PA - Helen Miller, 19, stabbed to death by sister, 14, Manheim Twp., Feb 2021

[GarAndTeed]

Yes, I'm pretty sure PA has the highest rate of children serving life sentences. There was an eleven year old boy convicted of murdering his stepmother about ten years ago. He was eventually exonerated for lack of evidence after about 11 years in prison. His name is Jordan Brown and I think he was released recently. Imo

I apologize for not reading your post carefully and being repetitive! Thanks for bringing Jordan's case up...

 

[Lusitana]

In the past year - kids are outside in their own yard only. They are not supposed to mingle with any others outside their household. Solo bike rides or a bike ride with your family outdoors in a park where you can safely distance or wear masks.

Especially if you have a vulnerable household member.

If you are in public you are mandated to wear a mask.

Does Claire’s SM show her gathering with friends without masks and not social distancing? That would be a huge “no” for our house.

JMO

Where I live, you are fined if you don't wear a mask in public. It's wear a mask or don't go out at all. I'm all for kids being together while wearing a mask and being mindful about touching each other and things in general, sanitizing their hands, etc. I don't have kids though, so I can see parents being stressed out about kids being out and about with each other and keeping the mask on.

When school was back to in-person, I would see kids as young as 9/10 walking to and from school wearing their masks, whenever I see teens outside they're wearing their masks too. Generally speaking, kids are pretty good about wearing the mask if they are taught to do so and explained why it's important.

I saw videos of Claire hanging out with friends, it was at least one girl and one boy. I don't remember if they were wearing masks, in one of the videos they were outside and it was already dark. I saw it on TikTok, if that helps.

 

[MimosaMornings]

Where I live, you are fined if you don't wear a mask in public. It's wear a mask or don't go out at all. I'm all for kids being together while wearing a mask and being mindful about touching each other and things in general, sanitizing their hands, etc. I don't have kids though, so I can see parents being stressed out about kids being out and about with each other and keeping the mask on.

When school was back to in-person, I would see kids as young as 9/10 walking to and from school wearing their masks, whenever I see teens outside they're wearing their masks too. Generally speaking, kids are pretty good about wearing the mask if they are taught to do so and explained why it's important.

I saw videos of Claire hanging out with friends, it was at least one girl and one boy. I don't remember if they were wearing masks, in one of the videos they were outside and it was already dark. I saw it on TikTok, if that helps.

In school learning hasn’t been effect here for a long time. Fully remote.
It differs from state to state.
Some are doing a hybrid with in school two days a week/three days at home.
Wearing masks and plexiglass partitions between desks. Eat outside or at your desk.
No gym or recess.
Grandparents and other relatives that don’t live in the same household (unless in firm rule bubble or pod) are not able to visit or help.
It’s a huge change and very isolating due to Covid restrictions.

 

[Lilibet]

Claire sounds a lot like the boy I mentioned earlier who stabbed his mother to death and injured his sister in my town. Participation in activities with friends, but leading a “double life” involved with violent online activities. While it’s certainly rare for violent video games to make impulsive murder easier, in some kids it can IMO. And we never know who those kids will be. In the case of the boy in my town, there was no underlying mental health diagnosis. So it appeared to be simply a case of rage at being cut off from his computer that triggered his violent attacks.

In Claire’s case, we only know that she had suicidal or homicidal feelings immediately before she killed her sister. But we don’t know if that was a sudden impulse or part of an underlying mental health issue. I can see it being a case of sudden inexplicable rage at her sister or herself causing those impulses (or maybe even because of those sudden scary impulses), rather than some kind of ongoing mental health issue. I hope PA attempts to unravel the nuanced causes as OR did in the local boy’s case, rather than rush to judgement.

Who is Claire Miller? Her parents and all you need to know - TheNetline
Claire Miller was a good student with a friendly personality, a report by LancasterOnline claims. The outlet spoke to parents of children who attended Lancaster Country Day School with Claire. Miller was co-president of her ninth-grade class at the private school and was an active participant in co-curricular activities.
<snip>
After news of the murder hit news headlines, internet sleuths launched an investigation into the possible motive for the murder. They found that Claire was something of a TikTok celebrity with a following of over 20K. Most of her TikTok videos referred to violent anime and video games.

 

[Lusitana]

In school learning hasn’t been effect here for a long time. Fully remote.
It differs from state to state.
Some are doing a hybrid with in school two days a week/three days at home.
Wearing masks and plexiglass partitions between desks. Eat outside or at your desk.
No gym or recess.
Grandparents and other relatives that don’t live in the same household (unless in firm rule bubble or pod) are not able to visit or help.
It’s a huge change and very isolating due to Covid restrictions.

I don't live in the US, school went online in March of 2020 and the kids were able to go back to school in person in September, we got hit with another lockdown in January, the plan was to keep the kids in school because the kids were not getting infected at school, but they ended up decinding on moving school online because of the new variants were considered more dangerous for kids.

Once lockdown is lifted, schools will be the first to open. Or that is the plan as of right now. Lockdown is not fun, at all. I'm not on lockdown because I still go to work but I see how down eveyone is and it makes me feel down too.

 

[realanastasia]

In school learning hasn’t been effect here for a long time. Fully remote.
It differs from state to state.
Some are doing a hybrid with in school two days a week/three days at home.
Wearing masks and plexiglass partitions between desks. Eat outside or at your desk.
No gym or recess.
Grandparents and other relatives that don’t live in the same household (unless in firm rule bubble or pod) are not able to visit or help.
It’s a huge change and very isolating due to Covid restrictions.

Lancaster County Day School, like many private schools in Pennsylvania, appears to have operating with in-person teaching since the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester (the document was updated in March 2021 but explains that in-person instruction commenced at the start of September, as usual: https://lancastercountryday.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/622/download/download_5207571.pdf

 

[Hereshecomes75]

Every year on March 1st, the disability community comes together to remember the victims of filicide – people with disabilities killed by their family members.

It’s terrible that’s even a thing.

 

[MsBetsy]

In school learning hasn’t been effect here for a long time. Fully remote.
It differs from state to state.
Some are doing a hybrid with in school two days a week/three days at home.
Wearing masks and plexiglass partitions between desks. Eat outside or at your desk.
No gym or recess.
Grandparents and other relatives that don’t live in the same household (unless in firm rule bubble or pod) are not able to visit or help.
It’s a huge change and very isolating due to Covid restrictions.

In PA our kids have been back at school since September, with the option of remote learning. People are supposed to wear masks outside when with people other than family, but I don't think I've seen a single teenager wear one when hanging out with friends.

 

[realanastasia]

Lancaster County Day School, like many private schools in Pennsylvania, appears to have operating with in-person teaching since the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester (the document was updated in March 2021 but explains that in-person instruction commenced at the start of September, as usual: https://lancastercountryday.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/622/download/download_5207571.pdf

Responding to my own post to say that, though the school seems to have offered in-person instruction since the fall of 2020, parents *did* apparently have the option to keep their kids learning remotely OR to have them educated in a a hybrid (semi-in person, semi-remote learning) fashion. There's been no real indication by MSM sources yet of which option CM and her parents chose.

 

[MsBetsy]

Responding to my own post to say that, though the school seems to have offered in-person instruction since the fall of 2020, parents *did* apparently have the option to keep their kids learning remotely OR to have them educated in a a hybrid (semi-in person, semi-remote learning) fashion. There's been no real indication by MSM sources yet of which option CM and her parents chose.

Yes, in our district it is about 50/50. Half are at home and half go to the building. If there are more than 3 positive covid cases in the building, they close school for up to two weeks and the kids are set up to continue with virtual learning at home.

Whatever the case for Claire, she seemed to have a lot of time to post videos on Tiktok. In the video in the park it looks like her friend is in a school uniform.

 

[Jsizzle]

Wow. Reading some of these responses with regards to kids wearing masks to play outside and/or not being able to play with others, period, is sad. My kids haven’t stopped seeing their friends since last April (we locked down in March but let it go after that). They are in-person in school (Catholic school- not many restrictions at this point) since august. My boys play club sports and my daughter dances and does gymnastics. We’ve gone out to restaurants this entire time and we see our family and friends every week. And I’m also shocked to hear someone would get fined for not wearing a mask. We wear a mask inside places but not outside at all. Mind. Blown.

In any case, I can see how all of that would be isolating for a kid especially with her sister being disabled. I’m not sure what to think about this case but those TikTok videos are disturbing, to say the least. Ugh. Poor Helen. May she test in peace.

MOO

 

[Lilibet]

Wow. Reading some of these responses with regards to kids wearing masks to play outside and/or not being able to play with others, period, is sad. My kids haven’t stopped seeing their friends since last April (we locked down in March but let it go after that). They are in-person in school (Catholic school- not many restrictions at this point) since august. My boys play club sports and my daughter dances and does gymnastics. We’ve gone out to restaurants this entire time and we see our family and friends every week. And I’m also shocked to hear someone would get fined for not wearing a mask. We wear a mask inside places but not outside at all. Mind. Blown.

In any case, I can see how all of that would be isolating for a kid especially with her sister being disabled. I’m not sure what to think about this case but those TikTok videos are disturbing, to say the least. Ugh. Poor Helen. May she test in peace.

MOO

Where do you live?

 

[Jsizzle]

Where do you live?

Maryland

 

[MimosaMornings]

Wow. Reading some of these responses with regards to kids wearing masks to play outside and/or not being able to play with others, period, is sad. My kids haven’t stopped seeing their friends since last April (we locked down in March but let it go after that). They are in-person in school (Catholic school- not many restrictions at this point) since august. My boys play club sports and my daughter dances and does gymnastics. We’ve gone out to restaurants this entire time and we see our family and friends every week. And I’m also shocked to hear someone would get fined for not wearing a mask. We wear a mask inside places but not outside at all. Mind. Blown.

In any case, I can see how all of that would be isolating for a kid especially with her sister being disabled. I’m not sure what to think about this case but those TikTok videos are disturbing, to say the least. Ugh. Poor Helen. May she test in peace.

MOO

Wow. That sounds like life before Covid.

 

[Jsizzle]

Wow. That sounds like life before Covid.

Basically. We’ve tried to keep things pretty “normal” for our kids. Our entire community is like one big “pod” as they call it. Things still aren’t “normal” though. Bars just opened back up. Restaurants are at 50-75% capacity. Movies etc are all open. All of those bounce zone places for kids are open as well. And then there’s Florida....even more open than us. I still cannot believe our public schools are not back in-person yet. Not even hybrid at this point.

 

[MoeInVA]

Wow. That sounds like life before Covid.

There are definitely people living very different existences in the US right now. So many isolated and sacrificing so much. Others not.

While that may have been a factor for CM it sounds like she was in school so I’d venture to hypothesize that pandemic isolation was not the main factor here. Still it sucks. Teenage mood disorders suck. Hormones suck. There are a lot of factors that could be in play.

 

[Gibbo214]

Wow. Reading some of these responses with regards to kids wearing masks to play outside and/or not being able to play with others, period, is sad. My kids haven’t stopped seeing their friends since last April (we locked down in March but let it go after that). They are in-person in school (Catholic school- not many restrictions at this point) since august. My boys play club sports and my daughter dances and does gymnastics. We’ve gone out to restaurants this entire time and we see our family and friends every week. And I’m also shocked to hear someone would get fined for not wearing a mask. We wear a mask inside places but not outside at all. Mind. Blown.

In any case, I can see how all of that would be isolating for a kid especially with her sister being disabled. I’m not sure what to think about this case but those TikTok videos are disturbing, to say the least. Ugh. Poor Helen. May she test in peace.

MOO

BBM. Do we know that she was locked down? And why does having a disabled sister make it worse for her?

 

[Auntie Cipation]

I'm in one of those counties in California where the sheriff refuses to enforce any covid-related restrictions.

We are rural enough that people don't need masks outside but hardly anyone wears them inside shops, post office, etc and I can only WISH people would get fined for not complying!

Yes it's sad for kids, elders, and everyone at the moment to have such restrictions for a year or even two, but we humans are resilient and will adjust, just like people did during polio, spanish flu, world wars, etc.

In hindsight I expect having lived through this experience will become a major claim to having been smack dab in the middle of a bit of history.

In the meantime I'd just like to be able to retrieve my mail without someone else putting my life at risk just because they're skeptical.

Sorry. Back on topic now.

 

[Jsizzle]

BBM. Do we know that she was locked down? And why does having a disabled sister make it worse for her?

We don’t. I was just going off of others comments about the possibility. As for her sister, I wasn’t saying it would necessarily make it worse. Just that maybe she had boiled over to some degree. But who knows. I just hope there is Justice for Helen.

 

[Shamrock1]

I haven’t viewed her social media, but I’m disinclined to equate gory posts with homicidal ideations or as indicative of mental health concerns. Life can be hard and harsh and cold - just pick up a newspaper! Her generation does active shooter drills. Explicit, sick, and violent videos are a click away - and even pop up uninvited. It’s unreasonable to expect just puppies & rainbows in kids’ art/social media. JMO.

That said, quarantine seems to be behind increased reports of teen mental health crises. See, e.g. Study: Suicidal behavior in youths higher during COVID-19 closures than in 2019.

My heart just goes out to the entire family.
JMO.