Hi everybody! This is my first post and I’m looking forward to participating in the discussions around here. I’ve been following this case in particular since first learning of it on the news when Elizabeth was still just another missing child.
My thoughts, tears, and deepest sympathy go out to Elizabeth's family and friends, for this, what must seem a nightmare will weigh upon them heavily, and at times might feel unbearable to them long into the future, if not forever. I’m sure they all miss her very much. I never knew her, but I can empathize with what it might be like. They must all be terribly sad.
To preface this, I'm not a professional, and all my opinions here are just that. I have no degrees in law—actually very little knowledge about it at all, and I’m not a "board-certified" anything.
Before this case, my opinion was that of most, which is to say that those who commit crimes like these, deserve, at best solitary confinement for the rest of their natural lives, if not an expedited spot on the lethal-injection queue. That still is my general opinion in most cases. But because of the age of the accused, and the fact that it involves two young females, in my heart that makes me deeply sad for both of them.
That a 15 year old girl, essentially at the very beginning of her life—would, with full knowledge of the consequences, risk throwing all those possibilities away to know what it’s like to kill someone boggles my mind. In light of the fact that she has already attempted to kill herself several times in the course of her short life, proves to me(in my lay opinion, of course) that there is indeed something desperately wrong with her physically, psychologically and/or emotionally, for her to feel so callously about her own young life, that of others, and of life in general. Because I truly believe that, I’m glad Alyssa is not eligible for the death penalty, and I sincerely hope that whatever punishment is eventually meted out for her, part of that time will be spent addressing what exactly the nature of the damage that’s been inflicted upon her over the years is, and how it might be possible to fix it(I do believe it's possible). I honestly hope something can be done to prove to her that she is human, worth something, and that what she did can never be acceptable for any reason and for her to know that in her heart. We have to believe it's possible. It's too easy for them to see how little we really care otherwise.
By no means am I excusing what Alyssa did because of the problems that she has, but at the same time, as a relatively well-balanced and intuitive adult, it’s not that difficult for me to extrapolate how exposure to prolonged violence, abuse, criminal and deviant behavior, and even some of the generally-accepted adult behaviors that we humans engage in, might to a child with serious and for the most part, untreated emotional damage like Alyssa(IMO))—be all it takes for them to snap effectively. Because of that, Alyssa deserves a chance to redeem herself and she owes that to Elizabeth IMO. I have a feeling that over the years she's been made to feel pretty worthless, unwanted, and has felt deep in her heart for a long time that she's a burden and a bad kid. I could be wrong, but what we know at least suggests otherwise.
As much as Alyssa has garnered contempt and hatred for what she's done, as adults we should be trying to learn whatever we can from this to prevent our own children from becoming the victims or perpetrators of murder. Otherwise, Elizabeth will have died in vain. We can learn from this. We need to show them life is a precious thing, and that gratuitous violence in music, movies, video games et al. and laughing at anyone, especially children getting hurt—like is done routinely on broadcast and cable TV networks—is not funny, and that those aren’t things to be trivialized or taken lightly. We have to show them that when they're getting beat up or teased in school, that we care about those things, and that they feel safe and secure enough to talk to us honestly about their feelings and problems. Our kids have forgotten how important they are and how important life is in general. We as adults are responsible for that, and should be deeply ashamed.
Sorry this was so long, but I had to get those things off my chest. They've been bothering me for some time now...This stuff just keeps getting worse and worse. We have to see that something is going wrong with our kids.