HOW CAN CHILDREN BE CAPABLE OF SUCH DREADFUL EVIL?
Mary Carr’s searing column on the death of Ana Kriegel
IT IS human instinct to try to understand what can cause minds to sink into twisted depravity. Why did Fred and Rose West mutilate so many innocent young women? Was Clodagh Hawe’s husband mad or bad? And what about the senseless murder of Ana Kriegel by two 13-year-old schoolboys; how could children be capable of such evil?
The boys’ family backgrounds and psychiatric reports, normally fertile hunting ground for investigating gardaí, lawyers and even armchair psychologists yield no clues. Boy A and Boy B come from stable, working and law-abiding households so no red flags there.
Nor are there signs of personality disorder, or grounds for diminished responsibility or depression, although we have to be careful as depression is stigmatised enough without the myth that those in its grip are more likely to explode in an orgy of violence than other people.
In the absence of a motive for their shocking crimes, the finger of blame turns inevitably towards pornography because Boy A, who sexually assaulted Ana, was a fiend for porn, some of it violent, as gleaned from his two mobile phones.
BUT while pornography has never been as ubiquitous as now, what evidence is there of it actually engendering violence? Sure, porn peddles a distorted and at its extreme end, perverted, view of sexuality which may colour the proclivities of the unformed mind but there’s a yawning gap between making certain sexual practices mainstream and turning youngsters into savage women-hating murder machines.
And what of the thousands of schoolboys who watch porn or macabre movies, and do nothing worse than mitch off school?
We can’t safely lay the blame for Ana Kriegel’s death at pornography’s door, tempting though it is. Boy A’s grandfather said in court that the now 15year-old was deeply loved by his parents and grandparents and that they would miss his constant presence in their lives.
But the truth is that we have no idea why a child, bathed in love all his life, would be so despicably cruel to a girl who just wanted to be his friend.
According to Boy B, Boy A confided that he wanted to kill someone and he chose Ana, perhaps because, as Boy B maintained, Ana was a bit of a ‘weirdo’ and he couldn’t have a no-mark like her having a crush on him.
She also craved acceptance and he knew she would accept any overture of friendship, not realising it was malevolent.
Boy A placed his zombie mask, his shin guards, the heavy duty construction tape supplied in advance by Boy B into his backpack and went to the park. He and Boy B planned to bring Ana to a filthy hovel, out of earshot.
BOY B told lie upon lie about what occurred. He said he left Ana and Boy A in the big house and when he heard Ana screaming, he assumed they were being attacked but that Boy A would deal with it as he was big and strong. Later he admitted seeing Ana being ‘flipped over and choked’. Next, that he saw his pal strip Ana of her clothes. He didn’t lift a finger. Boy A told gardaí Ana left on hearing he had no romantic interest in her and that he was then set upon by two youths.
It is a tragic irony that while Ana was going to a counsellor to help her deal with bullies (she attended a session on her last day alive) the bullies were under no onus to get help.
Two young boys coldly manipulated a naïve young girl and mercilessly bludgeoned her to death. We don’t know why they exhibited such ugly, degenerate behaviour but perhaps Boy A and B will discover why during their psychiatric treatment.
Perhaps both will admit what they did to Ana to the doctors, and to the families who have stood by them steadfastly.
We can only hope they also admit it to themselves. Only then can they start the process of redemption which, if it means anything, should come at a price – the reckoning being the inner torment of acknowledging the full horror of their own deeds.