Parents feared tragedy would happen

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Wed, Jul. 27, 2005

Parents feared tragedy would happen

The parents of a 14-year-old Miami-Dade boy who police claim killed his 11-year-old sister said they saw the warning signs.

BY SUSANNAH A. NESMITH AND CAROL MARBIN MILLER

[e-mail]


Weeks before her brother murdered her, 11-year-old Marina Estefani Salazar wrote her mother a chilling note.

''He said he was going to kill the whole family, one by one, starting with her,'' their mother, Nuvia Salazar, recalled on Tuesday. ``She wrote me a note about what he said . . . I took it to the doctors, but they said it was normal.''
(snip)

''I told them he wanted to rape my daughter, that he said he would kill us one by one, I told them all of that,'' Samuel Salazar said.
(snip)

He was suspended twice, once for hitting another child and once for trying to hurt a child with a pen and then breaking a security guard's finger, Nuvia Salazar said.
(snip)

The consultant, Norma Harris, acknowledged Tuesday that she had warned DCF administrators they were putting children at risk by failing to confirm that parents were actually seeking the services that investigators recommended.
(snip)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/12230276.htm
(Free registration required)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Police: 14-Year-Old Boy Confesses To Killing Sister
Teen Charged With First-Degree Murder

MIAMI -- A 14-year-old boy who had recently been committed to a psychiatric hospital killed his 11-year-old sister in her bedroom, police said.

Ronald Eric Salazar initially told his father and investigators that two men broke into his home and tried to rob the family, but later confessed that he had killed his sister, Miami-Dade police spokeswoman Mary Walters said.

Ronald was charged Monday with first-degree murder. A judge Tuesday ordered him held without bond until an Aug. 30 hearing.

Marina Salazar's body was found shortly after 8 a.m. in a pool of blood in her South Miami Heights bedroom. She apparently had been strangled and her throat was cut, police said.
(snip/...)

http://www.nbc6.net/news/4769157/detail.html

[Spinzonner]

1. A "Bad Seed"

Nature can produce saints and monsters

[girl gone mad]

2. It sounds like he may have been schizophrenic.

By all accounts, this was an avoidable tragedy.

[Missy M]

3. The doctors said it was "normal" for a 14 year old boy to say...

he was going to kill the whole family one by one starting with the daughter. Normal compared to what!!!

[knitter4democracy]

7. That's my question.

I have actually taught 14 y.o. kids, and that isn't normal.

[NNN0LHI]

15. It is normal

Let me begin by asking very nicely to please not kill the messenger.

Think about it for a moment. What were our very earliest ancestors like do you think? Do you think they were nice polite folks who wouldn't hurt nothing?

No that is not the case. Our earliest ancestors were as violent and bloodthirsty as any other large meat eating animal is today. Early humans were about as "nice" as a hungry polar bear is today.

Over time we have learned what is acceptable behavior in our modern society. Killing our siblings and parents is no longer acceptable behavior in our society. But it once was a long time ago as hard as that is to imagine.

For an example take a policeman. A policeman is trained that even if he is to come upon someone who has just killed a child he is to take that person into custody and bring them to jail. You or I in that same situation and with a gun but without the training the policeman has had would likely shoot the guy dead on the spot. That is normal behavior. The police office is trained to act abnormally.

Don

[Miss Chybil]

25. So dragging a woman off to a cave by the hair of her head would be

considered normal under your scenario. I don't agree with you one iota. My dogs don't kill each other for no reason. Bears don't just haul off and kill their siblings - unless they're starving and they're in a battle for food, and men don't bend every woman over they pass on the street and take her from behind.

A 14 year-old boy threatening to rape and kill his 11 year-old sister and then kill the rest of his family - one by one - is NOT normal. The doctor was too complacent in this case. He was wrong and a little girl is dead and a family is devastated. No, it's not normal.

[kestrel91316]

27. I think we mostly got where we are by COOPERATING with ....

each other more than we killed each other.

This child's behavior would be "normal" as you say, perhaps, for a Neanderthal. But it is now 2005 and we are Homo sapiens and have been at least slightly civilized for quite some time.

Normal, my ass!

[JNelson6563]

4. Something messed this kid up

bet there's a story in there somewhere. No one is "born" like this.

Julie

[Lerkfish]

8. I disagree in general

to the comment that " no one is born like this". There are many medical and physiological etiologies that can result in that behavior...fetal alcohol syndrome, for one.

of course, I know nothing about this particular case specifically, but I'm just commenting on your comment. There are indeed congenital causes for aberrant behavior in some cases.

[JNelson6563]

11. I hope you will concede

that most behavior is learned and that we are, ultimately, products of our environments.

Julie

[Mairead]

13. No, about 55% is environmental

The other 45% appears to be strongly influenced, though not to the level of determination, by genetics.

See Tom Bouchard's twins studies.

[LisaL]

16. Absolutely not.

Genetics play an extremely important role in what you turn out to be.

[sendero]

17. No..

... I don't accept that and more and more science proves that we are much more a product of our genetics than we are of our environment.

Back in the 80s I read a fascinating article in the New Yorker. A researcher followed the lives of several (I forget how many, but more than a handful) of identical twins who were separated at birth.

In every single case, the twins had similar personalities and similar life circumstances, even those who split into horribly dysfunctional, poor, or otherwise disadvantaged famlilies with their siblings going into model families.

These twins all had similar depression or other mental maladies. In essence, it was as if they had grown up twins in the same family.

Personally, I think this idea that we are mostly a product of our environment was yet another in a long line of "medical" speculations that makes sense and we'd all like to believe, but just is not true and won't withstand any real scientific study.

[JNelson6563]

18. Hmmm. It's rung true for me

Most everyone I have come to know is a clear reflection of their upbringing. Interesting that science runs contrary to such experience.

Well perhaps this kid grew up in ideal conditions and just "went off". Mmmmm......sorry, can't see it. Seen too much of life to buy it.

I need to see lots of empirical evidence to the contrary to start doubting my lyin' eyes.

Julie

[sendero]

19. By all means...

... trust your own observations. But, consider that sometimes when it seems to be the environment, it is really not.

For example, if a person is a lousy parent, they just might raise a less than stellar child. But is it because they didn't create a good environment for the child or is it because they passed on their own (lousy parent) genes to it.

Let's face it - there are political reasons for wishing to believe in nurture over nature. It is much more pleasant for us to believe that by making a better world we can make everyone better people. I'm just not sure there is any scientific backing for the idea.

And think hard about this one. Have you never known a family that had a crazy teenage kid who was in trouble all the time and caused grief to everyone around them - and yet you KNEW the parents and were well convinced that they were good parents who HAD provided a good upbringing? I sure have.

When folks who are faced with that scenario jump immediately to the conclusion that the family is full of deep dark secrets, well I find that really sad.

[JNelson6563]

22. The secrets aren't necessarily

"deep and dark". Basic neglect (as in kid is last priority) can turn out the angriest of people. I've noted that moderately abused are not nearly as angry as the neglected. At least in some decades long case studies I've done on my own. Remarkable really. I have found such studies to be very enlightening.

Julie

[jbm]

23. I don't think you can discount genetics..

My best friend came from a family where the girls all seemed to do well at making life work for them on all the social, educational,and economic levels, but the boys truly wound up in prisons or homeless or dead. My friend and her sisters did well in school and were generally good, solid, people My friend had two brothers. Both went to prison. Both were never able to hold jobs, and both have spent most of their lives being in various states of homelessness.

My friend married a great guy, and they had a son and a daughter. The son has spent his entire life in and out of boys homes and prisons. The girl has never had any problems at all. My friends sister had four sons. Three of them have spent their lives going in and out of prison, but one of the four is a great guy..very successful..who somehow missed whatever it was that screwed up so many of the males in his family.

You can look at the boys and know something is wrong, but I think science hasn't found a way to identify whatever it is yet.

Whenever I hear a nature versus nurture argument,two different quotes pop into my mind. One is the answer I heard a psychologist give to this question once, She asked, "does blue or yellow make green?"

The other statement that I think of came from a guy who understood politics better than anyone else I've ever seen speak on the matter. I asked him questions frequently, and one day he told me, "if you really want to understand politics, you begin with a book on botany." and he literally gave me a book on botany. I'm certain he was saying that we can't understand the nature of the beast until we understand the origins of the beast.

anyway..that's what I'm thinking. :)

[Jacobin]

5. A sociopath

very sad for all involved

[dryan]

6. Tragedy....

another example of why we need more mental health information.

[MountainLaurel]

9. Let me guess -- no health insurance?

In this age of 8-year-olds being suspended for using a chicken nugget as a gun, why else would a kid who tells people he's going to kill someone be considered perfectly normal by a medical professional?

[Nevernose]

14. I was about to post the same thing

The state of health care in this nation is more than frightening, it's tragic. When people need medical help (whether for a broken leg or a psychiatric condition), they should damned well get it.

[napi21]

10. Yet another example of Jeb's DCF excellence, huh?

Somehow I knew this happened in Fl. before I even read Miami-Dade!

[Sgent]

12. I'm betting

this is more Jeb's Dept of Mental Health which told the mother that this was "normal". They probably had the case since the boy was recently committed.

[truthisfreedom]

20. what's in the water in Florida?

[Roy]

21. It must be a shared water source with Texas...

[tblue37]

24. I think we can see where the root of his problems were:

Samuel Salazar said his son has mental problems stemming from when the family lived in El Salvador during a war and also from drug abuse.

The parents didn't have to do anything wrong. The kid grew up in a war zone. I assure you a lot of Iraqi and Afghan kids are also going to be walking time bombs.

One thing really bothered me from the article, though. The parents were afraid of their son. They had him committed to a psychiatric hospital because they were afraid that if he were in a residential program he would come back home and kill them all. That being the case, why on earth did the father leave that boy alone with the 11 year old daughter, whom another article says the parents feared he meant to rape and kill? He should at least have taken the girl with him!

[Miss Chybil]

26. "why - did the father leave that boy alone with the 11 year old daughter"

I bet this father will be haunted by that question the rest of his life.