The Creation Of A Teenage Monster

The Philip Chism case.

This is probably one of the more f’ed up stories of the last decade. You can read about all over the Internet, although the basic story is as follows: 14 year-old student murders 24 year-old teacher, presumably with a box cutter. He uses a recycling bin to move the body to woods behind the school. He goes and sees a Woody Allen movie (Blue Jasmine). He’s picked up by cops walking along the street around 11:30pm and has a bloody box cutter and her credit cards. He’s arraigned and indicted, showing no remorse (at least on surface). Now there are reports of leaving a note near her body that read “I hate you all.”

Some strong coverage is here, here, here and here.

Since he’s been in prison (40-year sentence), he’s attacked prison staff a few times, to the point that we’ve essentially just chucked this boy societally. He’s a monster and that’s it. He cannot be redeemed. If he does get out at 54, and has 30-40 more years of life left, those are basically chucked too.

I suppose motive isn’t really important in this case — the crime itself is horrific enough, and the after-fact behavior definitely seems sociopathic.