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Kansas City girl, 5, may face murder charges in drowning

Aunt Spiker

Aunt Spiker

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Kansas City girl, 5, may face murder charges in drowning - Yahoo! News


A 5-year-old girl could face murder charges in the recent drowning of a toddler in a bathtub, police said on Thursday

Johnson, 18 months old, was in a Kansas City house on June 3rd with other children, but the 16-year-old girl who was supposed to be looking after them fell asleep, Snapp said.

"She said she got angry because he would not stop crying and she held him under the water until he stopped crying," Snapp said.
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Geesh man
 
I'm not following the illogic of this cas: if a 16 year old was suppose to be babysitting a baby and a 5-year old, and she feel asleep and is the one who didn't wake up with the baby crying endlessly, then shouldnt' she be held on charges: endangering a minor, enabling a murder and other charges of that sort?
 
Aunt Spiker said:
I'm not following the illogic of this cas: if a 16 year old was suppose to be babysitting a baby and a 5-year old, and she feel asleep and is the one who didn't wake up with the baby crying endlessly, then shouldnt' she be held on charges: endangering a minor, enabling a murder and other charges of that sort?
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Would you charge the mother who put the kids to bed, fell asleep, and woke up to that scene the next morning?
 
This 5 year old should be given the needle. Put her to sleep as humanely as possible.
 
tessaesque said:
Would you charge the mother who put the kids to bed, fell asleep, and woke up to that scene the next morning?
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In this case - the mother of the children? Depends - that would really come aroudn to an investigation into why she was gone, why she hired the babysitter and other things like that.

Outright - I don't see hiring a teen to babysit as being an inevitable recipe for disaster. Quite a few do it as a summer job and do a good job of it and are trustworthy - some, though, err on the side of 'no-va'
 
Aunt Spiker said:
In this case - the mother of the children? Depends - that would really come aroudn to an investigation into why she was gone, why she hired the babysitter and other things like that.

Outright - I don't see hiring a teen to babysit as being an inevitable recipe for disaster. Quite a few do it as a summer job and do a good job of it and are trustworthy - some, though, err on the side of 'no-va'
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No, I meant. If the mother had been watching the children. If their mom had washed them, put them to bed, and then fallen asleep. Would you want to charge the mom for what the 5 year old did?
 
tessaesque said:
No, I meant. If the mother had been watching the children. If their mom had washed them, put them to bed, and then fallen asleep. Would you want to charge the mom for what the 5 year old did?
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If she didn't wake up while the baby was crying endlessly - then yes.

The adult in charge - or caregiver - is responsible for what happens when they're *suppose* to be the one present.
 
I think the babysitter should hold some fault in this case for falling asleep, especially if she put the child in the tub, but the extent of the fault and how much she could share with the parents and/or the 5 year old is why more information on this case is needed.

And the 5 year old should probably be brought in for psychological evaluation to determine if there are some anger management issues (yes, even at that age). I can't imagine a 5 year old thinking that it is okay to act so violently against another child without some sort of issues.

I would hold off on making any firm decisions on this case though without all the information. Was the baby actually crying loudly and/or the whole time, or did it just seem like that to the other child? Who put the baby in the water? Did the parents know of any anger or jealousy problems with the 5 year old and, if so, were those told to the babysitter?
 
Aunt Spiker said:
If she didn't wake up while the baby was crying endlessly - then yes.

The adult in charge - or caregiver - is responsible for what happens when they're *suppose* to be the one present.
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Okay, but how do we know how long the child cried, or if the child actually cried, or if the 5 year old stiffled the cries? We have a baby sitter who didn't hear the cries and a 5 year old who killed a toddler. Kind of hard to establish a chain of events here.
 
tessaesque said:
Okay, but how do we know how long the child cried, or if the child actually cried, or if the 5 year old stiffled the cries? We have a baby sitter who didn't hear the cries and a 5 year old who killed a toddler. Kind of hard to establish a chain of events here.
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According ot the report - the 5 year old drowned the 18 month old because he wouldn't stop crying. That's all we know - that's all I can base my opinion on.

that might not have been what happened - but that's what's being stated at the moment.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
According ot the report - the 5 year old drowned the 18 month old because he wouldn't stop crying. That's all we know - that's all I can base my opinion on.

that might not have been what happened - but that's what's being stated at the moment.
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Unfortunately, questioning children is hard, and the information garnered is not often accurate. "Wouldn't stop crying" when? In general? Or at the moment?
 
Who puts a 5 year old and an 18 month old in a bathtub with water then goes out of the bathroom?

You have to assume one or both will drown as it is a common occurance.

I don't think criminal charges are right in this case, I don't think she could have made the connection between what she did and death or even knew what death was.
 
Mason66 said:
Who puts a 5 year old and an 18 month old in a bathtub with water then goes out of the bathroom?

You have to assume one or both will drown as it is a common occurance.

I don't think criminal charges are right in this case, I don't think she could have made the connection between what she did and death or even knew what death was.
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Why do you think they were being bathed?
 
tessaesque said:
Unfortunately, questioning children is hard, and the information garnered is not often accurate. "Wouldn't stop crying" when? In general? Or at the moment?
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*shrug* Every kid's different - one of my kids could read book ad nauseum at the age of 5, another wasn't even talking by that age.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
*shrug* Every kid's different - one of my kids could read book ad nauseum at the age of 5, another wasn't even talking by that age.
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Yeah, every kid is different, but statistically, when being interviewed about events, they are almost universally inclined to say/do whatever they think the questioner wants. It is hard to allow interview evidence from a child for this reason.
 
This was an accident in the end. The 5 year old may have some mental problems, but we don't charge 5 year olds with capitol offenses. The baby sitter feel asleep, it happens. Unless it was drug or alcohol related she should not be punished.

Bad things happen to kids and good people all the time. As much as this is the "blame somebody society" sometimes **** just happens and it is no one's fault.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Why do you think they were being bathed?
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They were being bathed because they were dirty I assume, but they weren't being bathed were they?

They were bathing themselves. You have to bath a 5 year old and even more the 18 month old. They can't do it themselves.

Why did you ask that?
 
Blackdog said:
This was an accident in the end. The 5 year old may have some mental problems, but we don't charge 5 year olds with capitol offenses. The baby sitter feel asleep, it happens. Unless it was drug or alcohol related she should not be punished.

Bad things happen to kids and good people all the time. As much as this is the "blame somebody society" sometimes **** just happens and it is no one's fault.
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Why would she have mental problems. 5 year olds can't make the connection between their actions and consequences. If she has had no experience with death, then she would not know what it is.

My 5 year old has had close relatives die and it was explained to him what happened. We did not tell him they went to live on a farm.

Honesty is the best especially with little kids.
 
The babysitter has a duty of care to both kids, and should be the one charged, not the 5 year old.
 
tessaesque said:
Okay, but how do we know how long the child cried, or if the child actually cried, or if the 5 year old stiffled the cries? We have a baby sitter who didn't hear the cries and a 5 year old who killed a toddler. Kind of hard to establish a chain of events here.
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Yeah, there could be a chain of events issue. Babies cry. Sometimes they cry because you try to make them go to sleep. It is a fairly common practice when putting a baby down to sleep, and they cry: you check them once to make sure nothing is wrong, then you ignore the crying until they go to sleep. If they're crying for no reason other than attention, you can't go check on them every few minutes because that's the attention they want: You'd encourage the behavior of trying to get out of sleep-time by crying.

Unless there are other circumstances we are not yet aware of, the babysitter didn't do anything that millions of moms don't do every day.

The five year old though.... lord, that's a heartbreaker. I don't know how a 5yo could know what she was doing in such a case, really... but then again she had to have known it was a bad thing. I'm pretty sure she needs a shrink and not simply a jail sentence.... hell is there any Juvenile Detention center in the country set up to handle FIVE year olds???
 
Puts a new meaning to kindergarten cop.
 
roguenuke said:
I think the babysitter should hold some fault in this case for falling asleep, especially if she put the child in the tub, but the extent of the fault and how much she could share with the parents and/or the 5 year old is why more information on this case is needed.

And the 5 year old should probably be brought in for psychological evaluation to determine if there are some anger management issues (yes, even at that age). I can't imagine a 5 year old thinking that it is okay to act so violently against another child without some sort of issues.

I would hold off on making any firm decisions on this case though without all the information. Was the baby actually crying loudly and/or the whole time, or did it just seem like that to the other child? Who put the baby in the water? Did the parents know of any anger or jealousy problems with the 5 year old and, if so, were those told to the babysitter?
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My son is 19 months and there is NO WAY IN HELL I would leave him unattended in a bathtub. What an idiot babysitter. SHE is the one responsible for this childs death..

Tim-
 
Hicup said:
My son is 19 months and there is NO WAY IN HELL I would leave him unattended in a bathtub. What an idiot babysitter. SHE is the one responsible for this childs death..

Tim-
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I wouldn't either, which is why I asked if the babysitter had left him in the bath or if it was possible that the 5 year old ran the bath water and put the 18 month old in it. I think that 5 year olds can run bath water. Or maybe the baby was supposed to be in bed and the babysitter left the 5 year old alone in the bath and fell asleep, still not good, but a bit different than leaving an 18 month old in a bath alone. I am just saying that it depends on what happened. Not many parents or babysitters, for that matter, are going to leave an 18 month old in a bathtub alone. If this one did though, then I would expect her to receive some sort of punishment, but otherwise, it isn't unreasonable to think that maybe she believed the 18 month old was safe in his bed or room and not in danger of drowning.
 
Mason66 said:
They were being bathed because they were dirty I assume, but they weren't being bathed were they?

They were bathing themselves. You have to bath a 5 year old and even more the 18 month old. They can't do it themselves.

Why did you ask that?
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I thought maybe you found another article that had more details. I get frustrated when articles are skimpy on facts like this one.
 
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