Nature or Nurture, Cigarettes and Coincidence
Most parents look upon their children with pride. In their eyes, they can do no wrong. Or if they do wrong, their parents’ love for them transcends those acts.
I bet there are some parents though who, in their dotage and/or looking back on the lives of the children might say, “Perhaps we should have used some form of contraception”. The children who might have saved the world a lot of pain if they hadn’t graced us with their presence. Yes, there are the obvious ones, people like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Radislav Krstic, Behaeddin Shakir, Pol Pot and others of their ilk. There are also your serial killers, usually men, who have committed acts of unspeakable evil. You can toss into that bucket people like Charles Manson, Thug Behram, Jack the Ripper, Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Yang Xinhai, Ivan Milat, Martin Bryant, Marcel Petiot, John Wayne Gacy and the list sadly goes on and on (and on).
Then there is the case of British teenager, Stuart Harling, a 19 year old trainee accountant. He was bored and, instead of doing what most teenagers would do and amuse themselves by catching up with mates, going out, playing sport, or finding themselves a good movie, book or just do a bit of browsing on the world wide web; this fellow had darker things in mind. Much darker.
He packed away a hunting knife, witch’s wig and dark glasses and went out walking. He chanced upon a nurse, 33 year old Cheryl Moss, taking a cigarette break outside of St George’s Hospital in Essex. Donning his disguise, he relived his boredom by stabbing Cheryl 72 times. By his own admission, he would have kept going but for the simple fact that his wig fell off. What this poor woman must have gone through in those final moments of her life does not bear imagining.
If this murder isn’t enough to cure any smoker of their habit, I don’t know what will, because quite simply, if she hadn’t been outside having a quick puff, then she would probably still be alive today. Realistically though, association does not equal causation and it is just one those horrible things that happens. A simple case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and it is game over.
The brutality of the act of murder is bad enough, however worse was to come out during Harling’s murder trial. He was angry that she died, saying that “it kinda ruined my day”, had not the slightest inkling of remorse, and would do it again if he had the chance. He also wanted to carry out a Colombine style massacre.
From what I’ve read on this case, Harling had a long standing obsession with violent video games and web sites. He enjoyed violent horror movies. Whilst I do believe that people have to take responsibility for their own actions and should be able to tell the difference between these things and reality, it is hard to argue against the premise that these violent media are partly to blame. They are the fertiliser which helps a mind that is perhaps a little warped to begin with grow and flourish into something capable of carrying out the acts that he/she has seen. If they were plants, you would just use a bit of Round Up. I also wonder where the hell where this guy’s parents? At 19, he can do what he wants to, but the unhealthy obsession began at a much earlier age and the warning signs would have been there.
Nature or nurture? I don’t know but the words of one of Britain’s top forensic psychiatrist’s chill me to the core – “I can’t think of a more dangerous teenager if released he will probably kill again.”
