Hard truths on abuse

Excellent editorial at The Register Guard -

Rescuing the next Jeanette

Sometimes, the truth really is too hard to bear. Jeanette Marie Maples’ death from abuse and starvation is such a truth.

Count the editors of these pages among the many who were sickened, horrified, appalled — no adjective is sufficient — at reading Register-Guard reporter Karen McCowan’s account of the 15-year-old Jeanette’s torture killing in 2009 at the hands of her mother, Angela Darlene McAnulty.

Nearly a week after McCowan’s story describing the admitted murderer’s interviews with detectives, the terrible images still come swirling and unbidden to mind. Images of a mother who, as McCowan wrote, “spanked, starved and deprived her daughter of medical care, turning Jeanette Marie Maples from a seemingly healthy teen to a battered, infected and skeletal corpse.”

Some readers were offended at such graphic descriptions. ....

Go read the whole thing....here