A Missing Munchkin

Every year for Halloween I buy Snickers to give to the little munchkins who come to the door Trick-or-Treating. That way, if there are any left over, I get to eat 'em. There haven't been too many kids stopping by GOC Central tonight. Don't know why. Even some of the kids in the subdivision haven't been by.

I took off early today to avoid the expected bad traffic. The expectations were correct. Traffic sucked. It could have been worse. I could still be living up in Acworth. I-75 is a disaster and no amount of public transit is gonna fix it.

But I don't want to talk about the horrors of Atlanta traffic. I want to talk about a little munchkin who wasn't able to go door to door and get candy tonight.

Back in August, I wrote this about another senseless death in Georgia. To summarize, an animal named Shaun Stewart beat to death his little two year old stepson, Kyshawn Punter. Kyshawn was removed from the custody of this asshole twice and both times he was given back. The second time Stewart was thrown in jail but Kyshawn's mother bailed him out. She promised that she was gonna have Kyshawn's grandmother take care of him, but gave him back to her husband. She then went back to Kentucky where she was going through some Army training. The child had obviously been beaten and he had burn marks over various parts of his body including his genitals.

This is the point where I usually go off on one of my tirades about how some people should not be allowed to breed, but I don't see any solution to that problem. A partial solution is that any woman who goes on gummint assistance should be sterilized. Drastic? You bet. But that person has just admitted that she can not take care of herself and her children. If that is the case, she has no business having more children. Since she wants the gummint to be her parents and take care of her, she has to follow her parents' rules. If the poor can't have children, there will be less poor children. And I wish I could think of some way to find the sperm donors and give those assholes vasectomies. Or better yet, cut their balls off. I have no use for men who knock up women and disappear.

But back to Kyshawn. This was in Friday's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation.

Murder indictments were handed down Thursday against the mother and stepfather of Kyshawn Punter, the 2-year-old whose brutal death has led to top-to-bottom overhaul of the state's child welfare agency.

Good!

Shaun Stewart, 25, was charged with murder and child cruelty, and DeKalb County prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty against him.

Try him and fry him.

Shonderi Punter, 24, who was stationed at an Army base over the summer and had left Kyshawn in Stewart's care, was charged with felony murder and contributing to the deprivation of a minor.

She won't get the death penalty but she may get to spend some time in jail pondering over her choice of a husband.

Prosecutors say they do not believe she physically injured the boy, but they believe she contributed to his murder by leaving Kyshawn alone with Stewart, a man she knew to be an accused child abuser.

Subsequent articles about this guy said he abused his own son and Kyshawn's older sister.

"She put that child back into the lion's den," said DeKalb District Attorney J. Tom Morgan.

Morgan said Stewart killed the boy by violently shaking him and striking his head with an object.

"This is not just murder. This is murder with torture," Morgan said.

As I said, this guy is a real animal.

Stewart and Punter have maintained their innocence. Stewart said the boy was injured during a playground incident, and Punter has said she saw no sign of abuse to her children.

Stewart: I turned to light up my crack pipe and boom he disappeared!

Punter: I didn't see no burns, welts and bruises on my baby. Them social workers was making that shit up!

Morgan, however, called Kyshawn's home "a torture chamber," and said the extreme nature of the crimes against the boy warranted the death penalty. Stewart burned Kyshawn on his genitals, thighs and buttocks, Morgan said. He also forced the boy to hold glass paperweights above his head for extended amounts of time as punishment, and sit for long periods on the toilet. If the boy disobeyed, he was beaten, said Morgan.

I'm sorry. I just can't go on. Read the rest of the article if you can. Unfortunately they do not have a picture of the little boy on the web but take my word for it, he was as cute a child as you would ever see. I saw a little boy just about his age tonight dressed up for Halloween. Kyshawn was one little munchkin who was not out Trick-or-Treating tonight.

How sad.

Posted by denny at October 31, 2003 08:34 PM