I feel badly for the neighbors who suspected there were children living in tents in the back yard but never said anything. I'm sure they feel like shit now.
Worse still, one neighbor actually did call the cops on him about a year ago. She saw the sheds and caught a glimpse of someone in the back-backyard. The police went to his house, stood on the back porch, didn't see the shed, shrugged and went away. When she checked in to follow up, they basically told her they didn't see anything and didn't have a warrant, so that was the end of it. If they'd run even a cursory check on his name, surely his registered sex offender status would have come up first thing?
I don't know who must feel worse, the neighbors who got bad vibes off him (nobody's saying, "Nice fella, kept to himself," they're all saying things like "Weird, angry man, gave me the creeps") but never called, or the one who did call, assumed the people in charge of doing something would, oh, DO SOMETHING, and then found out that they'd completely fucked off and that poor woman and her children were trapped there for another goddamned year. Sadly, I'm sure the Antioch police have rationalized their way out of feeling bad about it at all. Still, in addition to whatever punishment the kidnapper-rapist gets, I dearly hope someone in Antioch officialdom gets their head handed to them on a platter, or shoved up their ass.
eta: And everyone else got there before me. FUCK, what a police fuck-up. That poor woman. Those poor girls. And in the end all it took was two UC Berkeley cops looking at him, feeling like something was very wrong, and trusting that feeling.
(I'm positive erika has an appropriate Gavin de Becker quote or three about that)
The fact that it was all going on for EIGHTEEN YEARS is what kills me.
THIS is the stuff I am good at.
Nice.
Seriously,
I feel like I should write a book about doing all the non-Pest Control professional stuff for dealing with bedbugs. The thing I have not been so great about doing is getting rid of stuff, but that honestly has had more to do with lack of brain power and time to do thoughtful work going through stuff.
Jackson's drug intake before his death:
You know, it pisses it me off IMFUCKINGMENSELY that on the one hand MJ can get this badly fucked up with little supervision, and then on the other hand, normal non-celebrity people get treated like junkies when they try to get enough meds to get their pain dialed down from a 12 to an 11.
(And to be super-clear, both hands piss me off.)
::sits in the pissed-off corner::
Also, if anyone does feel they need to inflict more of the awful kidnapping story on themselves, the Contra Costa Times, the local paper for the county Antioch is in, has good (if depressing) coverage. Including an apology from the county sheriff, which is too little too late for the woman and her children, but at least is a real apology and not a handwavey not-our-fault fauxpology.
You know, it pisses it me off IMFUCKINGMENSELY that on the one hand MJ can get this badly fucked up with little supervision, and then on the other hand, normal non-celebrity people get treated like junkies when they try to get enough meds to get their pain dialed down from a 12 to an 11.
One of my all time pet peeves. I can be coughing in the doctor's office with a cough that can be heard in Alabama and still have to practically beg the obviously suspicious doctor for codeine.
According to the Contra Costa Times, the sheriff "attributed the shortcoming to the deputy's lack of ready access to a database containing information about sex offenders in the county." I found him [link] on the sex offender registry in 10 seconds.
Unfortunately, Ginger, you are way smarter and more computer literate than the average sheriff's deputy.
Cases like this are extra hard because there seems to be pretty clear evidence that the guy is mentally ill - hearing voices from God, etc. I think the Elizabeth Smart kidnapper was found mentally unfit to stand trial for the same reason. The crime is horrible, but the criminal pretty clearly does not know right from wrong. (OTOH, if you know your brother is literally insane, why do you let him take care of your elderly, dementia-suffering mother?)
