[AndyJackson]

The positions you have taken in 72 and 142 are reasonable, and I am not opposed to a discussion about parental responsibility. What I am opposed to is the kind of moral ambivalence that I see in too many comments. These girls were not raped because they were smooching in lovers lane. They were raped because society turned loose a predator. Tosca is allegory for the essence of evil resulting from moral ambivalence.

[bvw]

Actually, we don't yet and may never know if the reason Mr. Ratliff went to that particular location was on account of his thinking it was easy pickings to be had. He may have stumbled on it perchance, he may have visited it in his past and thus been drawn back under what he had allowed to become a compulsive influence, or he may have hunted out such a place for the very reason that sexually-hot young women were to be found there.

Has there been discussion that he picked not one flower, but two? That they are of different races? That, I believe, suggests some planning, that Mr. Ratliff was looking beyond just mere rape, towards a more involved scenario.

That he hunted out the place for the type of girls he needed to feed his fantasy. He did kill the boyfriends he took the time to tape them up. He didn't stop at one girl, he picked up a second ... that all goes to some level of strategy and planning.

Being there at that hour, in that particular place for the extremely likely purpose of engaging in illicit sex, the girls were already at risk, whether the direct fault of the parents is unknown, yet some parents actaully would permit and even encourage their daughters to follow their "spirits" in this matter -- and that is reckless parenting.

That such a vile predator as Ratliff would happen to show up, take them, rape them and nearly kill them is seems new twist, but it is really not the first time such things have happened in such places. Many rapes in such places, I suspect, go unreported.