its proper connective and distinctive qualities, he shall die; for such a creature as that is a man, whom he has slain while still in the workshop of nature, who had not thought it as yet a proper time to produce him to the light, but had kept him like a statue lying in a sculptor's workshop, requiring nothing more than to be released and sent out into the world."

*According to McDaniel, this phrase should be translated, "[not] perfect it has become."

   **********************************************

So, we see the possibility of my interpretation after all. In either case, a postmortem ensues, no doubt before the same judges who are to decide whether to apply a fine or the death penalty. The expelled fetus is examined, and if it can be see to be perfectly formed, it is assumed that it could have survived if left to term; if it is still too early in gestation to determine whether some fatal genetic abnormality is present, then the accused retains the assumption of innocence as regards to murder, and is only fined for assault.

What then, is the implication for R. A. Allen? Simply that according to this verse, anyone who causes the death of a fully formed yet unborn human, is guilty of murder.

That's not a pro-choice position.

How the Feds bungled the investigation and prosecution of Israel Keyes, serial killer extraordinaire

You may have never heard of Israel Keyes, and if you haven't, it's because he wanted it that way. Right up until the very end, he preferred to operate in secret. And in control.

Israel Keyes, the oldest son of ten children raised in a Mormon household in Utah, knew he was different from other people. When he tortured and killed pets, the shocked looks on his playmates' faces told him not only that he didn't have the same morals most people did, but that he'd better keep that part of his personality a secret, or he would be in big trouble.

So, for the next twenty years Israel lived a double life. He wasn't even out of his teens when he transferred his attention from defenseless animals to defenseless people. By the time he joined the Army--which happened during a time of such relative peace that he never got the opportunity to use his license to kill--he'd already abducted and raped a teenage girl in Washington State, where he lived.

After finishing his army term, he began his killing career in earnest. The consummate serial killer, he traveled thousands of miles to hunt down random people, whom he tortured and killed simply for the thrill it gave him. After a kill, the urge would subside and he'd return to his construction business. When his girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl, he decided that little children, and parents of little children, were off limits; he only killed childless couples and post-pubescent girls. He covered his tracks so well, there was virtually no chance he would ever be caught--or that any of his growing number of murders would be solved.

But in 2012, his career started to unravel. Like all addictions, killing had gone from a sport to a compulsion that he could no longer control--even by killing. When he spontaneously chose his last victim, he broke all his own rules. First of all, he targeted a local--18-year old Samantha Koenig, whom he kidnapped from her job at a coffee kiosk in his own town of Anchorage, Alaska. Secondly, he used the girl's cell phone to text a ransom demand to her parents--although by that time he had already raped and killed her. And finally, he had the ransom money deposited into Samantha's own bank account, using her ATM card to withdraw cash in a spree that took him all the way to the double wedding of his sisters in Wells, Texas, where he nearly broke up the wedding with a defiant proclamation of his atheism. As his family members tearfully urged him to repent, assuring him that God could forgive him no matter what he'd done, state and federal police officers were already closing in on his trail. He left the wedding in disgust, a cigarette between his lips and Samantha Koenig's ATM card in his rental car.

The end came soon after his last rejected chance to repent. A Lufkin police officer identified the rental car from an all-points bulletin based on a surveillance photo of him pulling away from an ATM where he had used Samantha's card. The cop pulled him over for speeding, called for backup, and arrested Israel on what turned out to be federal charges of using someone else's ATM to withdraw over $1000 in one month. The District of Alaska took jurisdiction of the case, since that's where Samantha's bank account was based.

This is where the prosecution really began to bungle the case. Focused on the intricacies of the law that protect accused criminals, the crime investigators couldn't ask him about Samantha's murder. But when he started to open up about "other chapters in this story," they realized they had a serial killer on their hands.

For the next nine months investigators continued to ask him about his previous murders, but he was cagey. Sometimes he'd bargain with them: a cigar for a name and a place. Returning his girlfriend's confiscated property for a description of where he'd disposed of a body. Again and again his demands came back to: a swift and speedy trial, sentencing, and execution. Until he got some idea of how soon the end was, he wouldn't give them all the information they demanded.

The prosecution, looking forward to a big trial--one that would no doubt be dominating the headlines right now had it gone as scheduled--wouldn't cooperate. They kept reminding Israel that he was in jail now, and they held all the cards. The best he could hope for was a life sentence, if he cooperated.

Fools. Israel didn't want a life sentence, and told them so openly. Liars that they were, they could have told him anything he wanted to hear; and in return, he would have given them the information they so desperately needed to close down a dozen cold murder cases. But when they told him he couldn't expect a trial to even start until a year after his arrest, he pulled out the trump card and ended not only the valuable stream of data they'd been teasing out of him, but the whole prosecution: despite being on suicide watch, he killed himself in his cell on Dec 2, 2012. There would be no trial, no sentencing, no execution. The Koenig case was closed without resolution--other than that divers had found her dismembered body in an Alaskan lake, just where he said he'd left it.

Prosecutors who really want to solve a case have to realize that the only person who can say how many victims a serial killer has murdered is the killer himself, and they NEVER hold all the cards until the dealing's done.

Outliving a 'life' sentence

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In an earlier post, I mentioned that Thomas Hagan had been in prison longer than any other murderer I was aware of, before being released after forty-five years. It turns out that he was beat out by at least one person, a woman named Betty Smithey, who was sentenced in 1963 to life in prison without parole.

As I predicted, "life in prison without parole" only means that if the life in question happens to be shorter than average. Upon reaching the ripe old age of sixty-nine, Betty was judged to be no longer a danger to society, and has been released after forty-nine years in the Arizona penal system.

I'm still not aware of anyone in America who has served even fifty years of a life sentence for murder.

UPDATE:
As mentioned in an update to the earlier post, William Heirens pleaded guilty in order to escape a possible execution in 1946--back before they stopped executing everyone convicted of murder in open court. His youth, combined with the youth of his alleged victims' family members, enabled him to serve sixty-five years in prison without ever being approved for parole over the objections of the survivors. So I need to change that last sentence to:

 I'm still not aware of anyone in America who has served even fifty years of a "life sentence" handed down following conviction by a jury--whether or not it was a "life sentence without possibility of parole." And I expect that number to continue to drop.

Given that the US is the only country in the world that sentences juveniles to a "life sentence without possibility of parole," and the mandatory five-year review sounds suspiciously like a parole hearing, I don't see how anyone will ever break Heirens' record.

UPDATE JANUARY 2018:
Obviously, Charles Manson has now died in prison, never having been released for the murder of Sharon Tate. But to further qualify my statement, I am now aware of someone in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (which has not executed a murderer since 1964, a mere four months after the murder in question) who has died after fifty-one years of incarceration: Ian Brady, who died on 15 May 2017 at the Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital just outside of Liverpool. Speaking of Ian Brady, sentenced for a series of murders in the early 1960's, the Lord Chief Justice said in 1982, "this is the case if ever there is to be one when a man should stay in prison till he dies." Whether future Justices will ever apply this standard to a future killer is not assured, but Ian Brady was not the first Brit to have served over fifty years of a life sentence; John Straffen had died in 2007 after fifty-five years behind walls for the murder of three little girls, the last of whom he had killed only minutes after escaping from the mental hospital to which he had been remanded for the murders of the first two. Thus it appears that in order to stay in prison/insane asylum that long, one has to convince the authorities that he is crazy enough to do it again if released. Currently no one incarcerated in the UK has a minimum sentence of over fifty years.

USA trained Iranian assasins at secret camp in Nevada

The story is all on this blog.

The Death of the Life Sentence

I have earlier posted about the death of capital punishment in the USA for any crime other than murder (see also this later post), Caryl Chessman being the last person to be convicted of such a crime, in 1948.* But following his eventual execution an unheard-of twelve years later, even executions for first degree murder fell sharply. As a a result, there are still people in prison who killed as long as 40 or 50 years ago. The longest case I am now aware of was that of Thomas Hagan, aka Talmage Hayer and Mujahid Halim, who, after 16 rejections by the parole board, was finally released in 2010, forty-five years after his conviction for the part he played in the assassination of Malcomb X. The two other assassins had already been out for about 15 years. Not very far behind him is Sirhan Sirhan, who has been denied parole 14 times for his role in the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. None of the other assassins were ever brought to trial. In each case, there appear to be political considerations for keeping these men behind bars for so long.

In another case, the parole board actually appears determined to take the phrase "life in prison" seriously, due to the heinous--and, admittedly, political--nature of the murder: Charles Manson, who entered Death Row in 1971 for the role he played in the murder of Sharon Tate, had not yet been executed when his sentence was changed to life; he has been denied parole 11 times. Of his co-defendants, Charles Watson has been refused parole 14 times, Leslie Van Houten 19 times, and Patricia Krenwinkel 13 times. Susan Atkins died of brain cancer in prison after 18 rejections of parole. The nearly 40 years she spent as a female in prison constituted a record in the California penal system--a record now held by Krenwinkel, as Van Houten spent some time out on bond during a 1977 retrial.

Note that all of these murderers had originally been given a death sentence, with the exception of the black-on-black killing of Malcomb X, in which they were given 20 years (thus the mid-'80 release) to life. But a sentence of life in prison for murder, originally handed down as such (and I include in that definition any sentence of 80 years or more, which by definition could be considered tantamount to life), has--[but see Update]--never resulted in any death by reason of old age ending such a sentence; in any case, no one has ever yet served even 50 years of such a sentence. In a word, it is meaningless.

The replacement of execution with an imaginary life sentence dates as far back as 1924, when Clarance Darrow talked his underage clients Leopold and Loeb into pleading guilty to murder, not because they were actually admitting their culpability, but as a means of avoiding the death sentence. He succeeded in convincing their judge that the boys could not be held responsible for the brutal premeditated murder of Bobby Franks, and they were sentenced them to the intrinsically meaningless "Life plus 99 years."  It should come as no surprise that neither defendant spent any more than 33 years behind bars for the murder.

It is possible, even likely, that one of Tate's murderers will end up serving 50 years in prison for the crime. But I venture to predict that no American criminal, sentenced after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on execution in 1976, will ever again serve over 30 years in prison for any heinous crime--and, for those committed to mental institutions for murder, I predict an even shorter timeframe.

UPDATE APRIL 3, 2012
* I should clarify that I speak here of State crimes. Forty years ago, murder was not a federal crime, and until recent decades, federal executions (for espionage, treason, and desertion) had also diminished to nothingness--with only three in the 20th century, all during wartime, and none since 1953. But since the mid-1990's, it has become fashionable to try murderers in federal court, where they are more likely to receive a death sentence--but don't always. Under this new regime, life sentences in lieu of execution may well mean just that. But this is a new system yet, so only time will tell.

UPDATE APRIL 10, 2013
Ironically, even as I wrote this post, an inmate approaching death at the University Medical Center was finishing off a sixty-five year life sentence--now considered a world record. William Heirens, like Lee Boyd Malvo, was a juvenile when the murders for which he was convicted were committed--thus allowing him the maximum potential life sentence. Heirens, who probably didn't have enough evidence against him to convict him, confessed to three murders in order to bargain himself out of a potential death sentence. Malvo, on the other hand, was convicted in court of the Beltway Sniper attacks, and guaranteed a life sentence only by a 2005 decision of the Supreme Court to deny the death sentence for any crimes committed by juveniles. This may very well result in the breaking of Heirens' record, some fifty or sixty years from now--but time will tell. The idea that a person still represents a threat to society as an eighty year old man, based on something he did as a teen, may not endure that long.

Update November 2017:
Charles Manson, age 83, has finally died after 46 uninterrupted years in prison. That's going to go down as a record for someone who had received a death sentence. The Family's gruesome murders actually served to bring back both the death penalty and life imprisonment to California--at the time murderers seldom served more than 15 years for their crime. In 2016, Sirhan Sirhan was turned down for parole the 15th consecutive time. Ironically, protesting his innocence (he continues to demand a new trial) virtually guarantees that he will never be released. Of Manson's associates--including some I hadn't mentioned earlier--Leslie Van Houten was finally awarded parole on her 21st attempt, but this was overturned by Governor Brown; Patricia Krenwinkel was denied parole again; and Charles Watson, who was married, had children, and divorced in prison, has been denied parole 17 times. Bruce Davis has been denied parole an incredible 30 times, most recently by Governor Brown's veto. Robert Beausoleil, who was also sentenced to death for the murder of Gary Hinman, has been incarcerated since 1970, having been denied parole at least 18 times.

Coming up: 1000 more casualties of Death Penalty legislation

Joel Rosenberg writes:

IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was released Tuesday in a deal brokered by Egypt. He had been held by Hamas for a horrifying 1,941 days after being captured on June 25, 2006 in an attack that triggered the Second Lebanon War. The deal is not without controversy, however. Israel has released 477 Palestinian prisoners in the first swap, and will ultimately release more than 1,000. Some have been involved in deadly attacks on Israeli citizens. Not a few Israelis are deeply concerned these terrorists will be back to capture, torture and kill more Israelis soon.

Many of these murderers have been in prison for decades, and now that they are able to do get back to doing what they do best, we can expect at least a thousand more Israelis to be murdered. All this, because Israelis, through their elected representatives in the Knesset, have chosen to eliminate the chance that any murderer will ever face execution for his crimes. And now that this system has proved to work so well, I can hardly imagine it will be another 25 years before the next Gilad Shalit is traded back on such lucrative terms.

This case also represents the fallacy of "life in prison without possibility of parole," the imparted sentence of these now-free murderers. There is at least on American still in prison who was sentenced to death for murder prior to 1967 (when the Supreme Court denied the right of states to execute their murderers), but I can't find evidence of any person still in prison who was sentenced in the decades prior to 1967 to "life in prison without possibility of parole." As far as I have been able to determine, all such cases did in fact lead to eventual release of the prisoner, if he didn't die young before they quite got around to releasing him.

The Missing Link in Child Abuse Cases

I've added another blog to my list, TulipGirl. She commented on my latest post, which led me indirectly back to her blog. I see she has written on a wide variety of parenting subjects.

As a veteran parent myself, I thought her blog would well complement mine, since I seldom write on such topics myself (it probably has a lot to do with the fact that she's a mom and I'm not--sorry, egalitarians, but that's just the way it is).

Anyway, in tracking back TulipGirl's comment, I realized that the reason why I'm getting so many hits lately from Michael Pearl searches is that yet another child's death has been blamed indirectly on Micheal Pearl. The link in these three deaths is that in each case, the father and/or mother read the Pearls' book before punishing their adopted child to death.

Ah, yes. Adoption--it's the other link that seems to be missing in most discussions of this case. Michael doesn't talk much about it--perhaps he should--but when he's responsible for raising children that aren't his own he NEVER spanks them--especially not the ones he gets from overseas. Yet he's done very well in instilling both love and discipline into quite a few orphans and otherwise untrained children over the years.

Michael Pearl should probably put a warning on his TTUAC book that it is most effective for married couples training their own children. All others should consult his other book (yet to be written), To Train Up Another Parent's Child (TTUAPC).

I may come back and add a few UPDATES to this post, but I've probably said enough already that I should stop for now and let it sink in.

UPDATE: Well, here we are already. Thanks to TulipGirl, another story of a woman spanking her adopted son to death: but this was in 1996, a bit before the Pearls' TTUAC book had taken the nation by storm. Moral of the story: Parents determined to conquer the will of an adopted child are perfectly capable of killing him in the process, with or without any help from the Pearls. And the Pearls aren't offering any.

Michael Pearl, False Prophet?

In a comment posted to my article on the death of Lydia Schatz, an anonymous reader stated the following, which I quote, interspersed with my response:

Regardless of a few "good" pointers and some Scripture verses, the Pearl philosophy is abusive towards women and children. Scripture is not even carefully applied and rightfully divided in many of their writings, especially Debi's writings.

Anyone can give a few pointers and quote some Scripture verses. Doing this doesn't make the Pearls any different than the hundreds of others who have written on the subject of child raising over the past 500 years.

Jesus said we will know a tree by the fruit it bears. Three dead children is enough to make any intelligent person question the Pearls' philosophy.

In that quote, Jesus was specifically warning about false teachers, and telling his listeners that false teaching inevitable reveals itself by bad results. However, three children isn't even remotely enough to qualify the Pearls as bad-fruit producers. Take any apple orchard with 100,000 apples as they come off the tree. Would you, as a fruit inspector, consign the whole harvest to the landfill because you found three bad apples in the lot? I hope not, because with you in charge, we'd all have to get our food at the dump. Only three dead children is a remarkable accomplishment; I doubt that any state social service agency can say that of the last 100,000 children that came through their system, less than three died while in state custody. [UPDATE: the latest figures I've come across indicate that over a THOUSAND American children die in foster care AFTER being taken away from their parent(s) 'for their own protection.'] And the Pearls' methods have been used on hundreds of thousands of children.

We need to pray for the Pearls, though, and hope that they stop publishing irresponsible documents that can be used by any parent who decides to pay for the book.

No doubt the Pearls need prayer, so I won't say anything to discourage that. But if Michael Pearl is a false prophet, three dead children out of half a million books sold don't serve as compelling evidence.

When in doubt (or not), just call it "suicide"

This article reports on the deaths of the son and girlfriend of a millionaire in his mansion. Coroners have ruled the deaths accidental and suicidal, respectively. I don't buy it; I say that in both cases, somebody is getting away with murder. One does not establish suicide by "DNA evidence," but by looking for a means, motive, and opportunity as with all homicides, and then ruling out everyone but the victim as a suspect in the killing.

Let the record show that the White Man had the opportunity to commit suicide in 1978, and chose not to. I will never take any action solely intended to end my life. It goes against my deepest beliefs. So if I ever turn up dead, count on it that it wasn't suicide.

There are two ways of looking at suicide. Those who consider it an option will, sooner or later, try it. Those who don't consider it an option never will. And there's a huge difference between saying "I just wish I could die" or 'I feel like ending it all" and actually planning a suicide. The former only speak that way when frustrated; the latter do so in the calmest frame of mind. If someone is distraught, but makes no mention of ending it all, and doesn't do anything in the way of saying goodbye, and is then found killed a few hours later, don't even suspect suicide. Make no mistake, it was a professional hit job. And depending on how highly placed was the person ordering the hit, you can count on the authorities to have already ruled it suicide before they even start the investigation.

There will come a time when the most recent post on this blog is three months old. When it does, don't expect any more--I don't go garver. It probably means I'm dead. And I can assure you, it won't be because I killed myself.