Color Me Butterfly

What, I can’t help but wonder, has our world come to when we turn on CNN, or Fox News, or our local news channel and learn about the remains of a 26-year old pregnant young mother who’s been found slain in a national park.

I can’t even begin to describe the sorrow in my heart when I heard the news of Jessie Marie Davis and her unborn daughter Chloe; and then of Bobby Cutts, Jr., the father of Jessie’s two-year old son Blake and suspected father of Chloe, and that he had been arrested and arraigned on two counts of murder. 

And it didn’t stop there . . .  Just a few short days later, police found Nancy Benoit and her 7-year old son Daniel along with the hanged body of pro wrestler Chris Benoit, Nancy’s husband and Daniel’s father, in their suburban Atlanta, Georgia home.  The police suspect murder-suicide.

And still, it didn’t stop there because earlier this month, Christopher Vaughn, was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of his 34-year old wife Kimberly and their three children Abigayle (12), Cassandra (11) and Blake (8).  Kimberly and her three children’s bodies were found on June 14 in the family’s SUV parked on a service road, about 40 miles outside of Chicago.  Kimberly was shot once and the children were shot twice.

I just can’t fathom – wrap my mind around – the idea, that a person can become so twisted in their thoughts that they find the strength and justification to murder and kill their own family.  What, I ask again, has our world come to?

As our nation ponder and take in the terror of these three families, I can only hope that in a few short weeks, when the dust began to settle, and the next big NEWS thing that tend to catapult something like this to the back of our minds, that these women and their children will not be forgotten. . . that justice will not just prevail in the courtrooms, but in our communities and societies . . .  that we will take a stand, once and for all, and raise our voices in unison and say NO MORE!  No more can we allow for women and children to fall victim to this type of terror and we do nothing about it except become mesmerized by its news, and stone-faced with no action.

This is, in no uncertain terms, terror before our eyes; a kind of terror that must be brought to legal, cultural and social justice.