Who are killing the children?
Another young child has died under mysterious circumstances in which the initial speculation is that the child died by self-hanging. Without going into the exacting details at this time, let me summarize that for years there has been a series of relatively unexplained child deaths and near deaths. These have been lexilinked by twilight names (Montana, Aquan, Imhotep; Chatham-Chatham), bizarre pedophilia hints (under investigation), and the common factor that the children were found hanged, often on a coat hook, often in bathrooms.
In addition to January 21, 2010's alleged new suicide (see below), here's a summary of older incidents:
1. Unnamed youth ~ Kanpur, India; February 20, 2009; hanged from the hook of the toilet in a train; dead.
2. Unnamed girl ~ South Side Chicago, Illinois; February 20, 2009; hanged on a clothes hook in home closet; dead.
3. Unnamed boy ~ Chatham, Illinois; February 4, 2009; hanged by hook; dead.
4. Aquan Lewis ~ Evanston, Illinois; February 3, 2009; hanged on a school bathroom hook; dead.
5. Tevin Park-Flowers (a twin) ~ Austin, Texas; January 30, 2008; hanged by a hook in a gymnasium bathroom; pants were down at his ankles; dead.
6. Unnamed boy ~ New Bedford, Massachusetts; January 30, 2008; found alive, hanging on a hook in a children's room of the New Bedford Public Library; man arrested, charged with child molestation and rape.
7. Unnamed child ~ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; April 27, 2005; near death, found hanging on a hook in a school coatroom closet.
8. Imhotep Lubin ~ Brooklyn, New York; 2004; found alive hanging by his belt from a hook in a school closet; teacher arrested.
9. Unnamed child ~ Chatham, Ontario; 1998; hanged from a hook in school bathroom; dead.
In the most recent assumed suicide, 9-year-old Montana Lance allegedly hanged himself in a bathroom at Stewart's Creek Elementary School, The Colony, Texas, shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday, January 21, 2010.
Lt. Darren Brockway said that the boy "had reportedly hung himself in a bathroom" and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Autopsy results are pending. Police are investigating the circumstances but don't expect any criminal charges.
Because there seems to be no cooperation between police departments on these far-flung incidents, could there perhaps be some similar patterns that have developed and are being overlooked?
Are there other mystery deaths of children on coat hooks that you have read about, in isolation from the above accounts?
What could any of this have to do with J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan? Stay tuned.
As for the Peter Pan connection, study the symbolism of Peter Pan as 'the boy who wouldn't grow up' and his gang of 'lost boys' who were 'forgotten by their parents'. The hooks were these tragic children were found hanging from, a reference to Peter Pan's arch nemesis Captain Hook.
ReplyDeleteJ.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, lets him say this about death: "To die will be an awfully big adventure". One author, Kevin Orlin Johnson, has argued that the Pan stories are in the German-English tradition of the Totenkindergeschichte, the "tales of dead children".
And then there is Peter Pan's mythical realm Neverland, the name also given to Michael Jackson's ranch which, as some allege, is a place where one of the darkest kinds of violence against children was been performed.
In 1998, the year that Loren's death list begins, news was also spread that J.D. Salingers new novel was on the verge of being released (or postponed, judging from which point of view you look at it). The novel was titled 'The Glasses' and centered about a child prodigy who one day suddenly committed suicide. Salinger's previous novel, 'The Catcher in the Rye', is a clear example of a roman a clef that triggered some deep emotional - or pre-programmed - strain in John Lennon's killer, Mark david Chapman, as he himself admitted.
From Chapman to Chatham, where Loren's haunting list begins. Let me add to his alerting and highly puzzling string of events the following account that also took place in 1998, and that was published in a number of newspapers. The source of the transcript below is the New York, Syracuse newspaper 'Syracuse Herald Journal', 31 March 1998:
"Chapel Hill NC
"A 13-year old girl who had talked about problems at home committed suicide at school Monday, shooting herself in a bathroom. The girl died 1:55 p.m. at a hospiral, about three hours after the shooting. Students say the seventh-grader was new to Grey Culbreth Middle School and had mentioned problems... School Superintendent Neil Pedersen wouldn't talk about what school officials believed was the reason for the suicide..."
Thanks for that post theo - lots of information and connections.
ReplyDeleteI also recommend the book Captivated: J.M. Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of Neverland, by Piers Dudgeon. This accuses the author of hypnotism, child sexual abuse, infiltration of other people's families, faking a will, and other serious crimes. There is also an overtone of occultism throughout.
Recently heard of a 9 year old who hung himself in school bathroom in England. I noticed it because on April 10, 1970, my 9 year old cousin, Lorrain Larkin hung herself. Shortly after began the double initial murders-- three little girls with double initials raped and strangled.
ReplyDeleteLoren, you've sent a shiver down my spine which NO blog by ANYONE's ever hitherto done.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I was born 6 Feb, my younger brother 28 April, but get this: in the '60s, (in Liverpool, in the UK), when I was 8, my school, Tiber Street Junior's, made this great display of installing what was SUPPOSED to be a brand new cloakroom.
Anyway, not long after this took place, I found myself alone in this cloakroom with a pair of twin boys from the year below, celebrated throughout the school for having extremely trendy Beatle-style haircuts.
Anyway, that day we started playing tick, and ducking out of the reach of one of the "Terrible Twins", (as me and my younger sister'd dubbed them), I inadvertently smacked into one of the coat hooks.
To the amazement of the three of us, the whole section the hook was part of seemed to momentarily come alive with cold fury and loathing - almost as if, if only it could, it would've ripped itself up by its foundations and chased us off down the street - at which point a sort of miniature lightning bolt, about two-and-a-half to three inches long arced out of the hook and shocked my hand.
Then, even as we us stood there, jaws gaping and paralysed on the spot, keeping one eye on the coat hook and glancing back and forth at each other wondering what to do next, the three of us were terrified to hear this coat hook, in the utterly hideous voice of a thoroughly nasty old man snarl, "Ah, now you didn't know we could do that, did y', y'little sh*t!" at which point I ran back to class, shaking like a leaf, and the twins ran straight out the school, their parents subsequently refusing to bring them back.
Now, whatever you make of that story, it's all very well for some people to say oh, people're always seeing and hearing things that aren't there, as if somehow that's both the explanation and the 'cure', but I'm aware of adults who, under the well-intentioned onslaught of "it's all in your head", went on to kill themselves over far milder experiences than that; but - God! - until now, it'd never occurred to me kids might be taking that option, too, (if not something far worse, given other data available to me).
alanborky
D.M. 11-year-old dies of apparent suicide at home for children
ReplyDeleteCOUNCIL BLUFFS (AP) — An 11-year-old Des Moines girl died after she was found hanging in a bathroom at a home for troubled children, police said.
"This is the youngest suicide I can remember," Police Sgt. Larry Wright said. "It's a real waste, a kid that young. But it seems to be a malady that affects youngsters of our country these days." Crystal Manke, who would have turned 12 next week, was found Wednesday afternoon in a Children's Square U.S.A. residential treatment home.
She was pronounced dead at an Omaha, Neb., hospital. Wright said an autopsy would be performed. Tim Neal, development director for. Christian Home Association-Children's Square U.S.A., said in a statement that about 90 percent of children who come to the organization are "emotionally troubled."
"There are a lot of pressures that they face," he said. "With the emotionally troubled children we work with, this is just one more hurdle they're trying to overcome." He said staff members and children were receiving counseling after the incident. He did not know how long Manke had been at the home.
Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 8 May 1998
10-Year-Old's Death At School Ruled Suicide
ReplyDeleteE VANSTON, III. — A 10 year-old boy reportedly found hanging from a coat hook at his suburban Chicago school
took his own life, accdrding to a preliminary coroner’s office ruling on Wednesday.
A daily ledger released by the Cook County medical examiner noted "hanging" and "suicide" as the cause of death for fifth-grader Aquan Lewis, who was found unresponsive in a bathroom at the Evanston school Tuesday afternoon and was pronounced dead at a hospital Wednesday morning. Neither the medical examiner's office nor Evanston police returned messages Wednesday from The Associated Press.
The boy's distraught mother, Angel Lewis, left a school district building hours earlier, not speaking directly to reporters but saying over and over, "He should have been accounted for. He should have been accounted for."
A janitor at Oakton Elementary School, Elliott Lieteau, said he found Aquan on the floor of the restroom and that
others told him the boy had been pulled off a hook. Lieteau said he performed CPR. Speaking before the coroner's finding, a community activist who accompanied Lewis and acted.as her spokeswoman said Lewis did not believe her boy would have committed suicide.
"She sent her son to school yesterday morning in good spirits," Dawn Valenti said. "The next thing she knows
she's getting a call that her son died.... He did not commit suicide. There was nothing wrong with her son."
Daily News Record, Harrisonburg, Virginia, 5 february 2009
Homicide suspected in hanging death. Experts cast suspicion in case of girl, 11, first believed to have committed suicide.
ReplyDeleteBy Jim O'Hara Staff writer
Onondaga County’s medical examiner and three outside experts believe the September hanging death of 11-year-old
Valerie Lucie was more likely a homicide than a suicide as prosecutors and police contend. Medical Examiner Dr.
Mary Jumbelic wrote in her Feb. 11 autopsy report that there was insufficient evidence to rule the death a homicide and left the manner of death characterized as "undetermined." But she and the other experts believe it is much more likely the girl was killed than committed suicide.
"The physical evidence and circumstances surrounding the death cause a high level of suspicion for homicide." Jumbelic wrote in the report. "Given all of the factors. 1 do not feel that the determination of manner can be made within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, however this death is more probably a homicide than a suicide."
The report did not indicate am suspects Onondaga County District Attorney William J. Fitzpatrick on
Body's position among factors cited in homicide theory
Wednesday stood by his contention the death was a suicide — a conclusion he said he arrived at based partly on Jumbelic’s reluctance to rule it a homicide. "This is a suicide," he said. A county grand jury reviewed the case, including Jumbelic's report, and supported his contention, he said, adding that forensic experts' reports were flawed by bad information from one of Jumbelic's investigators. "I stand by my conclusions," Jumbelic said Wednesday but
declined to discuss the case or the alleged incorrect information.
Valerie's father, Timothy Lucie, 46, was charged with rape and sodomy shortly after his daughter was found hanging
from her bed Sept. 30. He admitted to police he sexually assaulted the girl in the bathroom of their home at 2511 E.
Genesee St. that morning and then left for a business appointment.
He later recanted and claimed he confessed only because police threatened to take his four sons away from him.
When he was charged he was ordered to have no unsupervised contact with his four other children. Charges of neglect In addition to the criminal charges, Timothy Lucie and his wife, Andrea, have been charged in Family Court with neglect. Wednesday, Judge Martha Walsh Hood ruled their sons - ages 2 to 8 - should be kept in foster care, away from both of their parents.
Andrea Lucie has been accused of allowing her husband to visit their children, violating a court order instructing him to stay away from their home. Jumbelic's autopsy report indicated Valerie was found dead in her bedroom about 1 p.m. when her then 7-year-old brother was sent upstairs by their mother to get her to come down for lunch.
The girl was found with a metal-studded dog collar around her neck that was attached to a carabiner (a metal ring with a snap link used in mountain climbing) mat was attached to a long metal chain wound around the bedpost of the bed. Jumbelic's report cited several factors that led her to believe Valerie was killed, including:
• The chain was rusty but no rust was found on Valerie's hands.
• The mechanism used to hang the child from the bed post appears too complex for a child to operate.
• Valerie's hair was entangled in the dog collar and the carabiner.
• The position of the hanging body: The girl's eyeglasses were perched on the tip of her nose.
• The way an attached rabies tag on the collar was imprinted on the girl's neck while the tag itself was hanging free at the scene...
The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York, 9 April 2004
In my posts of additional accounts I note some strange lexilinks:
ReplyDeletePedersen and pederasty
Lucie and Lucis (light)
Jumbelic and umbilical chord
Aquan and Angel
... and Crystal and Tinkerbell.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone ever read 'The Franklin Scandal' by John DeCamp?
ReplyDeleteI believe that there is a passage in that book where one of the child victims describes being at some kind of Satanic meeting on a farm or someplace with a barn.
The victim described children being hung from hooks in the barn and set on fire.
didn't read all the comments. maybe someone mentioned this one?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1246267/Schoolgirl-10-accidently-hanged-dressing-gown-cord-danced-Lady-GaGa.html
What is the relationship between this and cyclical child abductions where the children are never found?
ReplyDeleteSJR
The Pink Flamingo
When I saw the topic of children dying on hooks, my first thought was the Cawnpore Massacre during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. At one point during the massacre, the mutineers hanged an English girl from a coat hook at Bibighar estate. The incident was widely covered in all the news magazines of the day, and in fact the scene of the atrocity was preserved for some time after Cawnpore was liberated. British soldiers were taken to see the unfortunate toddler's bloody handprints on the wall where she'd tried to get herself down from the hook to steel them for battle.
ReplyDeleteImagine my surprise to find that incident #4 happened in Kanpur (the modern spelling of Cawnpore). I'm not sure if I attach much importance to it, but I think it's interesting.
Lucy Jacobi seems to have been the child's name, BTW.
ReplyDeleteborky, that is an absolutely incredible tale. Really fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing. And thanks theo for all the additional info.
ReplyDeleteIt was Barrie's belief, Dudgeon says, that “people are pegs on which we hang our emotions”.
ReplyDeleteWow, I never heard of this one.
ReplyDeleteAnd it really creeps me out in particular, because my name is Lance and I live in Montana!
borky...that is one of the most bizarre things I ever heard...
ReplyDelete