Sunday, April 11

Read this book about a true double murder in 1983. Amidst all the research on my I-Search topic. Hahas. I'm a multi-tasker.

Anyway, I was so gripped by the book, I literally couldn't put it down. This book makes me wonder so.

I'll just sum it up for you guys:

2 girls - Kristy(13) & Sherry(8) Jansen

1 boy - Billy(13) Keenan

Billy knew the Jansen girls for 5 years. They were playmates, schoolmates, & neighbours but had regular fall outs. As they grew older, they spent lesser time together & slowly, grew slightly aloof. Billy was a hot-tempered guy who often got himself into trouble. The Jansen girls were popular, & well-liked.

One day, the girls were discovered dead in grotesque fashion, with multiple stab wounds & skulls bludgeoned with a heavy object, & the one who chanced upon the bodies was Billy. Billy was hysterical, & he called his dad & the cops.

Slowly, the evidence pieced together to point a very damning finger at Billy. He vehemently denied the murders. But he was soon arrested & put on trial.

The town was split into 2 camps. 1 believed that Billy was the murderer, & wanted him to be tried as an adult. However, he was 12 days shy of his 14th birthday & therefore, was to be tried as a delinquent, whereby the maximum punishment was 2 years of jail, accompanied by an extension of 2 more years if required. 4 years for the murder of 2 girls. That's letting him off easy. Another camp believed that Billy didn't do it, & that the cops got the wrong guy. Anyway, throughout the ordeal, Billy was insistence about his innocence. There were evidence, which the attorneys thought were incriminating, & enough to condemn Billy. But residents thought likewise.

The attorneys decided to put him through a hypnotizing session, & he admitted he was the murderer. He even reenacted the entire killing in his hypnotized state. When he snapped out of his trance, he forgot everything. & maintained his innocence. Apparently, he had selective memory. What happened was too traumatic & he blocked it out totally.

He pleaded guilty in the end.

I haven't finished it so I don't know what his sentence was. I'll fill you guys in again.

What I want to comment on, is what goes through the mind of a 13 year old.

I vaguely remember being 13, & being fresh out of primary school, was still naive & never once had any notion to kill. So I can never guess what happened to Billy to make him do what he did.

Also, how could he do such a thing to people he knew so well? People whom he spent time with? Did he detach himself from it all?

How could he have been such a polished liar, & seemingly not eaten up by the guilt of ruining the lives of the Jansens? How could he even be so composed while being interrogated?

He was 13, & in the eyes of the society, still a child. But to have a child do something so inhumane, is it pardonable? What went through that sick & twisted mind when he stabbed & slashed & slitted even after the girls were bludgeoned to death? What went through that terribly evil mind when he attempted to gouge out Sherry's eyes? How? & why?

This book gives me the chills. It's the personal touch added, the dramatic scenes, & the indepth into their lives which grip you. I feel as if I do know them. I was so paranoid while walking home from the bus-stop. I felt watched & practically ran all the way home. It's just me. I cannot handle stuff like this. It's just scary to know that a kid could do this, commit such a brutal double murder in close proximity of his home. I was horribly haunted by the gory details. & the pictures of Kristy & Sherry on the front cover don't help. The back of my neck prickles when I look at them. Their smiling faces. Knowing that they would never grow up to date, complete their studies or get married. They were ripped of that. So I've unconsciously flipped the book onto its front. Billy is not unlike Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper merely thought he was implementing just punishment on prostitutes. But Billy, his motive was not known. Probably, he had a bad day in school & Kristy & Sherry just happened to be his outlets to vent. Is there so much hatred in him? Darn. Their names are resounding in my head now. Kristy. Billy. Sherry. Billy. Kristy. Sherry. Gosh. I don't think I'll get proper sleep later on. *shudders*

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