* This is not the trailer park where Ricky, Julian and Bubbles live although the level of law enforcement seems to be at about the same level.
Jonathan Kay on a West Virginia mobile home you certainly do not want to visit
| There is a terrible story out of West Virginia this week: A family/gang of West Virginians near the town of Logan is accused of kidnapping a local black woman and keeping her imprisoned in a mobile home for a week while they raped and tortured her. The fact that two of the accused are mother and son, and another two are father and daughter, make the whole thing even more sick. One local cop said it was the worst thing he'd seen in more than 30 years on the job. What makes the story even crazier is a detail buried until the 14th paragraph of the New York Times story about the case: This very same mobile home where the alleged assaults took place has been the site of numerous horrific crimes in the past. In one case, Bobby Brewster — who is now 24 and lives in the mobile home — killed his stepfather there when he was 12. A year earlier, his mom ("Frankie Lee" is her name — you can't make this up) shot and killed an 84-year-old woman who was in her care. In 2005, two men got into a fight outside the trailer and one of them stabbed the other to death. Just seven months ago, the cops were called to the trailer again because a man in the trailer (unidentified in the Times story) had been slashed in the abdomen. Reading the story, one is struck simultaneously by pity for the victim, contempt for the accused, shock at how so much violence could take place at one white-trash mobile home, and an ironic awareness that the whole thing seems to resemble the worst redneck nightmare any South Park or Beavis 'n Butthead social satirist could ever imagine. All in all, quite a way to start the newspaper-reading day. |
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