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Killer Angels: Kids Without Conscience
| Article
# : |
19635 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1991 |
2,773 Words |
| Author
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Sherry Von Ohlsen
Sherry Von Ohlsen writes from her base in Sparta, New Jersey. |
On the evening of March 21, 1989, in Poughkeepsie, New York, sixteen-year-old Brian Britton retreated to his Rambo-postered bedroom after arguing with his mother about his girlfriend. At 5 A.M. the next day, Brian, awakened when his mother let out the family dog, rose from bed, loaded the 20 gauge shotgun his father had given him, and shot and killed his father, mother, and brother. He wounded his sister.
In a small New Jersey town, about a year earlier, fourteen-year-old Tommy Sullivan--model student, paperboy, and Boy Scout--became fascinated with Satanism while researching the occult for a school assignment. Three weeks after beginning the assignment, Tommy stabbed his mother twelve times with his Boy Scout knife, set fire to his home while his father and brother slept, and then committed suicide, slashing his wrists and throat. Before his murder/suicide, Tommy told a friend that Satan had urged him to kill his family. In a journal, Tommy had drawn pictures of the devil and referred to a pact he had made with Satan.
By age sixteen Bill Smith was into booze, drugs, and self-mutilation. He beat up friends and strangers alike and broke into homes just to steal beer from refrigerators. He was known as the most notorious kid in Yellow Springs, a small town in Ohio.
Then there is young Kim Jones, born to a teenage mother and adopted at age two. By age four she would sneak into her adopted parents bedroom and whisper over and over, night after night, into her mother's ear, "I'm going to kill you tonight, I'm going to kill you tonight," until her mother would wake up. Kim continued to mentally torture her mother for two years and confessed during therapy to her plan for murder, though she did not follow through.
As a baby, John Williams was often left overnight in cars. Sometimes his parents left him tied to his bed for long periods of time. Given up for adoption at age four, seven years later John was failing in school, threatening suicide, and abusing his peers verbally and physically. He would often strike a friend for no apparent reason.
Brian, Tommy, Bill, Kim, and John are not simply troubled children: They are kids without conscience. Inside them lies a void filled with anger and resentment, with little room left for personal and family loyalties and no place for that inner voice or regulation that distinguishes right from wrong. Their crimes are the unspoken language of
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