Posted on 08/04/2007 6:10:51 AM PDT by Brilliant
Born in a psychiatric hospital. Orphaned at age 8 by a mother who drowned drunk in a ditch. Abused by a grandmother. Molested in foster care.
"I have never in my life seen someone who was forced to fend more for himself from almost literally the time he came into the world than Leo Boatman," Chief Assistant Public Defender Bill Miller said, recounting the childhood of the dishwasher who pleaded guilty Monday to killing two campers in the Ocala National Forest. "His life started off bad and only got worse."
Boatman's heartbreaking life does not excuse his senseless crimes, but it may help explain what made him a killer, Assistant State Attorney Rock Hooker said.
He, too, described Boatman's wretched boyhood, chronicled in court documents, as "uniquely awful" among killers he has prosecuted during the past 21 years.
Boatman, 21, was spared the death penalty because the families of his victims, Amber Peck and John Parker, signed off on a plea agreement that was negotiated by prosecutors and defense lawyers. The accord substituted two life terms in prison without parole for lethal injection.
The families were permitted to review a 14-page appeal for "mitigation" -- or mercy -- drafted by defense lawyers who researched Boatman's life.
"Where was the village raising this soul who decided John's and my fate," asked Glenda Peck, 62, reading from a letter that she had written in the voice of her slain daughter, Amber.
After Boatman's plea, prosecutors released the mitigation document and other previously sealed materials that detailed the slaying of the two Santa Fe Community College students. Peck and Parker, both 26, were shot to death Jan. 4, 2006, at Hidden Pond, a remote camp site near the Juniper Springs Recreation Area in the forest...
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Someone's been reading too much Hillary.
Countless stories of people with the same disadvantages as this guy who can point to a life of sacrifice and heroism. the fact that this animal chose to play out his anger by murdering innocent people out ways any sympathy one should have for him. In the end he’s just another cold blooded murderer with a sob story.
I bet if they had to pay, they’d have him dusted.
This is just another example of Americans who won’t make a tough decision if they can get the rest of us to pay for it.
Was that a swipe at Hillary? Apparently, a village doesn’t quite cut it.
In this case, no.
L
If anything, this story points out the necessity for the death penalty. It goes against reason to continue to warehouse these destructive and dangerous criminals for the rest of their, perhaps MANY, decades until natural death. And we ALL know that sooner or later, some board of brain-dead parole officials will turn him loose- probably to kill again. It seems we have learned nothing in the past 50 years about vicious murderers and others who think that the rest of us are nothing more than victims whose sole purpose is to provide them with any opportunity to feed some twisted need.
I don’t care what kind of childhood this killer had. Once you are an adult, you make your own choices.
Right now, I actually oppose the DP, for reasons not the usual. I oppose “lethal injection”- The killer should face SOME of the fear and terror and PAIN he inflicted on his victim; the ability to round up a good defense lawyer assures that you won’t end up on death row (the Menendez brothers) of free (OJ); Repeat child molesters should be put to death- they cannot be rehabilitated and re-offend every chance they get.
Just one more thing...how about an IQ requirement for juries (and voters!).
In the good ole days, this guy would not have been on the street to begin with, and this would never have happened.
I'll second that. :)
Sometimes I wonder ( and trust me, this isn’t easy to say) if a little “vigilante justice” isn’t overdue. It seems the justice system will NOT protect us.
In our broken system it is probably cheaper to keep him in prison for the next 50 years than to fight through the appeals for the next 16 years till they would finally execute this miserable retch.
The man is a mad dog. Put him down before he maims or kills a guard.
Care to elaborate on that a bit?
You lost me.
He already had an extensive criminal record before he killed them.
Defund the left. No money too leftists lawyers.
I remarked to my father sometime in the early 1980’s that “We are becoming so “civilized” that there is a distinct danger of becoming uncivilized”.
As a man that was forced to kill another man to save his own life back in the 1940’s, he understood exactly what I meant by this seemingly paradoxical statement.
He took his AK-47 to the woods that day intending to kill someone.
"Detective Sgt. David Hopkins described Boatman as a “sociopath” during the press conference."
"Boatman allegedly had a conversation with an acquaintance, indicating that he had killed someone, according to the arrest report."
"The report stated Boatman allegedly said to his friend, “I wouldn’t kill a bum because they would have nothing to lose. I went out there and came across two preppy kids and killed them.”
There are, like it or not, some individuals who "need killing". Unfortunately, when the cops do it, the hate authority types on right and left team up against them.
Lynching, anyone?
:^(
NO three strikes law in Florida eh?
I was talking to a friend of mine about her foster brother, who came to their family at the age of ten and had a similar childhood to Boatman’s. He had some troubles but he overcame them.
My m-i-l was abused and neglected in foster care and pulled herself up to become a physician - American movies in the fifties were her lodestar to a better life. American movies today wouldn’t take you there. My m-i-l’s early life scarred her in some ways, but she CHOSE good actions even if the emotions weren’t always there.
Mrs VS
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