Posted on 09/30/2002 3:27:34 PM PDT by Saundra Duffy
Permissive Parenting Contributed to Killing of Jesse Dirkhising - Parents didn’t mind him spending time with homosexual men - By Allyson Smith
Jesse Dirkhising 7th grade yearbook photo Lincoln Middle School Second of two parts
The following is the second of a two-part article commemorating the third anniversary of the sadistic rape-killing of Jesse Dirkhising, a 13-year-old boy from Prairie Grove, Arkansas, on September 26, 1999. Young Jesse was found near death at the apartment of 33-year-old family friend and hairdresser Davis Carpenter, after a night of grotesque sodomitic abuse at the hands of Carpenter’s 22-year-old homosexual lover, Joshua Brown. (Carpenter used notes to guide Brown in the sadistic rituals.) For the sake of decency, many of the gruesome details surrounding the killing of Jesse had to be edited out of this and last week’s article. (A fuller, more graphic, version of this piece is available on WorldNetDaily.com, published September 23, 2002.) The Web site of Americans for Truth also contains more information on the Dirkhising case.
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Joshua Brown was tried and convicted on charges of capital murder and rape of 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising in March 2001 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
During the trial, prosecutors called nearly 25 witnesses and presented more than 100 items of evidence, including nylon rope, petroleum jelly jars, a douche bottle, crumpled duct tape, feces- and vomit-covered shirts and underwear, prescription pill bottles, and photos of items that were used to sodomize the child, according to news reports.
Police also confiscated several notes that Davis Carpenter, Brown’s accomplice and older homosexual lover, wrote describing how to sedate and sodomize children (both Jesse and a neighborhood girl).
One three-page note, addressed to "Baby," Carpenter’s pet name for Brown, contained a graphic sexual assault fantasy about a little neighbor girl: "I saw your 10-year-old blonde whore this morning. ... Her bus comes by at 7:20 or 7:30."
"Keep an eye on her to catch the first opportunity to talk to her — In the back window & whammo! Oh yeah!"
Benton County Circuit Court Judge David Clinger, who presided over Brown’s trial, called the written accounts of bondage, drugging, gagging and blindfolding "a blueprint for child rape."
JESSE’S POLITICALLY CORRECT PARENTS During cross examination at the trial, evidence came to light that Jesse’s parents had permissive attitudes toward homosexuality and drug use — and the fact that Jesse was hanging out with older homosexual lovers.
"[Jesse’s mother] Tina Yates, to our shock and dismay, testified on cross-examination that she was well aware that Carpenter and Brown were homosexuals and had no issue with them or homosexuality in general," said Robert C. Balfe, the lead prosecuting attorney for Benton County, Arkansas, in a post-conviction interview with C&F Report.
"If Jesse wanted to be a homosexual, that was fine with her. In fact, a homosexual minister had married her and Jesse’s stepfather, Miles Yates. Tina considered Carpenter and Brown ‘family’ and they all spent considerable time together at each other’s residences."
Miles Yates reiterated his wife’s testimony that he was aware that Carpenter and Brown were homosexuals and drug users but said those facts didn’t bother him "so long as it was not around the family," and stated that he was not averse to using drugs "at home with me or someone you’re comfortable with."
He also testified that he had met Carpenter about seven years prior to his stepson’s death via his own friendship with a homosexual lover of Carpenter’s and that he would allow only "a decent person — an upstanding citizen" to watch Jesse or his siblings overnight.
"This testimony was so out-of-step with any reasonable person’s views on family that it alienated [Tina], and by default, Jesse, from the jury," Balfe said.
A 14-year-old female friend of Jesse’s also testified that Jesse had been seen the week prior to his death being injected with methamphetamine by a 43-year-old female neighbor of Brown’s and Carpenter’s, unsupervised by either of the men.
GRANDMOTHER TOLD TO MIND OWN BUSINESS One family member who was not comfortable with Jesse’s friendship with the two homosexuals was his step-grandmother, Betty Yates.
In a 1999 interview with CNSNews.com, Yates said, "The parents put him in a situation he shouldn’t have been in. They knowingly let him spend weekends with the two guys knowing they were gay. Jesse was a typical 13-year-old good kid. You do not put a 13-year-old child into a situation like that. It had been going on for about two months and he had told them he did not want to go back."
Betty Yates told CNSNews.com that some months prior to Jesse’s death, Tina Yates said she was excited that the gay couple had taken an interest in her son.
"I said, ‘Do they not have kids’? And she said, ‘Well, they’re two guys, they’re gay.’ When they left, I said to my husband, ‘Do you know what they’re doing?’ But he’s real big on minding your own business. Now I’m sorry I didn’t pursue it. We shouldn’t have minded our own business that time. It was a horrible death that could have been prevented."
Balfe, the prosecutor, told C&F Report, "It was extremely important to me that the jury stay focused on the real issue of the trial, the rape and murder of Jesse, and not be distracted by any side issues, such as whether this case was the subject of a conspiracy by the national media to hide homosexual hate crimes.
"Jesse was not attacked because he was heterosexual, he was attacked because he was a child. The defendants were pedophiles and had an unnatural desire to engage in the violent rape of children," he said. "I have my personal opinions on whether homosexuality is a sexual deviance that makes other types of sexual deviance such as pedophilia more likely to occur among homosexuals, but that is separate and apart from my prosecution of this crime."
Balfe said that the defendants’ homosexual conduct was "self-evident" and added, "I didn’t stay away from the homosexual angle in this case to be politically correct."
FAMILY BREAKDOWN LED TO TROUBLES Teen pregnancy, divorce, fatherlessness and childhood abuse all played a part in the Jesse Dirkhising tragedy.
Jesse’s and Joshua Brown’s mothers were both 17 when they gave birth to their sons. "Both mothers had their children too young, and both failed to nurture and protect," said public defender Louis Lim. Carpenter’s parents were also divorced.
Brown’s mother, Judith Wasson of Memphis, Tennessee, testified that Brown’s father had abandoned the family when Joshua was two years old.
Wasson said that her son had been in and out of foster homes in California and Tennessee between the ages of 9 and 11 because of physical abuse and neglect at her own hands. She also stated that her brother, who had moved into their home as a "male figure" for the family, had physically abused Joshua and sexually abused his younger sister, Jessica.
When her son Joshua was 20, Wasson said, he met Carpenter in Memphis while on the rebound after breaking up with a girlfriend.
"I did not know Josh had any homosexual tendencies until after he was arrested," she said.
Under questioning by Detective Jarod Mason, Brown admitted that he was bisexual.
VULNERABLE BOYS: EASY ‘GAY’ PREY Defense attorney Louis Lim said that Brown was a troubled, insecure teen with drug addictions when Carpenter walked into his life in 1997.
"A successful hairstylist, Carpenter was a keynote speaker at Brown’s sister’s graduation from modeling school in Mississippi. Carpenter befriended Brown and offered him a job," reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
When Carpenter saw Brown for the first time, "he said he [Brown] was so pretty he needed someone to lift him up," Lim told jurors.
Within two months of knowing Brown, Carpenter persuaded Brown to move away from his friends and family to Florida. Davis later manipulated Josh into a homosexual relationship by stating that four characters in the Bible (David and Jonathan, and Ruth and Naomi) were homosexual.
As he did with Brown, Carpenter worked to isolate Jesse from his family, Lim said.
Co-workers from the Regis hair salon characterized Carpenter as the stronger of the two personalities in the relationship with Brown, and said he tended to be domineering, condescending and sure of himself.
They generally described Brown as more like a teenager than a mature 22-year-old. One witness noted that Brown would generally stare at the ground in front of himself rather than looking people in the eyes, a trait evident in police transcripts and trial photographs.
Carpenter wrote housekeeping instructions to Brown and, in one note, described their relationship as "a beautiful marriage"!
JESSE’S LIFE DEVALUED BY KILLERS, JURORS In closing arguments, Prosecutor Balfe said that making a late-night run for more duct tape, picking up only two sandwiches instead of three, and leaving the child unattended all proved that Carpenter and Brown weren’t concerned about Jesse’s welfare.
Balfe also described to C&F Report the difficulty of convincing the court that Jesse’s rape was non-consensual: "I repeatedly kept telling the jury that there is no way a 13-year-old boy is going to agree to being bound, gagged with dirty underwear, and raped with numerous different objects over five hours," he said.
"The defense’s response was essentially: ‘Well, I know it’s hard to understand, but you never know what these homosexuals are going to do.’" Balfe said that a similar comment was made in the jury room.
"If this was a 13-year-old girl, there would be absolutely no issue that it was not consensual. Yet since Jesse was a boy, this was somehow understandable. It must have been ‘kinky sex.’"
Balfe told C&F Report that Jesse’s disadvantaged background fueled jurors’ beliefs that the teenager had consented to the assault: "The defense certainly devalued the victim along [socio-economic] lines. If the 13-year-old had been the son of a Wal-Mart executive (Wal-Mart is headquartered here in Bentonville), then I believe we would have had a different outcome.
"That’s why pedophiles target children from disadvantaged homes. First, they’re more likely to be successful in luring these children because the parents aren’t as vigilant. Second, juries then punish the victim because the parents are unsympathetic."
JESSE LOVED BY FAMILY, CLASSMATES During the penalty phase of Brown’s trial, members of Jesse’s families made statements to the court telling how much Jesse had meant to them and arguing for the maximum punishment for Joshua Brown.
According to local news reports, Jesse’s maternal grandmother, Paula McVey, fought back tears as she told jurors how much she and her remaining grandchildren missed Jesse.
McVey testified that Jesse’s little brother and sister, Chad and Renea Kidd, had been very close to their older brother. She said that Chad, then 9 years old, frequently cried out, "I want my brother!" and that Renea, 8, had become extremely dependent upon her remaining brother and broke into tears when separated from him for any length of time.
Chad wrote a statement to the court saying that he missed drawing and playing football, baseball, soccer and basketball with Jesse.
"I’m mad," wrote Chad. "I want to hurt someone. I feel like there is a very big whole [sic] in me." Chad added that he hoped Brown and Carpenter would get the death penalty.
Tina Yates wrote that Jesse loved to read and play football for his school and that he liked camping, fishing and hunting with his siblings, and going to movies with his grandmother. She said her son’s dream was to finish school, get his mechanic’s certification and make a living repairing automobiles.
Brown’s mother, Judith Wasson, told the court tearfully, "We are profoundly sorry for the loss that the Yates family is having. I know in my heart that Joshua could not have intentionally killed anyone."
Jesse’s classmates at Lincoln Middle School placed flowers on his school bus seat and memorialized his locker after his death.
JUDGE DID NOT BUY BROWN’S EXCUSE Judge David Clinger rejected the contention that Brown tried to save Jesse by cutting away duct tape and trying to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Trial testimony showed that Carpenter and Brown contemplated cleaning Jesse in the shower or dumping his body somewhere else before Carpenter called 911.
"I absolutely don’t find a single shred of evidence that Mr. Carpenter ever forced you to do anything that you didn’t want to do," Judge Clinger said.
"You and Davis Carpenter had quite a time inflicting this on this bound and helpless young man who was barely 13. Imagining Jesse’s thought process during his slow and torturous death has sent shivers up my spine," Clinger told Brown.
Despite Clinger’s contention that Joshua willingly participated in Jesse’s assault, juror Milton Davis said, "Very often, we felt we were trying the wrong man."
CARPENTER COPS PLEA Davis Carpenter’s trial, originally scheduled for May 2001, was averted after he pleaded guilty on April 18, 2001 to one count each of capital murder and rape in exchange for serving life in prison without possibility of parole.
At his sentencing, Carpenter admitted his culpability in Jesse ‘s death and apologized to Jesse’s mother and stepfather: "I’d like to say to Miles and Tina that I’m sorry Jesse’s gone. I tried to save him but couldn’t. Every day I pray for them and I will continue to pray for the rest of my life that the Lord will heal the hole in their heart."
While acknowledging that Carpenter’s crimes were terrible, Judge Clinger said he found no evidence that either Carpenter or Brown intended to kill Jesse, persuading him to accept the plea bargain.
Carpenter’s father later told The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his son accepted partial blame for Jesse’s murder. "He knew the boy’s family didn’t have much money and gave him a job at the salon. But he has admitted that he probably shouldn’t have ever had the boy in that apartment."
Balfe summarized the case to C&F Report as follows: "I believe that this unfortunate 13-year-old boy, raised in a home with the [types of views that Miles and Tina Yates espoused], was left to be lured by these two pedophiles who could induce him with money and drugs. I believe they wanted Jesse to become addicted to drugs to make him more likely to follow their commands."
Spokesmen for homosexual pressure groups like the Human Rights Campaign deplored Jesse’s murder, even as they said it has nothing to do with "gays."
WHAT’S NEW IN 2002? According to Northwest Arkansas News reports from this year, Brown’s case has been appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court. However, the appeal is currently languishing due to personnel and workload issues within the Benton County Public Defender’s Office.
Two months after his murder conviction, Carpenter filed a handwritten motion to withdraw his guilty plea. On July 11, 2001, Carpenter filed another petition for post-conviction relief, claiming that his attorneys were ineffective.
On July 11 of this year, Judge Clinger refused Carpenter’s requests, saying that neither request was signed and notarized as required by law.
No local memorials have been held since Jesse’s death, according to NWAonline.net reporter Kirby Sanders, who covered the case.
A recent search on the Nexis online database of news and print articles shows a total of 669 articles about Jesse Dirkhising versus 11,948 for slain homosexual college student Matthew Shepard, using the search phrase "All News Stories."
Cards and letters may be sent to Jesse’s family at the following address:
Dirkhising/Yates Family c/o Benton County Prosecutor’s Office 100 NE "A" Street Bentonville, AR 72712
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Culture and Family Institute an affiliate of Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1102 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 289-7117 Fax: (202) 488-0806 E-mail: mail@cultureandfamily.org
The sin of homosexuality is no greater than the sin of lust. Both drive man away from The Father, and both will absolutely deny man the light and warmth of His love for eternity.
The beauty of the Bible is the personal roadmap it holds for each of us, according to our own understanding. Every Word, every Verse, every Chapter and every Book is included to help us find our way through the pitfalls and traps evil may have planted for each of us during our lifetime. I'm reminded by Jesus, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." -John 8:7.
And yet there is a further clarification of this guidance, so as to make it absolutely certain we appreciate the gravity of making a judgment of others. In Mathew 7:1-4, Jesus warns, "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. We are asked to be mindful to protect against developing, or worst, following blind arrogance with these words, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?"
It seems the best thing to do is consider the possibility we are walking around with a beam protruding from our eyes.
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