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| From the killers Facebook page |
Who rolled out the red carpet for this monster? 9-year-old Aliahna Lemmon is dead. Her babysitter, 39-year-old Michael Plumadore, has been arrested for murdering her.
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| From the killers MySpace page |
But, it gets worse: much worse. Despite having three felony convictions for battery, auto theft and forgery, Plumadore was deemed fit to not only care for, but have unsupervised access to three defenseless young girls. According to Aliahna’s grandmother Aliahna and her two six-year-old sisters were staying with Plumadore for about a week because Aliahna’s stepfather works at night and sleeps during the day and her mother was recovering from the flu. Plumadore was the last person to see Aliahna, who suffered from both physical and emotional problems, alive.
Aliahna was reported missing on 12/23, and on 12/26 Plumadore admitted that he killed her by “striking her in the head multiple times with a brick while she was standing on the front steps of his residence.” He subsequently dismembered her body by cutting it up with a hacksaw and placed small pieces of her body in freezer bags and disposed of them in a dumpster located nearby. Finally, he kept her head, feet and hands in the freezer at home.
Defense attorneys love to point out that our prisons are filled with individuals who have been caught in indiscretions. That hard luck men and women have been driven by circumstance to commit crimes. However, as this and so many other cases point out, the truth is much harsher and more difficult to accept: evil exists! There are certain individuals with a propensity to victimize others. Many of these individuals go through their lives committing crime after crime after crime with no consequence for their actions. Occasionally, they will get caught breaking the law. Then the criminal justice system will work with them to mitigate the nature of the crime, allow them to plea down to a lesser offense, and oftentimes escape prison altogether. This is why individuals with horrific criminal pasts are walking free to commit these horrific atrocities.
I know all too well the horror of losing a child to violence, but what was Aliahana’s mother thinking when she allowed her three daughter to stay with Plumadore for a week? Did she know that he was a three time loser? Surely, she knew that their trailer park was a haven for registered sex offenders. I understand that she was getting over the flu, but that does not justify shirking her parental responsibility. At best it provides a pitiful excuse.
It is our responsibility as adults to ensure the safety and well being of children. In cases where families fail government agencies are supposed to step in and fill the gap. Her mother sent her to sleep with the devil and government failed to protect her from a three time loser. In Aliahna’s case both family and government failed and the result is a horror beyond imagination.
As government budgets are cut dramatically the release of vicious criminals is easily justified. We must be vigilant to ensure that the safety of children is not compromised by bottom line politicians who use budget shortfalls to justify the release of violent criminals.