In the article below we get to read some of the comments from the convicted and from the victims families:
Sheila Granger, 33, of Henryville and a New Albany hair dresser, was sentenced on Thursday to a total of 60 years in prison for molesting two juvenile boys from August 2007 to August 2008. (victims were age 11).
Clark County Superior Court No. 1 Judge Vicki Carmichael handed down the verdict on nine felonies — five counts of class A felony child molesting, three counts of class C felony child molesting and one count of class D felony child solicitation. Granger was convicted by a Clark County jury on Nov. 12.
Here is the part from the convicted:
Before Carmichael announced the sentence a tearful Granger read a statement to the court.
She asked for the court to take into account when determining her prison term that she has no previous record of criminal offenses and her exemplary behavior while in custody. When Granger began to speak about her family, she broke down in tears and was unable to continue.
Granger’s attorney, Thomas Hectus, finished reading the prepared statement for his client.
“I wanted to be able to be there for future things such as proms, graduations, weddings, births of my grandchildren and college ... my imprisonment will result in the hardship of many people, my daughters, me an active mother in their lives to be there for them through all of their milestones,” Hectus said for Granger.
The last paragraph is what catches the attention. It is always easy to think of the consequences of our actions after we have been caught. She is pleading for leniency because of how it will effect HER life and what she will miss. Thinking about her wants and needs still it seems.
Now for the victim families statements:
“I trusted you with my children, I trusted you with my family,” the mother of one victim said. “You were my sister, my confidant, my friend ... you betrayed my whole family, not just my son. You are a monster and I will never, ever forgive you for what you’ve done to my son and my family.”
“My son is going to have a long road ahead of him,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned there is no sentence in this world that is good enough. You took every precious moment he could experience in his life. You preyed on him and then when you were done with him you preyed on the other one. I ask you, your honor, if you would please do the fullest extent, as much as you possibly can, because this is going to set an example for all of the other women out there that are doing it and getting by with it. No one is standing up for our sons ... and at some point someone has to. I have no pity for you.”
“I trusted her, I thought she was just being another mom,” the mother of one victim said. “And never in the back of my mind thought I shouldn’t be able to trust her.”
“[Granger] took away the first relationship that my son will be able to have, the first girlfriend experience of a teen ... the first intimate moment, the first everything that we as adults got to experience,” she said. “She’s left a mark on them, a mark that’s going to last the rest of their life. It’s never going to go away. Society, I think, needs to step up to the plate as well and make sure they’re just not watching males, they need to be watching females as well. I would’ve never in a million years thought a female would have done something like that to my child. But I guess we kinda walked around with blinders on.” - Read the entire article here
Sadly they learned a hard lesson. And that is that gender makes no difference when it comes to who may be abusing others. Years ago no one talked about or believed the clergy sexual abuse cases that were out there. I think we are at that same point with female offenders and people are just now starting to understand that this is real.
Friday, January 1, 2010
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