Delivering justice in cases of pure evil
A few months ago, a mother in Berks County called 911 to report that her two young children had been found hanging in the basement of their home. Lisa Snyder said that her
8-year-old son Conor had been depressed because he’d been the victim of bullying at school, and she believed that he had taken his own life and the life of his 5-yearold sister Brinley because he was “scared to go by himself.”
Many people shook their heads at the tragedy, sent “thoughts and prayers” and chalked it up to the horrible phenomenon of juvenile suicide. Others, more skeptical, suggested that 8-year-olds do not kill themselves, nor do they kill their younger siblings.
The skepticism proved prophetic when, this week, it was reported that Snyder was charged with murdering her son and daughter.
No motive was provided, other than that the mother had told a witness that she was depressed and “didn’t care anymore about her kids.” We won’t know whether she actually did murder those babies, and there is always the obligatory presumption of innocence. But if we follow our human instincts and try not to provide implausible explanations for the improbable fact that an 8-year-old was able to hang his 4-year-old sister and then himself from a basement ceiling, we are left with the very real possibility that a mother killed her babies.
This is Medea, the Greek tragedy that put matricide on the literary map, written in the more mundane language of the Pennsylvania countryside. Mother kills children; mother makes up story for killing children; mother is revealed as a murderer; mother makes excuses for killing children; and some parts of society try to “understand.”
I expect that what will happen next is that a raft of psychologists will pop up with theories ranging from long-delayed post partum psychosis a la Andrea Yates (the mother who murdered her babies by drowning them in the bathtub because she heard voices) to the more banal desperation that comes from being a neglected wife a la Susan Smith (who strapped her two little boys into the backseat of her car and then drove that car into a lake, killing them but saving herself.)
The Berks County case is closer to Smith than Yates, because in the latter situation you could make a legitimate claim that the mother was indeed suffering from a physical, organic disease of the mind.
Susan Smith was not suffering from any psychosis, other than the most common form of mental and social deformation: narcissism. To her, the world owed her what it had not yet provided. To her, black men (whom she blamed for murdering her babies) were easy scapegoats for her own sordid crime. To her, those beautiful sons stood in the way of a better life, one with an exciting boyfriend.
And this narcissism is, of course, not limited to women. There is Scott Peterson, who murdered his wife, Laci, and their unborn child, Conner, because he was having several affairs and didn’t want to be burdened with a conventional family. There is Chris Watts, who admitted to murdering his wife, Shanann, and two daughters Bella and Celeste because he, also, was having an affair. There is Charles Stuart, who murdered his pregnant wife, Carol, and their unborn son Christopher to obtain the proceeds of a life insurance policy, blamed a black man for the crime, and then committed suicide when the truth was revealed by his own brother.
Men commit murder as often as women. The difference is that society is more willing to immediately condemn these husbands and fathers for their heinous acts of violence, while they are a bit more forgiving of wives and mothers, trying to find excuses in the dark recesses of the troubled mind for their transgressions.
In fact, when the indictment of Lisa Snyder became public, I actually heard some people suggest that she must be mentally ill to have committed the crimes. I read commentaries about how her depression must have led to the murders because “no sane woman” would murder her babies. While there was widespread condemnation, there was a small but strong coterie of lay people and experts who posited that there must have been something wrong with her.
While I am not a psychologist, much less a forensic scientist, I would like to suggest what was actually “wrong” with Lisa Snyder if, in fact, she killed 8-yearold Conner and 4-year-old Brinley: she is the human incarnation of evil.
In this society where we so often try and empathize with criminals and make life easier for them by viewing their crimes in the context of deprivation, drug use, poverty, lack of education and racial and sexual bigotry, it is not fashionable to use the word “evil.” It is considered too Biblical, too judgmental, too anti-intellectual and too “right wing,” and we try to distance ourselves from anything that smells of moral critique.
We are a society, now, that has rejected what our ancestors understood: that shame is a powerful antidote to transgression. If we are ashamed enough of our basest inclinations (human though they might be) we are more likely to withstand the impulse to give in to them. If we think that we will be placed in some figurative public stocks with fingers pointed in our faces, if we know that rhetorical stones will be hurled at our heads, if we suspect that empathy and understanding will not be extended to us after we yield to the worst aspects of our nature, we might just stay on the right side of virtue. At the very least, we will hesitate a bit longer before doing those bad things.
But we don’t like shame anymore. We are ashamed of it, in fact. We think that calling people evil and embarrassing them with the truth of their vile and hateful natures is mean spirited and un-”Christian.” We are New Testament, not Old.
Well, I for one believe that there is evil in the world, and that no amount of psychoanalysis can turn an evil person into someone who belongs in our communities. I believe that a mother who is convicted of killing her two tiny children, or a father who murders his wife and unborn son, represent creatures who do not deserve empathy or understanding.
It is time that we stopped trying to be kind to those who do not deserve it, time that we stopped trying to extend forgiveness to those who, by their inhuman acts have forfeited any right to a recognition of their own humanity, time that we finally said “you are an evil bastard and we need to erase you from our community.”
If Lisa Snyder is convicted of doing what many of us are certain she actually did (and yes, she still deserves the benefit of due process, if not the benefit of doubt) we cannot try to understand, or justify, or – worst of all – forgive.
It is time to lock the societal door against the Prodigal Sons and Daughters, because there is indeed such a thing as evil and when we encounter it, we must neutralize it before it takes more innocent victims. Like Conner, Brinley, Laci, Conner, Shannan, Bella, Celeste, Carol, and Christopher.