# 5 Year Old Girl Faces Murder Charges



## MA-Caver (Jun 10, 2011)

Purposefully drowned her baby brother because he wouldn't stop crying. Baby sitter was asleep. 
Not very detailed the report apparently still under investigation. 


> By Kevin Murphy                       Fri Jun 10, 12:14 am ET
> KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters)  A 5-year-old girl  could face murder charges in the recent drowning of a toddler in a  bathtub, police said on Thursday.
> Kansas City police are waiting for a medical examiner's report on how  Jermane Johnson Jr., died, but have investigated the death as a  homicide, spokesman Darin Snapp said Thursday.
> "I've been in law enforcement for 20 years and it's the youngest suspect I can remember," Snapp said. "It's extremely rare."
> ...



Bringing murder charges against a 5 year old is, IMO ludicrous.


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## Nomad (Jun 10, 2011)

MA-Caver said:


> Purposefully drowned her baby brother because he wouldn't stop crying. Baby sitter was asleep.
> Not very detailed the report apparently still under investigation.
> 
> 
> Bringing murder charges against a 5 year old is, IMO ludicrous.



I agree.  But then what do you do with this girl?  Tell her not to do it again?  Maybe give her a "time out"?

What a horrible situation all around.


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## Archangel M (Jun 10, 2011)

5 yo's cant be deemed mentally competent for a murder charge IMO.


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## rlobrecht (Jun 10, 2011)

I'm surprised there's no mention of charges for the babysitter.


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## jks9199 (Jun 10, 2011)

Archangel M said:


> 5 yo's cant be deemed mentally competent for a murder charge IMO.


I doubt the charges were made without careful consideration, and I suspect it was done as a mechanism to support subsequent actions.   Generally, I'm not aware of a state that would find her competent...  So it'll probably be a tool to move her into appropriate care.


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## MA-Caver (Jun 10, 2011)

jks9199 said:


> I doubt the charges were made without careful consideration, and I suspect it was done as a mechanism to support subsequent actions.   Generally, I'm not aware of a state that would find her competent...  So it'll probably be a tool to move her into appropriate care.



Ok so define appropriate care... can't call the parents negligent because they left her with a sitter not knowing that the sitter herself was incompetent by falling asleep on the job and thus the event happened.   I agree that the child herself cannot be held accountable because while she knowingly put the baby under the water one needs to assess if she was aware that it could kill the baby... she only wanted it to stop crying. Why she didn't wake up the sitter is a mystery... perhaps she tried and failed and thus took matters into her own hands. Yet she cannot be held because she could not aware of the consequences of her actions (charged for murder -- even 2nd degree manslaughter then court and jail and all of that). I'd reach to say that she probably realized that she killed the baby after it was pointed out to her or when the baby became unresponsive... I dunno.  To say that its a tragedy is an understatement.  I would hold the sitter in part accountable because she fell asleep on the job and that is something you should NEVER do when watching small children.


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## MA-Caver (Jun 10, 2011)

More of the story here... 


> Bart Lubow, the director of the Juvenile Justice Strategy Group at  the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national child advocacy organization  based in Baltimore, said a 5-year-old is incapable of forming intent,  and likely wouldn't even know what drowning means.
> "You can imagine a child responding to other  children's crying by saying, `I know how to stop that.' But the notion  that there was intent there is silly," Lubow said. "For a 5-year-old,  this is well beyond the pale of what our criminal or delinquency laws  are intended to address."
> In Missouri, a child has to be 12-years-old before he or she can be  certified to stand trial, said Vivian Murphy, executive director of the  Missouri Juvenile Justice Association. Murphy, who said she was not  involved with the Kansas City case, said in general, a child in such a  situation would undergo a mental health evaluation and that there would  be an investigation into the child's living situation.
> "It's all about what's best for the 5-year-old," she  said. "The family court in Kansas City is going to do a good job of just  looking at the circumstances holistically with the 5-year-old and  looking at their environment and look at what's going on."
> ...


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## Nomad (Jun 10, 2011)

MA-Caver said:


> Ok so define appropriate care... can't call the parents negligent because they left her with a sitter not knowing that the sitter herself was incompetent by falling asleep on the job and thus the event happened.   I agree that the child herself cannot be held accountable because while she knowingly put the baby under the water one needs to assess if she was aware that it could kill the baby... she only wanted it to stop crying. Why she didn't wake up the sitter is a mystery... perhaps she tried and failed and thus took matters into her own hands. Yet she cannot be held because she could not aware of the consequences of her actions (charged for murder -- even 2nd degree manslaughter then court and jail and all of that). I'd reach to say that she probably realized that she killed the baby after it was pointed out to her or when the baby became unresponsive... I dunno.  To say that its a tragedy is an understatement.  I would hold the sitter in part accountable because she fell asleep on the job and that is something you should NEVER do when watching small children.



This is certainly a possible scenario; another is that she's a budding psychopath who saw killing the baby as the easiest way to make it stop crying.  I'm not saying she is, but I'd want to know a lot more about her before dismissing the event as a simple childhood "mistake".

Absolutely no-win scenario for anyone in this.


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## Empty Hands (Jun 10, 2011)

Nomad said:


> This is certainly a possible scenario; another is that she's a budding psychopath who saw killing the baby as the easiest way to make it stop crying.



How could you tell?  Children at that age are still highly amoral.  They are still internalizing concepts like sharing and not hurting.


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## jks9199 (Jun 10, 2011)

MA-Caver said:


> Ok so define appropriate care... can't call the parents negligent because they left her with a sitter not knowing that the sitter herself was incompetent by falling asleep on the job and thus the event happened.   I agree that the child herself cannot be held accountable because while she knowingly put the baby under the water one needs to assess if she was aware that it could kill the baby... she only wanted it to stop crying. Why she didn't wake up the sitter is a mystery... perhaps she tried and failed and thus took matters into her own hands. Yet she cannot be held because she could not aware of the consequences of her actions (charged for murder -- even 2nd degree manslaughter then court and jail and all of that). I'd reach to say that she probably realized that she killed the baby after it was pointed out to her or when the baby became unresponsive... I dunno.  To say that its a tragedy is an understatement.  I would hold the sitter in part accountable because she fell asleep on the job and that is something you should NEVER do when watching small children.


I can't, without more information.  But if I charge someone, they're taken into custody immediately.  And they're easier to hold longer...  Removal proceedings are complicated.  Like I said -- I suspect this was a tool to move things forward.  It may also be a purely political move.  After all, I can't see an assistant prosecutor approving this particular charge without the elected (generally) prosecutor/district attorney approving it.


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## MA-Caver (Jun 10, 2011)

jks9199 said:


> I can't, without more information.  But if I charge someone, they're taken into custody immediately.  And they're easier to hold longer...  Removal proceedings are complicated.  Like I said -- I suspect this was a tool to move things forward.  It may also be a purely political move.  After all, I can't see an assistant prosecutor approving this particular charge without the elected (generally) prosecutor/district attorney approving it.



I understand jks... and my question was more rhetorical because of the age of the child and the long term psychological effects all of this will have upon her.  I don't think she could be a budding psychopath since the usual pattern is with small animals working their way up to humans over a period of years.  I think she was simply annoyed (as much as a 5 year old could be), got frustrated with the sitter and decided she knew how to make the baby's noise stop. I would like to think she didn't realize that submerging the baby would eventually drown/kill it. Only that the noise would stop. An older woman had done the same thing but SHE knew better no matter what.


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## punisher73 (Jun 13, 2011)

While a 5 year old might not have "intent" or really understand the consequences. How come no one has addressed that even a 5 year old should understand that putting your baby sibling underwater is a no-no in general?

I remember having VERY early conversations with my parents about what I could or could not do with my baby sister because it could hurt her. It's a tragedy, but somewhere this child didn't get some early training that would have been appropriate of what to do or not do.


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## Flea (Jun 13, 2011)

punisher73 said:


> It's a tragedy, but somewhere this child didn't get some early training that would have been appropriate of what to do or not do.



She may also have been doing the oppositional behavior of breaking a rule simply _because_ it was a rule.  Only the family, and the specialists brought in to manage the situation, can really say.  Awful, just awful.


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## girlbug2 (Jun 13, 2011)

punisher73 said:


> I remember having VERY early conversations with my parents about what I could or could not do with my baby sister because it could hurt her. It's a tragedy, but somewhere this child didn't get some early training that would have been appropriate of what to do or not do.


 
Maybe the water thing hadn't come up yet. As a mom, I never thought to explicitly tell my older boy every possible thing he couldn't do because it would hurt his baby brother. Some situations of course were teaching moments when questions would come up, but how could anybody think of everything? "Don't throw hammers at your brother it will hurt him" "Don't put your brother underwater he will drown" "Don't put rocks up his nose"....etc. Even trying to think of every possibility draws a huge blank. And expecting a 5 year old to remember that exhaustive list?  I really don't see that the parents were negligent here.


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## MA-Caver (Jun 14, 2011)

girlbug2 said:


> Maybe the water thing hadn't come up yet. As a mom, I never thought to explicitly tell my older boy every possible thing he couldn't do because it would hurt his baby brother. Some situations of course were teaching moments when questions would come up, but how could anybody think of everything? "Don't throw hammers at your brother it will hurt him" "Don't put your brother underwater he will drown" "Don't put rocks up his nose"....etc. Even trying to think of every possibility draws a huge blank. And expecting a 5 year old to remember that exhaustive list?  I really don't see that the parents were negligent here.


From my understanding of the article she held him under. She got angry and thought out that this is the best way to get him to be quiet. This is going to puzzle people for generations... psychologists and their students will be discussing this case for a while in the years to come.


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## Nomad (Jun 14, 2011)

MA-Caver said:


> I understand jks... and my question was more rhetorical because of the age of the child and the long term psychological effects all of this will have upon her.  *I don't think she could be a budding psychopath since the usual pattern is with small animals working their way up to humans over a period of years.*  I think she was simply annoyed (as much as a 5 year old could be), got frustrated with the sitter and decided she knew how to make the baby's noise stop. I would like to think she didn't realize that submerging the baby would eventually drown/kill it. Only that the noise would stop. An older woman had done the same thing but SHE knew better no matter what.



Maybe she skipped a few steps from the textbook description?  The primary characteristic of a psychopath is that they lack the capacity to feel empathy for others (although some learn to fake it to get what they want).  

My question is did she do this not understanding the consequences, or not caring about them?  I don't have the answer, but I hope I'm not the only one asking the question.  



MA-Caver said:


> From my understanding of the article she held him under. She got angry and thought out that this is the best way to get him to be quiet. This is going to puzzle people for generations... psychologists and their students will be discussing this case for a while in the years to come.



This supports the darker of the possibilities, IMO.  At the very least, this girl (and her family) need serious therapy and need to watch for other signs that this might not be a simple but tragic mistake.


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## MA-Caver (Jun 14, 2011)

Nomad said:


> Maybe she skipped a few steps from the textbook description?  The primary characteristic of a psychopath is that they lack the capacity to feel empathy for others (although some learn to fake it to get what they want).
> 
> My question is did she do this not understanding the consequences, or not caring about them?  I don't have the answer, but I hope I'm not the only one asking the question.



You're not... problem is... who is able to provide the answers? 



Nomad said:


> This supports the darker of the possibilities, IMO.  At the very least, this girl (and her family) need serious therapy and need to watch for other signs that this might not be a simple but tragic mistake.


Well as I pointed out... this is not a mistake... except on the sitter's falling asleep on the job. The acts of the 5 year old were deliberate, enacted with a deliberate purpose. Whether she knew the long range consenquences or even the short range (that it would kill the baby) is left to question.


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## jks9199 (Jun 14, 2011)

Probably, nobody will ever be able to answer a lot of the questions.  She is five.  She really lacks the capacity to analyze herself to much depth, and by the time she does reach that ability -- she'll have moved far enough from who she is now that she won't be able to answer them.

A VERY skilled child psychologist MAY get some answers, with lots of work and study.  Or may simply throw up their hands and say "that's all we get."


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## MA-Caver (Jun 14, 2011)

jks9199 said:


> Probably, nobody will ever be able to answer a lot of the questions.  She is five.  She really lacks the capacity to analyze herself to much depth, and by the time she does reach that ability -- she'll have moved far enough from who she is now that she won't be able to answer them.
> 
> A VERY skilled child psychologist MAY get some answers, with lots of work and study.  Or may simply throw up their hands and say "that's all we get."


I've worked/interned with child psychologists before... and a good one can piece out over time the workings of the child's mind and maybe get to the source of her homicidal tendencies. 
She could be totally unaware or something that is very difficult to contemplate totally aware even for her age. But I'll be guessing somewhere in between. Now the trick would be to make her understand the wrongness of her actions and if we're lucky she won't do it again... ever.


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