Seeking sense in the senseless

Hunter’s family must live with not only their sense of loss, but another void as well ...

Unfathomable violence naturally leaves questions, which may never be answered, but that doesn’t mean those left to deal with the aftermath don’t desperately want those answers. The case which concluded on Monday, involving the incident in which then 15-year-old babysitter Daniel Cameron exploded into an attack of fatal violence on 9-year-old Hunter MacIntosh, in the Southland town of Otautau last year, is one. The senseless murder of 51 Muslims at two Christchurch mosques on March 15, 2019, is another.

MacIntosh had a gizmo that made a piercing airhorn blast and this Cameron found really annoying. Instructed to cut it out, young Hunter, it appears, did not.

It happens. But look at what happened next.

For this the teenager has been sentenced to life imprisonment and, to this extent at least, justice has taken its course. But this is one of those deeply troubling cases that offer scant solace. Such explanations as were presented seem so very trite, so inadequate. Both for Hunter’s family, and the 600 townsfolk who knew and thought so well of the youngster.

Cameron had babysat Hunter 10 or so times before, and the boy seems to have liked his sitter, whose own background was reported to have been relatively untroubled. Their mums were friends. He was trusted.

Neither psychiatric nor psychological scrutiny revealed anything more than some mildly autistic traits. Not at all enough for the professionals to class any as recognisable mental health issues.

So what are we left with? A catastrophic failure of anger management that no-one could have seen coming? Something inherent in males, or teenaged ones anyway? Or particular but still unknown background issues that are for some reason impenetrable?

Cameron faces a minimum 11 years in jail but is not to be released until, at some stage after that, the authorities are satisfied he no longer poses a risk. This would certainly take far more information than the trial was able to deliver.

In the meantime, Hunter’s family must live with not only their sense of loss, but another void as well – an explanation to mitigate the senselessness of it.

Making sense from the senseless is an abiding need for victims of horror. Come the point where a shuddering society might see a matter as done and dusted, the bereft are so often still left with unanswered questions.

That is something that emerges, too, from families of the Christchurch mosque attack victims wanting to know what the shooter actually said to the royal commission – evidence not subsequently needed for trial since the man admitted the atrocities.

Since that dreadful day, community thinking has quite rightly been the less heard from him the better.

This, after all, was a man looking to inspire (and he has) others around the world. Publishing his words carries great risk.

But is there no room for manoeuvre? Some limited release of information, disclosed at least to the families?

Too sensitive or provocative for wider public release but capable of bringing the families a degree of understanding?

It’s a thought. One with complexities and difficulties, but not to be dismissed out of hand.

It might bring the families a degree of better understanding, and that’s no small thing, even though you’d have to doubt they would hear anything to address their pain.