Feature
- Do You Hate Your Partner, Too?
- California Teen Avoids Heavy Sentencing by Passing the Buck
- Wanna Buy Your Teenager a Padded Push-Up Bra?
- Vampires in Texas!
- These Guys Are As Bad As Westboro Baptist Church
- Funny Letters Sent to Women's Magazines
- Women's Ski Jumping: Still Not a 'Real' Sport
- Will the World Be Pro-Choice Soon?
- Are We Getting Too Lazy to Even Divorce?
- Forever 21's Maternity Line: Glamorizing Teen Pregnancy?
There’s no doubt about it, the mother/daughter dynamic can be tough. Words and actions can be easily misconstrued—on both sides—and it can ultimately lead to a lot of pain and heartache.
And, evidently, murder.
In 2009, Joanne Witt of California was brutally stabbed to death in a plot hatched by her daughter Tylar, then just fourteen years old, and Tylar’s 19-year-old boyfriend, Steven Colver.
Seems Ms. Witt had the audacity to go to the police and file a statutory rape claim against Colver, now twenty-one, giving authorities Tylar’s diary as evidence.
Tylar Witt clearly felt that matricide was a just reward for her …
… mother’s actions, enlisting her boyfriend’s assistance in a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
And last week, her conviction was reduced from first to second-degree murder as part of a deal that had her testifying against Colver, who received a life sentence without the possibility of parole … far harsher than the 15 years to life Tylar Witt was given.
And while her uncle, Michael Witt, referred to Colver as “a psychotic S.O.B.” during Friday’s sentencing hearing and her grandfather, Norbert Witt, accused Colver both of “murdering his daughter and of corrupting his granddaughter by exposing her to ‘heavy narcotics and sex’”, El Dorado Superior Court Judge Daniel Proud put at least some of the onus on Tylar.
Proud told Tylar she deprived her family of a mother “who dedicated her life to you.”
“Joanne Witt loved her daughter,” the judge said. “She was a protective and caring mother. She tried her best. I’m sorry, Ms. Witt, because the person who loved you more than anyone in the world, without reservation, is gone.”
And then there’s the question of what exactly really happened.
According to Steven Colver, Joanne Witt was dead at her daughter’s hand before he reached the house, a story believed by at least one person—Colver’s mother Jan, who plans to appeal the court’s ruling.
Tylar testified at Colver’s trial that they planned to commit the stabbing together, but as Colver entered the bedroom, she stayed outside and “put my hands on my ear, closed my eyes and hummed.”
Hmm.
Even if this is true, Tylar Witt was in on the planning; she actively participated in the premeditation of Joanne Witt’s murder.
And, you know, closing your eyes and humming instead of dialing 911 sort of negates your argument of disinvolvement.
Is there any way of knowing for sure what exactly transpired when Joanne Witt died? No.
But I can’t help but feel like Steven Colvert kind of got shafted here.
You know, any nineteen-year-old shacking up with a kid of fourteen clearly has some issues. He was definitely involved in, at the very least, participating in the planning of Joanne Witt’s murder. The guy’s unquestionably pretty skeevtastic.
It’s a lot easier to blame a guy like that than to contemplate a far darker possibility.
I mean, face it, who wants to even entertain the notion that an eighth grader killed her mother without serious pressure from an older guy facing criminal charges for screwing around with her in the first place?
The fact is, though, that Tylar Witt was without a doubt involved here, that she owns part of the blame for her mother’s untimely and horrific death … and that she might well own a hell of a lot more than what she’s admitting to or being punished for.
Should she receive what amounts to a slap on the wrist when you consider what Steven Colvert’s getting?
I mean, you could argue that she didn’t have the maturity level to do such a terrible thing on her own, that a minimum of fifteen years in prison is kind of a big deal when you’re talking about a young teenager, but I can’t help but feeling that the “squirm factor”, the “this little girl wouldn’t even have considered this without the evil influence of her nasty boyfriend” has given Tylar Witt something of a free pass here because nobody—not the legal system, not the media, nobody—wants to open this particular can of worms.
Your thoughts?
You Might Also Like ...
-
-
7
This isn’t the first time a young woman has killed her parents in order to get her way and it’s not the first time the boyfriend has taken the fall. As long as we continue to blindly believe that intelligence and wisdom comes with a calendar age and as long as we believe that young women can only be corrupted and never the corrupter, then we will continue to let murderous women walk free. It’s part of our sick sexual double standard.
Exactly!
At 14, I was far more savvy than most 25 year old men.
Some mature early, some late. I seem to recall reading somewhere that females mature mentally (in some aspects) considerably earlier than males.
Anyone who participates in something like this has some serious mental issues – regardless of age.
Totally agree Jeneria.
Totally agree Copa.
Very well said. In this case, I think the daughter benefited from the patriarchal tendencies a lot of people have regarding young women somehow being less culpable for their actions, while the boyfriend suffered because of them. Not that he was an angel himself.
I’m still okay with it.
What you call the “squirm factor” is an extreme manifestation of a troubling double-standard perhaps as widely practiced by feminists as by those whom they hold in contempt. Far more typical is that activists routinely and vociferously include as “acts of violence” committed by men mere verbal abuse. Given the fact that women typically have GREATER verbal skills than do men, and even less hesitancy in using these as weapons, it should be patently obvious that such a definition, fairly applied, would make WOMEN out to be the sex most often guilty of “violence.” Now, that’s ridiculous on its face, but so are the aforementioned claims of a great many feminists. Either that sort of abuse should be taken seriously when women engage in it, or none of it should be, no matter who does it.