Joshua Geier: Another 12-year-old Murderer

He sounds like he has an anti-social personality disorder. He needs to be tried as an adult. People who have committed the sorts of things that have been described need to be kept away from society so that he does not do any more harm.

What the hell is the point of keeping guns locked away when the keys are available to a 12 year old kid?

Man, if the stuff in that article is all true, the boy does need to be kept from mingling with society. Maybe forever.

I feel that after the very first public mishandling of guns, that the guns should have been taken out of the house. This is a case in which the parents must carry a great deal of responsibility.

Also, had I been the mother of the little girl shot with a BB gun, I'd have Done Something Official--and sending the shooter to gun safety lessons wouldn't have been enough.

The mind boggles.

Well, in Germany it would be those, who gave access to weapons, who get sentenced.

Which is very right, I think.

The child couldn't be sentenced at all (you must be 14 here to appeal to junevile criminal law), but send to an educational home/institution.

I can only relate this to a murder that occurred in Michigan where we lived. This kid, (about 12) killed both parents and his sister. He said his parents were on his back, bugging him constantly. He was NOT tried as an adult and went free at 18.

This person, now a man, will never be "right." Odd, freakish type people are attracted to him, live with him. Because he has learned NOTHING about life. From what I recall, his parents raised him according to the fundamentalist religion they belonged. In other words, it was to impress the church hierarchy. I think he knew that he didn't really matter to them.

I think our media don't do favors to anybody when they don't completely and totally examine the family from which these kids came, and let the public know. We have to know every single detail so this murdering by children will stop. Notice that information from the families of the kids who shot up the school in Columbine CO has been kept secret. The parents MUST be at fault in some way and we all need to know how NOT to raise kids.

The problem with locking up Joshua's father is that his sisters would then be left parentless.

I know the FBI interviews serial killers over and over and over looking for clues to the causes of murderous behavior. I think it would be an excellent idea to do the same with parents of homicidal children, but I believe the results should be publicized as general statements rather than publically profiling a specific family, particularly when there are other children in the family.

I disagree. Knowing 'every single detail' is not an answer. Who determines what is 'good' and 'bad' parenting? And letting people know after the fact makes it a moot point. Just because I may not see Scientologists as 'good' parents, does the state have the right to take the children away? How about NRA supporters? How about alcoholics? Who decides? There are millions of children in this country....and no place else for them to go.

I know hundreds of kids in jail and on probation. Some of them have lousy parents that are held accountable (criminal charges, rehab, lose of parental rights forever), some have great parents and the child really is just a bad apple...you have no idea how difficult it is to get courts to do something about a juvenile offender at the beginning of a problem or how overloaded the system is. Parental responsibility is a must - but I think that the media is already way too involved in 'every single detail' of people's lives. That's the court's job, not the newspaper's job.

The only real answer is to pay attention to your local court systems. Find out how these cases are handled, elect governors that will appoint judges that you like. Pay attention to the funding that police, social services, and juvenile centers get. All those people that are supposed to be doing something need to come from somewhere.

Sure, Sugar, I know you're right. Nothing is so cut and dried that anybody would know much after speaking with parents, the very people probably in the dark. I just would never agree that "bad apples" are born. I would say, however, that no matter our parents or upbringing we are still responsible for our actions.

My grandparents re very good friends of the Geier family. When I lived with my grandparents for a year, I also got to know the Geiers, which includes Josh and Diane. I babysat the children on a few occasions. Josh to me seemed like a normal 11 year old, I mean he had his moods, but so does everyone. I was there when the stuff happened with ihm stealing his moms van and totalling it. It got me to take a closer look at all of them to try to figure out why a child of his age would do that. I loved Diane, she was a very sweet and giving woman. She helped my grandmother out a lot. I am not saying that she was perfect though. She could have done a few things different when it came to raising her kids, but couldn't we all have? The difference we is we have the chance to look back on our mistakes, and she doesn't. But at the same time, I dont know what she could have done different in order to make Josh believe how much she really loved him. He was a very difficult child sometimes.
I personally dont know whether he should have been tried as an adult or juvenile, but I do know that his "punishment" should have been harsher. I honestly dont think that any child who could shoot their mother point blank in the face really has much of a chance to be fully rehabilitated. If he can do that to someone who loved him and did everything she could for him, then what can he do to the random Joe Schmoe on the street who looks at him wrong and pisses him off one day?

Nice objective post, babygrl. Welcome to A2K.

Thanks Sugar

Welcome, Babygrl.

Joshua was sentenced this month. I tried to find the story in the Allentown Morning Call but the search engine there is being most contrary.

As I remember, he's going to be treated as a juvenile offender with the potential for release from the system at 21.

I don't know Joshua, but I've dealt with a number of teenaged boys. My educated guess--and it is only a guess--is that Joshua didn't mean to kill his mother forever. He meant to shoot her with the shotgun so that she'd pay attention right away, right at that moment--off the phone and focus on Josh, Josh, Josh, Josh....

Obviously, Joshua is a very troubled kid. Playing "What If" is a fruitless game, but his life might have been very different had his parents sought professional intervention when he first began acting out.

I ache for his father--and for his motherless sisters.

He was handled as a juvenile and found to have commited manslaughter in the juvenile hearings. He was sentenced on July 18th to 6 months to 4 years in a Juvenile Treatment Center according to WAEB news.

http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/6332575.htm

"Posted on Fri, Jul. 18, 2003

News in brief from eastern Pennsylvania
Associated Press

EASTON, Pa. - A boy who fatally shot his mother will spend six months to four years in a juvenile treatment center, a judge decided.

Joshua Geier, now 13, shot Diane Geier, 41, at their home on Oct. 7. District Attorney John Morganelli tried to prove that Geier had committed murder, but Judge James C. Hogan concluded that the boy's actions were involuntary manslaughter, a first-degree misdemeanor.

Geier is to get an evaluation after six months of treatment, and then the court will have 90 days to rule on whether he may be released, Hogan ruled Thursday. Defense lawyer Anthony Martino said the evaluations will continue every six months until the court decides to release him or the four years are up."

Fishin'--

Many thanks. I didn't realize you were within spitting distance of the Lehigh Valley.

Speculating on what he might have been thinking is all well and good, but access to guns is the real issue. It was littlek, I believe, who questioned the point of having the guns locked if the key was so easy for this kid to locate. Excellent question!

Until this society does something about access to guns, these sorts of tragedies will keep on happening. If it's not a sharp-shooter adolescent, it's a 5-year-old shooting his little sister with dad's revolver.

I'm not Noddy! I'm in greater Boston but I did a Google search and found those this morning after reading the comments here.

fishin'--

You're a marvel--a very useful marvel. Thank you.

D'artagnan--

One of the major problems with gun safety is that doting parents are prone to feel, "My child would Never.....and of course, boys will be boys.

I'm sure that girls will be girls, also, but guns don't seem to appeal to girls the way they do to boys.

The incidence of gun ownership during colonial times has been wildly exaggerated, but I'll accept that a great many isolated log cabins had a gun hung conveniently by the door.

I bet that any boy who fooled with Pa's gun was immediately and forcefully chastized.

Still....most of the body count from the ill-fated Donnor Party was created by a lethal combination of whiskey, guns and testosterone--not starvation.