Earlier: "Mermaid Girl" Shiloh Pepin Appears On Oprah

[Image via Oprah.com]

"From Gazza to Kate Winslet and The X Factor, passing Diana, Princess of Wales on the way, we have not just lost the quiet stoicism that was once the foundation of our national pride - we have also lost our shame," Whipple writes of the British, "The question among those of us left to mourn - in suitably restrained fashion - the passing of British reserve is: is too much crying cause for concern? And what, in any case, is the point of it?"

While Whipple's piece centers mainly on the famed "British upper lip," he also speaks to Phillip Hodson, Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, who argues that every emotional display in public is a false one: "Public outpourings of grief do not reflect actual emotional pain," Hodson says, "What is irritating is lachrymosity - shedding tears, but not crying. If you cry not because of the effect of something but because you deem yourself affected, you do a disservice to yourself and mislead others." This argument can be applied, I suppose, to the outpouring of grief seen after celebrity deaths, and Hodson argues that crying over such things sets us up to be shocked and unable to grieve properly when something tragic hits our lives directly.

I'm a bit torn on this; I do think some people play up their emotions in public and allow themselves to get caught up in mass grief as a means to connect with others or to feel like they're a part of something, but I think it's unfair to assume that all public displays of sadness, even for something as silly as watching a sad scene in a movie theater, are false in some way. While the story on the screen is fictional, the emotion it evokes is not, and I don't really think crying in public is really cheapening the power of a good ol' fashion cry in the privacy of one's home, as long as the emotions behind it are real. People who fake cry and who fake grieve have other issues to worry about; the rest of us, I think, are safe to shed a few tears whenever it's really necessary.

Crying: Is This The End Of The Stiff Upper Lip [TimesOnline]

[Image via Natalie Dee.]

The man allegedly sent sexual messages to his daughter, describing the acts he wanted to perform with her, and asked her to meet him to experience such things. According to UPI, one of these messages read: "Not many other fathers and daughters are this brave, so not many of them are so lucky to experience all these pleasures." He signed all of these messages "Bad Daddy." Ugh.

The girl, who is indeed brave for being able to handle this mess, reported the horrific messages to her mother, who subsequently set up a sting with the cops, and the father, thinking he was going to meet his 13-year-old for sex, was then Chris Hansen-ed by police, who caught him with "an unopened box of condoms and a camera and tripod from his vehicle, along with a digital camera, camcorder, computers and data storage devices from his home." Four other men were also picked up in the sting, and "Big Daddy" now faces charges of "unlawful contact with a minor (related to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse), unlawful contact with a minor (related to statutory sexual assault), and criminal attempted incest."

Lancaster Man Busted For Allegedly Sexually Propositioning Biological Daughter On Facebook [Fox43]
Dad Allegedly Propositioned Girl Online [UPI]

Banks, a pastor at the Word of Life Apostolic Church in Riverside, California, kept the girls in an unheated room in her garage, where she "beat them daily with cords, sticks, high-heeled shoes, extension cords and belts, fed them spoiled food, made them take sleeping pills, and sexually abused two of them with paint sticks," according to the San Jose Mercury News. She has been sentenced to 36 years and 8 months plus two consecutive life terms for her crimes.

Banks denies the charges, stating that her daughters are "mentally disabled" and are lying about the way they were treated. One of the daughters (all of them are now in new foster homes) wrote a letter to Banks, noting ""Mom, I know somewhere in your heart you were a nice person. It was not right what you did to me and my sisters. Mom, I want you to know that I forgive you and I will be praying for you. But mom, It will never be OK what you did to me and my sisters."

SoCal Pastor Gets Life Term For Abusing 5 Girls [Mercury News]
Female Pastor Jailed For Drugging, Abusing 5 Girls [MSNBC]

According to the New York Times, police are eying Garrido as a possible suspect in the murders of nine women between 1998-2002. The women, who worked as prostitutes, were all found "in industrialized areas of the cities of Pittsburg and Bay Point, which are near Antioch," the city where Garrido currently lives. Capt. Dan Terry of the Contra Costa County sheriff's office tells the San Francisco Chronicle that "Pittsburg police, for whatever reason, decided [Garrido] was a person of interest," perhaps because many of the bodies were found near an industrial park where Garrido used to work.

Meanwhile, Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren Rupf is admitting that his department completely bungled the operation, missing an opportunity to rescue Jaycee and her two daughters in 2006, after a concerned neighbor called 911 to let authorities know that people, including children, were living in tents behind Garrido's house. The responding officer, Rupf admits, didn't properly check the yard, letting Garrido's bizarre imprisonment of Dugard continue for another three years.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this case (and there are many, many disturbing aspects to this case) is the fact that Garrido was able to carry out this insane and elaborate lie for 18 years. The Times is reporting that Jaycee was able to interact with some of her captor's printing business customers, and the Daily Mail is reporting that neighbors notified authorities three times regarding Garrido's tents and the fact that he was seen with young girls, and yet nothing was done, despite the fact that Garrido is a registered sex offender with a record of rape and kidnapping.

But not all of Garrido's neighbors seemed to be on high alert, despite his strange behavior: "People knew about his background but we never saw anything suspicious at the house," neighbor Heather McQuaid-Glace tells the Daily Mail, "We never heard screaming, we never heard anyone crying for help. There was nothing to give cause for alarm." Officer Ally Jacobs, who ran the background check on Garrido that eventually led to his arrest, disagrees, noting that her concerns about Garrido's eccentric behavior, as well as the "robotic" behavior of his daughters, led her to seek more information on Garrido:

Officer Rupf, attempting to cover his own department's incompetence, praised Jacobs and Campbell for their "world class" work in cracking the case. But is it really "world class" police work to trust your instinct and run a background check when something seems amiss? Or is it just competence, vigilance, and being thorough in making sure that the citizens you've sworn to protect are, in fact, protected? If Garrido does turn out to be the killer of ten women, Rupf and his department will have even more to apologize for, and saying sorry simply will not be enough.

Jaycee Lee Dugard Could Have Been Freed Three Years Ago [Daily Mail]
New Garrido Search: Prostitute Killings[San Francisco Chronicle]
Kidnapping Victim Was Not Always Locked Away[NYTimes]
Kidnap Beast Is Eyed In 10 Slays [NYPost]

Earlier: Young Woman Rescued After 18 Years Of Captivity In Backyard

Bob Harrod, 81, has been missing since last Monday. His new wife, Fontelle, was set to move in with him this week, and police say that Harrod may have been "overwhelmed" by the situation. "His wife is very worried," says Detective Corinne Loomis of the LAPD. "Maybe he's off cooling off some place, but to think he would blow her off like that doesn't make sense. There are things in his home that indicate he was planning on welcoming her into his home."

The couple were reunited by Fontelle's daughter, Leisa, who helped her mother track Bob down after Fontelle's husband passed away. The couple were engaged decades ago, but Bob cut off all contact with Fontelle during his stint in the Korean War, leaving her confused and heartbroken. She eventually moved on, but claims that Bob is "the only man I ever loved," and the two were finally reunited and married last month.

While police are still uncertain as to why Harrod has gone missing, Fontelle still hopes he will return: "I have waited, I don't want to be lost again without him. I want him to come home if he can." Meanwhile, police are asking that Harrod make contact, just to let his family know that he's alright. Says Loomis: "If you don't want to come home and you had second thoughts and want your own space and life back, we will respect that."

81 Year Old Newlywed Robert Harrod Is Missing [AOL]
81-Year-Old Placentia Newlywed Disappears [LATimes]
81-Year-Old Vanishing Groom [ABCNews]

The boys, also refugees from Liberia, lured the girl into a shed by promising her some chewing gum. Once they had her in the shed, all four of them held her down for 15 minutes and raped her, and were later seen running from the scene of the crime after neighbors called the police due to hearing the girl's screams. The 14 year old has been charged as an adult with kidnapping and sexual assault; the rest of the boys have been charged as juveniles, with sexual assault and kidnapping charges against them, with the exception of the 9 year old, who is being charged with sexual assault alone.

But the story only gets worse: the 8 year old's parents have since shunned the girl, noting that they were ashamed of the girl for being viciously raped by her peers. According to police Sgt. Andy Hill: "The father told the caseworker and an officer in her presence that he didn't want her back. He said, 'Take her, I don't want her.'"

The girl is now in foster care, and the horrific treatment by her parents has created quite an outrage—even the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has released a statement: "I think that family is wrong. They should help that child who has been traumatized and they should make sure that they work with the U.S. law authorities to see what can be done about the other young boys who have committed this offense. Not only should they abide by the law, but they too need serious counseling because clearly they are doing something, something that is no longer acceptable in our society here."

Sirleaf, naturally, is trying to dispel the notion that this practice is perfectly acceptable in Liberia, and that the actions of the girl's parents, though horrifying in American society, are quite normal in their home country, where the social structure, as Monica Westin of World of Hope International tells the Associated Press, is built around the notion that the woman is always to blame: "[Women] always being blamed for everything," Westin says, "It's always the girl's fault. There's no gender equality."

Ali Keita of the Arizona Mandingo Association tells the Arizona Republic that while the boys grew up witnessing such horrific acts, "there is no excuse for the crime," and that he believes that the 8-year-old's parents are more embarrassed about their own lack of protection for their child, rather than "ashamed" of their daughter's victimization. Tony Weedor, founder of the CenterPoint International Foundation (and also a Liberian refugee) disagrees, noting that the little girl is a victim of a much larger cultural issue: "It's a shame-based culture, so the crime is not as important as protecting the family name and the name of the community. I just feel so sorry for this little girl. Some of these people will not care about the trauma she's going through - they're more concerned about the shame she brought on the family."

The parents, meanwhile, have not been charged with an crime, as, Bell notes, "They didn't abandon the child. They committed no crime. They just didn't support the child, which led to CPS coming over there." Meanwhile, the police say they've received "dozens of calls" about the girl from well-wishers seeking to help her in some way. "I've never seen a response like this to an incident, and it's just been very, very emotional from just about everybody," Sgt. Hill says, "It's almost overwhelming. I've had dozens of calls and e-mails. The department's had many calls. The investigative bureau has had them from people who just want to help by giving money and many people wanting to adopt the child." The father has reportedly said that he wants his daughter back, but a decision has not been made on the girl's future at this time. One can only hope that wherever she ends up, she is given the love and support she truly needs.

"Shame" Felt By Young Assault Victim's Family Decried [CNN]
Outpouring Grows For Girl, 8 [KPHO]
Arizona Girl Shunned After Alleged Rape [Montreal Gazette]
Outcry Over Disowned US Rape Girl [BBC]
Family Shuns Girl, 8, After Rape [MSNBC]
Oldest Boy In Assault Of Girl To Be Tried As An Adult [AZCentral]

"Rape is a crime of a sense of entitlement. It comes from a notion of power," Jewkes says, "I don't think there is a quick fix. If people were concerted about trying to fix it, it would take a generation."

According to the Associated Press, "Nearly 28 percent of men interviewed said they had forced a woman or girl to have sexual intercourse against her will, according to the survey. It said that 14 percent said they had raped a former or current girlfriend; 12 percent said they had raped someone who was not their partner; and 10 percent said they had raped both a stranger and a partner." To add to the horror, 20% of those men also admitted to having the AIDS virus. Almost 50% of those surveyed admitted to raping on more than one occasion.

Jewkes attributes the findings to a male-dominated culture that has made such practices both normal and perfectly acceptable: ""We know that we have a higher prevalence of rape in South Africa than there is in other countries," she says, "And it's partly rooted in our incredibly disturbed past and the way that South African men over the centuries have been socialised into forms of masculinity that are predicated on the idea of being strong and tough and the use of force to assert dominance and control over women, as well as other men."

The South African government, which has been criticized for failing to take proactive measures to stop the rape epidemic, is perhaps not the best place to look for understanding and support: President Jacob Zuma, elected earlier this year, was acquitted from his own rape trial in 2006 after telling "the court that the woman had dressed provocatively, in a traditional wrap-around kanga, and that it was against Zulu culture for a man to leave a sexually aroused woman unsatisfied." Zuma has since set up a "new ministry to promote women's and children's rights," but its hard to be too optimistic about a ministry for women's rights set up by a man who made such victim-blaming statements during his own rape trial.

"The absolute imperative is we have to change the underlying social attitudes that in a way have created a norm that coercing women into sex is on some level acceptable," says Jewkes. One wonders, in the face of such horrifying statistics, how long it will take for those underlying social attitudes to finally start to change.

South Africa's Rape Crisis [Time]
South African Rape Survey Shock [BBC]
Survey: 1 In 4 S. African Men Admit To Rape [MSNBC]

Police say that Roberts contacted emergency responders to report a newborn baby with breathing troubles; the child later died at the hospital and it was discovered that Roberts, who claimed she had just given birth to the child, was not the baby's birth mother. A search of Roberts' Hillsboro, Oregon home revealed that the actual mother of the child, 21-year-old Heather Megan Snively, had been murdered and shoved into a crawl space.

It gets even more disturbing: Roberts allegedly lured Snively to her home via Craigslist, where she posted an ad looking to swap baby clothes with fellow "pregnant" women. Snively, who had used Craigslist successfully in the past, reportedly communicated with Roberts online for a few weeks before Roberts' picked her up last week for the "clothes swapping" she'd promised. Roberts is currently being held without bail for Snively's murder, and could also face murder charges for the death of Snively's son.

The story is horrifyingly familiar: in 2004, Lisa Montgomery was charged with murdering Bobbie Jo Stinnett after she cut Stinnett's child out of her womb and left her to bleed to death. Montgomery later tried to pass the child off as her own, but was quickly caught and sentenced to death in October, 2007. Stinnett's daughter, Victoria, is now back with Stinnett's family.

In 2008, Andrea Curry-Demus killed 18-year-old Kia Johnson by suffocating her with a plastic bag and cutting her baby out of her womb. Johnson's son survived, and Curry-Demus, who, like the others, attempted to pass the child off as her own, but was caught and charged with murder. She has not faced a jury yet, and remains hospitalized and considered unfit to stand trial at this time.

All three women seem to have the same M.O.: they all discussed their pregnancies (none of them were pregnant), all killed young mothers in particularly heinous ways, and all were caught in their own lies after trying to pass the children off as their own, which leads one to believe that these women were so caught in their own delusions that they actually believed that the children were theirs. The disregard for the lives of other women, and their rights to be mothers, is an incredibly disturbing mindset that brings in to question our strange culture and the emphasis on motherhood that leads some women to feel like they have the right to take one life in order to have the opportunity to raise another.

Woman Accused Of Killing To Steal Baby Remains Hospitalized [Post-Gazette]
Woman Charged In Death Of Eviscerated Teen [CNN]
Jury: Execution In Stolen-Baby Case [USAToday]
Slain Washington County Woman Met Accused Killer On Craigslist, Planned To Exchange Baby Clothes [OregonLive]
Woman Charged In Death Of Pregnant Woman [AP]

"In India, China and sub-Saharan Africa, millions upon millions of women are missing. They are not lost, but dead: victims of violence, discrimination and neglect," writes Nicole Baute, who spends the rest of the article exploring the various causes behind the "missing women" phenomenon.

Female infanticide in countries like China has widely been considered one of the causes behind the gender discrepancies in population growth. However, Baute points out a study by Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray that shows that while infanticide is certainly an issue, the majority of "excess female deaths" comes much later in life. As Anderson notes: "Previously, people had thought that they (the missing women) were all at the very early stages of life, prenatal or just after, so before four years old. But what we found is that the majority are actually later."

Those "later" deaths can be attributed to a number of factors: poor access to health care for women, high suicide rates, HIV and AIDS, and dowry-related murders (which, Burke notes, are marked as "injuries.") Women are treated as second-class citizens whose worth often has a monetary price, and when that price gets too high, they are quickly disposed of. "If you're interested in gender discrimination," Anderson says, "it's really one of the starkest measures of discrimination, because it's women who should be alive, but aren't."

How Did 100,000,000 Women Disappear? [Toronto Star]

Gabe was assigned to be Tina's dive buddy during their dive of the Great Barrier Reef, but when Tina dove too deep and began drowning, David neglected to administer her emergency oxygen. He attempted to pull her up, according to People magazine, but her "hand hit his mask and regulator, knocking them askew." Gabe then claims he left Tina behind and went to the surface to get help. Investigators had another story, claiming that Watson took his time getting to the surface, neglecting to get Tina the emergency care she needed.

Gabe was originally charged with murder over Tina's death, but the charges were later lessened to manslaughter, much to the chagrin of Tina's family, who believe that Watson murdered their daughter in order to access her life insurance policy. Tina's father claims that Gabe pushed Tina to up her life insurance policy just before the couple married, making Gabe the sole beneficiary.

The case has apparently received a bit of publicity in Australia, where Watson was tried and convicted, with Watson being painted as "manipulative" due to fairly damning victim impact statements from Tina's sister and father. Papers are also pointing out that Watson has since remarried—to a Tina "lookalike," which I'm sure will only lead to more speculation and tv movie of the week type drama.

Watson was originally sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for his role in Tina's death, but a judge has already lessened the sentence, and he will most likely serve no more than one year. Tina's family continues to argue that Watson is a murderer who got off easy: "We believe that Gabe Watson murdered our daughter," her father says, "We will continue to believe that. This is not justice and this is not over." The State of Alabama agrees: the Attorney-General, Troy King, has already stated that he will push "America's legal boundaries to the limit" to ensure justice for Tina's family.

Husband To Serve One Year In Honeymoon Scuba Death [People]
Alabama Man Jailed In Honeymoon Scuba Death [CNN]
Gabe Watson Described As "Manipulative" [CourierMail]
US Challenges Killer Husband Wristslap [TheAge]

Darabi's boyfriend allegedly told her to take the blame, as he was 19 at the time, and she was 17. The couple believed that the Iranian government would not execute Darabi, as she was a minor at the time of the crime. Despite protests from human rights organizations, Darabi was executed Friday, after calling her mother and screaming, "Oh, Mother, I see the hangman's noose in front of me. They are going to execute me. Please save me." Darabi's lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, claims the execution took place without family notification or a lawyer present. "She was denied a legal right guaranteed under the law, Mostafaei says, "The hasty execution and the ignoring of legal provisions suggests that some authorities were happy to put an end to her life."

Human rights groups across the world have denounced the hanging: Zama Coursen-Neff of Human Rights Watch calls the execution "an outrageous violation of Iranian as well as international human rights law, and a callous affront to basic human dignity." Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of Amnesty International agrees: "This appears to have been a cynical move on the part of the authorities to avoid domestic and international protests which might have saved Delara Darabi's life." The execution was also condemned by the European Union, who called it "counter to the international commitments that Iran has voluntarily accepted."

Darabi's boyfriend is currently serving 10 years in prison for his role in the murder.

Iran Hangs Woman Convicted Of Murder As Minor [AP]
Rights Groups Denounce Delana Darabi's Execution [LA Times]
Amnesty International Condemns Hanging Of Iranian Woman [CBC]

Writes Jessica Bennett for Newsweek, "From the beginning, Nikki's death had all the makings of a sensational story. She was gorgeous; it was Halloween, and she was driving a $90,000 sports car." But why did the nine photographs leaked from the scene of her accident become a sick, twisted internet phenomenon? [Warning: The pictures, should you search for them, are VERY graphic, and the family wishes you would not see them.]

California Highway Patrol apologized for the leaked pictures; two CHP dispatchers were to blame. One man's attorney said that he sent the images to relatives and friends "as a cautionary tale" to warn them of the dangers of the road. "Any young person that sees these photos and is goaded into driving more cautiously or less recklessly-that's a public service."

Whether or not the pictures did any "public service" is debatable; what did happen was that they popped up on websites specializing in morbid stuff. A fake MySpace page was set up in Nikki's name, where she was called a "stupid bitch." Commenters wrote things like, "That spoiled rich girl deserved it," and "What a waste of a Porsche."

Nikki's family sued the CHP for negligence, privacy invasion and infliction of emotional harm, but a judge dismissed the case. The Catsourases are appealling. Jessica Bennett notes: "But while libel and slander are regulated by law in the real world, in the cyberworld almost anything goes… Legally, anyone can post bloody images of Nikki Catsouras." The real question is: Why do people want to? Rubber-necking at a traffic accident when you're actually on the road is one thing, but setting up a fake MySpace for a dead girl is another. What possesses a person to email a father bloody pictures of his daughter? And do you think it should be illegal?

A Tragedy That Won't Fade Away [Newsweek]