This is a fascinating case. Specifically because it’s not so cut and dried, is it? It’s not obvious the mother “did it,” nor is it clear the mother is innocent. What is clear is that Debbie Bradley, baby Lisa Irwin’s mother, is a bit of a drinker, with a bit of a colored past.
It is hard to sympathize with Debbie Bradley, given her own admission of putting her baby down at 6:30 p.m. (who does that???) and then embarking on a Scott Fitzgerald–worthy boozing binge, only to wake up to her husband, home from a night shift, asking, where’s the baby, where’s the baby? But, then again, how hard is it to empathize with a woman whose baby girl is gone, if we believe that she, the mother, did not herself make the baby gone, in one horrible way or another?
I believed, for years, that Patricia Ramsey was responsible for the death of her child, JonBenet Ramsey. I was utterly convinced of her guilt. I had read every article in the the news, all the websites hawking the evidence, I had watched Patricia Ramsey on television, “analyzed,” (accurately, I arrogantly believed) her body language.
I don’t know exactly why, exactly, what it was that convinced me of the opposite, recently. But something about the DNA evidence, sparse as it may be, just caused a sort of Joycean epiphany: I’m an arrogant, presumptuous person, and that poor woman was innocent: she lost her baby girl, for whom she lived, and we all accused and convicted her without a trial. And now she is dead of ovarian cancer.
Granted, maybe the fact that she died, still young and beautiful, of ovarian cancer, that rotten sneak of a murderer, scratched at my heart and made me feel guilty for having had such thoughts about this woman, this mother. But had I not kept up with the case, had I not learned to understand further evidence in the case strong enough to vindicate Patricia Ramsey, at least to my mind, I don’t think I would have felt soft or sad towards her just because she died of ovarian cancer, no matter how much I hate the evil illness and its attack upon two women I know, and love, and admire. No matter how much I want to murder such a murderer.
No. If I believed that Patricia Ramsey was in fact guilty, I would not have felt bad about her fate. I’m harsh enough that I might have felt some kind of justice had been done. Yes, I’m that harsh and vengeful. I wish I weren’t. But I am, and I might as well admit it.
But she wasn’t. Patsy Ramsey was innocent of her baby girl’s death. So was JonBenet’s father. Neither parent hurt their baby. Yes, they entered her in beauty pageants that many of us find creepy, but how many of us, secretly, even, tune in to Toddlers and Tiaras and think, omyGOD, she is SO cute???!!! Well, to many folks in America, these beauty pageants are perfectly a matter of course, perfectly feminine and natural. Some of us might disagree with them, but what the hell, it’s all perspective, isn’t it? Isn’t it.
Maybe, what we need to do now, in regard to that poor baby Lisa Irwin, is take a step back and consider perspective. At this point, we don’t know what happened. We just do not know. You might feel like you know, and I would understand that, God knows, I would. But feeling and knowing are two separate things. The fact is, we do not know.
I’m not writing in favor of Debbie Bradley. I don’t feel overly fond of her. If I had a little baby girl, I wouldn’t touch a drop of the fun stuff, as much as I like it. I just wouldn’t. My baby would be my life. My whole life (well, my husband, too, of course). Full disclosure: I’ve chosen not to have children, but if I did have a little baby girl, she’d be lucky to spend any time in her crib and out of my arms. And I would never, ever consume alcohol or any other substance when I was in charge of her, which would be always, even if my husband was present. I just would not ever imagine that I was not 100% responsible, at all times, for my dear baby’s life.
But part of me cannot help but think, who am I to judge? Another part of me answers, what’s wrong with judgment, of COURSE you must judge, as long as you are honest. Ok, fine. Obviously, I am judging just by writing what I am now writing. But I do believe that we should all, all of us, step back. Feeling pressure or depression or anxiety or any other “feeling” that inspires a person to drink too much once, or repeatedly, does not make a murderer, or even a mother who could have saved her baby had she not been drinking.
I know how lenient that sounds. But all I’m saying is: we do not know what happened. Perhaps Baby Lisa Irwin was kidnapped, and this kidnapping was long planned, brilliantly planned. Maybe it wasn’t – maybe it was opportunistic. Maybe the mother or father did do something horrible. All possibilities are, well, possible, at this point.
I’m saying we should not rush to judgment. There is nothing wrong with judgment; frankly, I believe being judgmental has a bad rap. But being mindlessly judgmental is not just stupid and inaccurate; it is evil. As evil as the kidnapping, or, Christ forbid, the murder, of an innocent baby girl.
With Lisa Irwin’s first birthday just days away, let’s think about that, let’s honor her life, or the memory of her life, with this thought: she deserves the truth, she deserves the search for truth, whether that takes days or years. This baby, all babies, deserve truth, and they, and we, are worth the time truth sometimes takes.
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Little Girl Lost: Baby Lisa Irwin
In News commentary, Political commentary on November 7, 2011 at 6:08 pmThis is a fascinating case. Specifically because it’s not so cut and dried, is it? It’s not obvious the mother “did it,” nor is it clear the mother is innocent. What is clear is that Debbie Bradley, baby Lisa Irwin’s mother, is a bit of a drinker, with a bit of a colored past.
It is hard to sympathize with Debbie Bradley, given her own admission of putting her baby down at 6:30 p.m. (who does that???) and then embarking on a Scott Fitzgerald–worthy boozing binge, only to wake up to her husband, home from a night shift, asking, where’s the baby, where’s the baby? But, then again, how hard is it to empathize with a woman whose baby girl is gone, if we believe that she, the mother, did not herself make the baby gone, in one horrible way or another?
I believed, for years, that Patricia Ramsey was responsible for the death of her child, JonBenet Ramsey. I was utterly convinced of her guilt. I had read every article in the the news, all the websites hawking the evidence, I had watched Patricia Ramsey on television, “analyzed,” (accurately, I arrogantly believed) her body language.
I don’t know exactly why, exactly, what it was that convinced me of the opposite, recently. But something about the DNA evidence, sparse as it may be, just caused a sort of Joycean epiphany: I’m an arrogant, presumptuous person, and that poor woman was innocent: she lost her baby girl, for whom she lived, and we all accused and convicted her without a trial. And now she is dead of ovarian cancer.
Granted, maybe the fact that she died, still young and beautiful, of ovarian cancer, that rotten sneak of a murderer, scratched at my heart and made me feel guilty for having had such thoughts about this woman, this mother. But had I not kept up with the case, had I not learned to understand further evidence in the case strong enough to vindicate Patricia Ramsey, at least to my mind, I don’t think I would have felt soft or sad towards her just because she died of ovarian cancer, no matter how much I hate the evil illness and its attack upon two women I know, and love, and admire. No matter how much I want to murder such a murderer.
No. If I believed that Patricia Ramsey was in fact guilty, I would not have felt bad about her fate. I’m harsh enough that I might have felt some kind of justice had been done. Yes, I’m that harsh and vengeful. I wish I weren’t. But I am, and I might as well admit it.
But she wasn’t. Patsy Ramsey was innocent of her baby girl’s death. So was JonBenet’s father. Neither parent hurt their baby. Yes, they entered her in beauty pageants that many of us find creepy, but how many of us, secretly, even, tune in to Toddlers and Tiaras and think, omyGOD, she is SO cute???!!! Well, to many folks in America, these beauty pageants are perfectly a matter of course, perfectly feminine and natural. Some of us might disagree with them, but what the hell, it’s all perspective, isn’t it? Isn’t it.
Maybe, what we need to do now, in regard to that poor baby Lisa Irwin, is take a step back and consider perspective. At this point, we don’t know what happened. We just do not know. You might feel like you know, and I would understand that, God knows, I would. But feeling and knowing are two separate things. The fact is, we do not know.
I’m not writing in favor of Debbie Bradley. I don’t feel overly fond of her. If I had a little baby girl, I wouldn’t touch a drop of the fun stuff, as much as I like it. I just wouldn’t. My baby would be my life. My whole life (well, my husband, too, of course). Full disclosure: I’ve chosen not to have children, but if I did have a little baby girl, she’d be lucky to spend any time in her crib and out of my arms. And I would never, ever consume alcohol or any other substance when I was in charge of her, which would be always, even if my husband was present. I just would not ever imagine that I was not 100% responsible, at all times, for my dear baby’s life.
But part of me cannot help but think, who am I to judge? Another part of me answers, what’s wrong with judgment, of COURSE you must judge, as long as you are honest. Ok, fine. Obviously, I am judging just by writing what I am now writing. But I do believe that we should all, all of us, step back. Feeling pressure or depression or anxiety or any other “feeling” that inspires a person to drink too much once, or repeatedly, does not make a murderer, or even a mother who could have saved her baby had she not been drinking.
I know how lenient that sounds. But all I’m saying is: we do not know what happened. Perhaps Baby Lisa Irwin was kidnapped, and this kidnapping was long planned, brilliantly planned. Maybe it wasn’t – maybe it was opportunistic. Maybe the mother or father did do something horrible. All possibilities are, well, possible, at this point.
I’m saying we should not rush to judgment. There is nothing wrong with judgment; frankly, I believe being judgmental has a bad rap. But being mindlessly judgmental is not just stupid and inaccurate; it is evil. As evil as the kidnapping, or, Christ forbid, the murder, of an innocent baby girl.
With Lisa Irwin’s first birthday just days away, let’s think about that, let’s honor her life, or the memory of her life, with this thought: she deserves the truth, she deserves the search for truth, whether that takes days or years. This baby, all babies, deserve truth, and they, and we, are worth the time truth sometimes takes.
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