I live about 5 miles from Souderton. It is a small middle class town surrounded by farms. I’m sure it has a very low crime rate. People who live in Souderton and my town feel safe. It is 30 long miles from the squalor and crime of West Philly. Then in an instant, a beautiful 9 year old girl is playing outside her apartment in the middle of the afternoon and is abducted, raped, bludgeoned, and strangled to death by her 24 year old demented neighbor. My faith in humanity just took another body blow. How can this happen? What is it in our society that makes men do such a thing? This act is so incompehensible to me that I’m just left depressed and wondering whether our society is so far gone that there is no hope.
This fiend had never had any trouble with the law. He had a fiancee. How many more of these ghouls are sitting in their apartments fantasizing about murdering little girls? Is it TV? Is it his parents? Is it a genetic defect? Is it the devil? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I don’t know about a lot of things anymore. The older I get, the more I don’t understand.
But, even with my complete disillusionment with our society, I still had a few questions after reading this horrifying tale. His fiancee told police she heard a little girl screaming in pain and terror. Why the fuck didn’t she do something? Why didn’t she run toward the screams and save this little girl. She didn’t even call the police. She called the killer.
Secondly, the police in this country will taser you during a traffic stop and treat you like a Muslim terrorist at our airports, but three weeks ago this demented killer had this girl and her friend in his apartment with the door locked and asked them if they wanted to see his dick. The girls reported it to police and they DID NOTHING!!!!
In what kind of society does a 24 year old man ask two 9 year old girls if they want to see his dick and the police don’t think that is a problem?
We live in a sick sick world that is spiraling downward. I’m completely disgusted with everything.
Souderton girl murdered
When 9-year-old Skyler Kauffman didn’t come in for dinner after playing with friends Monday evening outside her Souderton Garden Apartments home, her family went looking, then notified police who continued the search and put out an Amber alert.
“It’s one of those situations where everyone did what they were supposed to do,” Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t enough this time.
James Lee Troutman, 24, who lived in another apartment in the same complex at Second and Chestnut streets, was arraigned Tuesday evening on charges including murder, kidnapping and rape of a child.
Minutes before midnight, Detective George Moyer had found Kauffman’s body wrapped in a comforter under bags of trash in a trash container behind the apartments.
Troutman had no significant police record, Ferman said.
“This is one of those terribly disturbing situations where they happen seemingly out of nowhere,” she said.
During the arraignment, Troutman sat for much of the time with his head cupped by one or both of his hands.
He answered “yes” to Magisterial District Judge Kenneth Deatelhauser’s question of whether he understood the charges, then was returned to prison. Because of the charges, Troutman is not eligible to be freed on bail, Deatelhauser said. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for 1 p.m. May 19. Troutman did not have an attorney at the arraignment.
“Dirtbag” was the first of the epithets shouted at Troutman as he was taken, wearing a bullet-proof vest, from a police car into the arraignment.
After the arraignment, the shouts became such a din that individual ones could not be made out.
“You’re gonna burn,” one said.
“Die, Troutman, die,” another said.
Police were called by Kauffman’s mother and grandmother about 7:11 p.m. Monday, May 9, according to the affidavit of probable cause. Kauffman had last been seen by the family about 5 p.m.
Another resident told the responding officer he had seen blood in a basement area of one of the apartment buildings. When the officer went to the basement, he found both blood and a clog that was similar to the one Kauffman had been described as wearing, the court papers say.
Montgomery County Detective Edward Schikel, of the Forensic Services Unit, who met and talked to Troutman while investigating at the scene, saw what appeared to be blood on one of Troutman’s sneakers, police said.
That attention to detail helped speed up the investigation and lead to the arrest, Ferman said.
“Without that observation, I don’t know if we’d be here today,” she said.
After going to Troutman’s apartment and being given permission by Troutman’s fiancé to search for the missing girl, Schikel found bloody clothes, police said.
Troutman’s fiancé, Heather Clemens, said that Troutman left the apartment about 5 p.m. Monday and said he was going outside to play games on his cell phone, investigators said.
Clemens later heard a female voice screaming loudly, “wailing” and saying no in a way that was “long and drawn out when she said no, like nooooooo! while she was still crying,” investigators said.
When Clemens called Troutman, investigators said, she did not get an answer, but he called back about five minutes later and said he was exercising at Indian Crest Middle School. After she told him about the screams, Clemens told investigators, Troutman said he hoped “everything’s OK.”
He later came home, changed, took a shower and they ate dinner, police said.
Troutman initially admitted to talking to Kauffman around 5 p.m. Monday night, but denied killing her, police said.
He later admitted choking her, police said.
Troutman described the killing as having happened when he “snapped” and “It was like a white out,” police said.
Asked by officers why he killed Kauffman, he said he had to because once he took her down the basement he knew she could get him in trouble,” police said.
An autopsy showed Kauffman died of asphyxia and blunt force trauma, police said.
There was no previous connection between Kauffman and Troutman, other than being neighbors, Ferman said. He was not a relative or friend of the family.
There was, however, a previous incident, police said, in which on April 18, Kauffman and another girl were near Troutman’s apartment when they needed to use the bathroom and he invited them to use his.
Taking them to the bathroom, he told the girls to ignore the photos of naked women on the walls, police said.
The girls became nervous and tried to leave, but found the apartment door was locked, then unlocked it and escaped, police said. In that incident, Troutman also allegedly asked the two girls if they wanted to see his “bird,” police said.
No charges were filed in that case.
I too questioned the fiancee’s actions. Was there no previous sign that she was living with a monster?
Maybe its porno. Maybe its tv. Maybe its because he believed the devil made him do it. Maybe its because he was molested as a kid. Maybe its something in the water…
Scientists tested water samples taken from 68 private wells in five counties in Pennsylvania and New York to explore accusations that “hydro-fracking” — a contested technique to extract shale gas — has contaminated groundwater.
No matter what the guy is guilty and will have a very hard time in prison [pun intended]
It’s wonderful. 2 days ago, a block from our old house in suburban Phoenix there was an argument and a shootout at a playground our dogs loved. Apparently a passerby was killed. Don’t know why I moved to a place where last week’s major crime was a guy walking through the library with his fly down? His schwanson wasn’t out, just had his fly down.
The fucking TSA will hire him when the scumbag POS gets paroled early after they go broke and release the monsters from prison early.
Call in Seal Team 6. Cue up the Carl Vinson. Get the live feed going.
Let the parents be the jury and the state just the executioner in cases like this one.
“I don’t know about a lot of things anymore. The older I get, the more I don’t understand.”
I am in the same boat as you.
The older I get the less I like humanity. Maybe that’s why our time on earth is ordained to be but eighty years.
I hope James Lee Troutman is ass-raped in prison every day for the rest of his life.
Thank you, Stuck, for saying it as succinctly as it can be said. I figure I’ve got 15-20 more years on this mortal coil, and the more I see the less I like.
Many debate whether there is a God.
But this article, and many others, prove there is a Devil, who can be known by his works.
Isn’t he part of the generation that is supposed to save us?
Is it that these things have always happened, or is it that the internet and 24/7 newscasts make it seem like it is happening more now? Are we more demented now, or is there just alot more of us so there are more nut-jobs too? Regardless, my answer would be arrest, jury, convicted then terminated all within about 30 days tops.
I find myself listening to 70’s and 80’s channels on XM radio, it helps take me back in time a little when things didn’t seem so entirely fucked-up.
80% of all pedophiles have never been convicted of any crime! I have three daughters…….all men are considered suspect….I don’t take any chances with their safety. When a close friend (male) of our family took my 5 yr old into another room and closed the door to play checkers with her……nothing happened cause my mom radar went on and I went hysterical looking for her….it became apparent that NO ONE can be trusted.
What sickens me is that we have had several suspicious vehicles and incidents in our area and yet I am the only parent ever outside monitoring the kids playing. If my kids want to play outside…..that is where I will be…..it isn’t less dangerous today than when I was a kid running around all day unsupervised…..perhaps I was just lucky……because crime, all crime, is about opportunity.
I meant to write, it isn’t more dangerous. Statistically we are safer in this country than we have ever been……but there is a a larger population so of course a larger incidence, but it is still relatively a stagnant figure % wise. Information is out there much more today……many things never made the front page or tv news back in the day.
The cops are generally as worthless as tits on a boar hog. They will indeed terrorize citizens ofer the most trivial traffic offenses but will do nothing in a situation like this. Whomever made the decision to ignore the report of the girls should be subjected to said anal intercourse for a long time. And the “District Attorney” had to gall to say “that everyone did what they were supposed to do”? BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!
Ah, but they will argue simply that this A-hole murderer had no priors or anything to raise a red flag……uh……asking two girls to see his penis…..uh, that counts….that alone should allow for some type of report entered into the record and he should have been warned and scolded and made to enter some type of program…..not that it would have helped…..but he would have understood that his behavior was not going to be tolerated…..it may have prevented his further escalation. With regards to the fiancee…..fuck her….what kind of woman allows her man to have naked pictures of women all over the apartment….she knew he was a perv. Dumb dependent-can’t feel like she can live without even a dumb ass idiot man kind of woman she was—-she is a useless citizen.
Surly
In the crazy world we live in today, our faith needs to become stronger.
We have nation where the perverse is the norm governed by miscreants whose adherence to Rule of Law isn’t even in the equation. A country that would make the inhabitants of Soddom and Ghomara blush.
“American liberals are likely going to get everything they think they want and then they will discover that what they’ve created is a hellish, nightmarish society devoid of compassion or kindness or love or mercy.
Thomas Jefferson wanted to replace an aristocracy of birth with an aristocracy of merit. Today’s liberal wants an aristocracy of mediocrity. Having discarded religion, they really can’t think of any reason why a sodomite should not share a tent with a 12-year-old Boy Scout.
Science doesn’t condemn sodomy. Science is morally neutral. It views sodomy as just another of the human race’s many aberrations like necrophilia, a sexual preference for dead bodies, or sadism or masochism.
Having decreed egalitarianism, having discarded religion and morality, modern liberalism’s only answer to Nature’s obvious inequality is to lower standards on everything and to declare everything is permissible.”
Charlie Reese.
it gets deeper too. The Franklin Scandal. Read it.
So all liberals are immoral and all conservatives are moral? I call BS.
Speaking of the de evolution of society…Have you heard of “Slut Walk?”
apparently it has gone global!
The gist of it is a Toronto police officer was quoted as saying that women should avoid dressing like “sluts” to avoid being raped or victimized. As you can imagine the uproar has been deafening.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42927752/ns/us_news-life/t/cops-rape-comment-sparks-wave-slutwalks/
[img]http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/110506-slutwalk-hmed-330a.grid-[/img]
I’m not saying his comments can’t be construed as blaming the victim…But it does remind me of a Dave Chappelle stand up sketch he did years ago. Here is the text of it:
The girl says “Oh uh-uh, wait a minute! Wait a minute! Just because I’m dressed this way does not make me a whore!” Which is true. Gentlemen, that is true. Just because they dress a certain way doesn’t mean they are a certain way. Don’t ever forget it. But ladies, you must understand that is fucking confusing. It just is. Now that would be like me, Dave Chappelle, the comedian, walking down the street in a cop uniform. Somebody might run up on me, saying, “Oh, thank God. Officer, help us! Come on. They’re over here. Help us!” “Oh-hoh! Just because I’m dressed this way does not make me a police officer!” See what I mean?
All right, ladies, fine. You are not a whore. But you are wearing a whore’s uniform.
Here was the picture that didn’t post above
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The first time I showed my penis to Ms Freud she had me arrested for impersonating a man.
What kind of nation have we become? The US used to be a nation that kept slaves and didnt allow women to vote? It once burned witches…so I dont think it has become so much worse.
Is there a way to give WordPress a thumbs down?! F ing MSNBC picture wouldn’t load…let’s see if this one does, if it doesn’t fuck it!
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Ever been to Canada? There are lots of First Nation peoples…do you know why there isnt in the US? Possibly because the policy of genocide in the 1800s.
What kind of nation have we become is a question a man who ignores history would ask.
I hear your argument Plato…….so how do you blame a 9 yr old…..was she dressed like Shakira and he couldn’t resist her? Rape is about control…….this A-hole couldn’t control that he was a low life scum sucking being and therefore he raped and killed a powerless child.
Do I go walking naked at 2am in the streets? Hell no.
Do I dress like a slut? hell no, cause I am not (well, only to Mr. V)
Do I put myself into situations that are dangerous? no, to the best of my abilities.
A woman can be raped wearing a robe down to her ankles and the perp will cry out that he just knew she was naked underneath and she was asking for it…..though she was in her locked home with him peering through her window.
@ Valivin
I agree with your arguments completely…I suppose it gets into the whole “nature” vs “nurture” argument…how much of it is genetics and how much is it the environment around us that affects, encourages, stimulates certain genetic defects or genetic markers…
Either way it is repulsive and the police should have did something like the Admin stated when the 2 girls reported him wanting to expose himself to them!
Again, I don’t mean to detract from the loss of life, especially at such a young age…but where were the girls’ parents during all of this?
Plato
It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and they were making dinner. At 5:00 they reported her missing. The parents have no blame. When kids can’t play outside their house in daylight, what kind of society do we have?
Don’t try to lay this shit off on some chimera of “liberalism.”
I too call bullshit. This country is as “liberal” as a Chamber of Commerce prayer breakfast. In case you haven’t noticed, there is now one party in power, and the elections are a popular Punch-n-Judy show to amuse the proles. Think of the election cycle as liturgy.
You’re living and breathing the Ayn Rand objectivist zeitgeist, and have for the last 30 years. Selfishness elevated to a high art, and Gordon Gekko its archangel and patron saint.
We gather here around this small campfire because we see where the failure of institutions and the collapse of faith in public ANYTHING has brought us: to the sort of mutual distrust that VAlivin reports. We can’t trust the money; we don’t trust the cops; we don’t trust the government, or the motives of its owners. We don’t trust the blow-dried bloviators who solemnly read the day’s propaganda to sustain the “extend and pretend” illusion, under the direction of a small handful of corporate owners.
Our highest court calls money speech, and says, in effect, a poor man has the same right to go to a network and purchase a multi-million dollar air schedule to influence popular opinion. And which defends the ludicrous assertion that corporations are people. If people behaved as many corporations do, they would be described as sociopaths. A corporation cannot be put to death, and large enough corporations can play rope-a-dope with the justice system throuh continuances and appeals to delay sentences indefinitely. (I give you the Exxon Valdez as exhibit A.)
Our prevailing “wisdom” is that of those who, having secured their education via the GI bill, had their children educated by the state, and purchased their now-paid-for homes via FHA loans, now want to pull their money out of the common enterprise and live behind walls. Objectivism at work.
From the Ayn Rand Institute:
In “The Objectivist Ethics,” Rand gives an outline of her code of rational selfishness, and of her argument establishing it as the only objective, fact-based moral code in human history. In the course of the essay, she raises and answers a fundamental and fascinating question: Why does one even need a morality?
In essays including “The Ethics of Emergencies,” “The ‘Conflicts’ of Men’s Interests,” and “Doesn’t Life Require Compromise?” she raises common ethical questions, shows how altruism has crippled people’s ability to approach them rationally, and explains how her moral code provides a solution to them. In “Man’s Rights” and “The Nature of Government” she applies her ethics to formulate the basic principles of her political philosophy, while rejecting the altruistic doctrines of “rights” to health care, employment, etc.
So I put it this: what sort of people do you want in your community? Your church? Your family? In your bed? Altruists or Objectivists?
Read “A Criminal History of Mankind” by Colin Wilson. It won’t help you feel any less disgusted by the human race but it does try to throw some light on why these things happen and particularly why the more recent sadistic murders are taking place.
A note of warning – after reading this book I felt that there really is no hope for us as a race.
I was stopped at a red light over the weekend and since hub was driving I was just looking over at a house that was at the busy intersection……there were two little girls, likely 4/5 years old dancing in the driveway and the one girl was wearing a tank top that showed her entire belly and a little skirt……as if that didn’t perturb me enough….there was NO adult anywhere to be seen. I told my hub we should pick up the girls and drive them to the nearest police station and their parents should be chastised for a multitude of things……but we know I would have been charged with a crime….but that when and if something happens to those little girls their parents most certainly won’t be.
Not a big fan of Rand…..but here is an interesting read….http://mises.org/daily/5276/Ayn-Rand-and-Objectivism
Admin
I was referring to the time when the girls needed to use the bathroom and the sick fuck locked the door on them and asked them if he wanted to see his penis. Where were the parents then? The other thing is my kids have been told and told that they must ask permission to go into someone elses house before they can. They are around the same age and boys at that.
Plato
I agree on that point. That part of the story needs more flushing out. Did the parents do anything? Why didn’t the police do something?
You can go hoarse asking, “where are the parents?”
Parent FAIL:
1) They obviously didn’t teach their kids to not to go into houses without their knowledge or permission.
2) They didn’t brandish a weapon and warn this perp that if he came near their kids what would happen to him
3) They failed to protect their kid knowing that a perv lived nearby…..how did they know….he tried to show his penis to their daughter and locked her in his apartment.
Sure, kids should be able to go outside and play…….but a kid in Botswana lives in fear too and often they have no choice but to walk to the water well alone…….these parents had a choice and they choose poorly, their kid didn’t deserve to die but did deserve to be better protected.
We have a sick motherfucker on trial in my city, too.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110506/NEWS01/105060337/-1/FRONTPAGE/Neiderbach-boy-s-outlook-called-very-poor-
The bastard did this to his own son. There was nothing wrong with the kid when he was born, and he could have grown up to have a normal life. Now he will never grow up at all. And this was ENTIRELY avoidable.
While cases like this are relatively rare anyone who thinks they live in a ‘safe’ area needs to check out a sex offenders list. They are everywhere. I think it’s one of the markers of our society deteriorating.
Justice is a joke too. I know someone whose daughter was beaten till her skull cracked, kicked till all the ribs were broke, then run over with a car. The judge ruled there was no intent to harm and the perps walked away scott free. The girl is a paraplegic with seisures now.
Surly, corporations CAN be put to death. It needs to happen. Alot.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1810
Take a little slice of Troutman, and then another and then another and then another, until there’s nothing left to take. Do it slowly and with a dull knife. Pull out his fingernails, slowly. Pull off his toe nails, slowly. Consult with someone who can tell you what parts of the human body are most sensitive to pain and start with those parts first.
Pray to whatever God you believe in for there to be a Hell and this blot masquerading as a human being will burn for all Eternity for what he did to Skyler. Pray that he will suffer.
Thats a good point surly
Bullet-proof vest why are they The Police afraid of Justice? It is documented if you stole a Horse they hung your ass. Society has to have discipline. I would have no problem shooting at him in a firing squad’ The police are dumb down with all the bullshit, they have to put up with. When s h t f who going to feed those 2 million incarcerated criminals.
“A nation of overfed, barbarous morons RULED by thieves and grifters.”
Joesy – a firing squad? Hell, I would just give him to the family to do with as they please. Anything goes. If it were my kid I am sure I would get real inventive. It is heartbreaking.
first, a trite but i think important point.
we used to be a country that had local communities. even in big cities, people knew their neighbors. talked to their neighbors. even if they did not like them, there was social interaction. and this forces seeing your neighbors as human beings, not in this instance as objects for your sexual gratification, then to be discarded like so much garbage.
television, mass media, air conditioning (eliminating the necessity of venturing outside your apartment into society, on the stoop or the porch), lots of factors. and what i am decrying may be symptom rather than cause. and as i admit, trite. but i bet mr. troutman as a child himself, as a teenager and young adult, and as a resident in this particular apartment building, generally had far less personal contact with his neighbors, far less experience interacting with the 9yo girl who lived two doors down from him when he was in high school, than his 1960s counterpart. and maybe that small difference is what accounts for the greater frequency of such horrific crimes. that deficiency is what tips the diseased mind from fantasy to actual violence and murder.
and such mundane, daily human contact, such a basic building block of anything you want to label as ‘community’, is far less often a fact of everyday life in the 21st century.
that same community (or parents), nips this shit in the bud after the first incident.
and i have one specific act by the authorities/system that i would prefer they reconsidered. i would let this guy post bail, and go home. let him find his own bullet-proof vest.
This story is mirrored in just about every locale these days, up here on the Last Great Frontier some guy just got a 99 year sentence for repeated sexual offenses in the Native community. However, you will note that none of these stories makes the National Newz unless there is something very spectacular about it to catch it up into the National MSM.
It doesn’t make the national newz of course because similar things happen everywhere, and it would be overwhelming to read them ALL, so you just hear about the ones that happen in your neighborhood. Why do they happen everywhere? Its an artifact of a society that has become too large for its britches.
As Howie indicated, when society was a bit smaller, you were more connected to each other, now even your next door neighbor is likely to be a Stranger to you. I lived in many NYC apartment buildings, only very rarely did I know ANYBODY who lived in the same building, much less on the same street. For those of you who live in Suburban McMansions, how well do you know the people who live on your street?
People in this soicety are very DISCONNECTED from each other, and they cease to see the people they are disconnected from as PEOPLE. We talk about the People of Walmart as a CLASS of people quite often here, we don’t view them as individuals with their own problems who we relate to. Actually CARING about other people gets quite lost in all this, the “other people” become objectified.
Its going to be this way for so long as society remains too big for its britches. Its not going to get better, it will get worse. In many places further down the spin down then we are, the Slave trade flourishes. Human life has become very cheap in many places in the world already, it is getting cheaper here now as well. We will not be able to fix this problem until the society shrinks in size by a large margin. That is just the way it is. Human beings were not meant to live in such large societies so disconnected from each other. It is not healthy, and it cheapens human life. The sociopaths we are creating are an artifact of the society we have created here, and until that society goes the way of the Dinosaur, this is the type of behavior you will see ever more of. Until you no longer see it, because it is so ubiquitous.
RE
KaD
Thanks. Read the article. Looks like the potential for redress is a state by state thing, and an uphill slog at best.
The potential for a citizen to file a “writ of quo warranto” is interesting, though.
Perhaps the current structure of society leads to certain disconnected behavior, but to tip a person into such deviant behavior…….not so sure.
Perhaps in part it is this religious fervor that is sweeping this nation. Holier than thou people disconnect themselves from those around them that are not believers like themselves…….they are going to hell unlike them and their selected flock……when you put yourself on a holy pedestal you allow yourself to disconnect from others, with those people becoming less worthy and less human than you. It is easier to commit a crime against someone who is going to hell anyway, it certainly worked for Hitler……Jews were not really human and it was just so easy to dispose of them, the Serbs…..etc etc…..ethnic cleansing……..nothing really new here……
Religion isn’t all evil, but the current state of Fundamental Christianity is creating a great divide …..when you dictate that everyone but you is going to hell…..so much easier to commit crimes against them….in the name of God of course…..and all the perps have to do is say Jesus is their Savior and their crime erased……yeah, brilliant……
RE, i agree with you about disconnection. but i am talking about an even lower standard of interaction, far far short of actual caring. but just enough contact, including a name of a neighbor or that neighbor calling you by name, to humanize the neighbor.
and i think in the relatively recent past, like the 60s backward, even in new york frigging city, you had this.
(maybe we can draw the line as pre-and post-kitty genovese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_genovese)
(but even that wildly distorted episode, the lesson was the societal outrage at of neighbors ignoring the screams for help. today there would be far more shrugs than outrage.)