commentary by Patrick H. Moore
In an extremely disturbing case which may have set a new world record for age difference between a young killer and an old victim, a 10-year-old Wayne County, Pennsylvania boy named Tristen Kurilla has been charged with criminal homicide in the death of a 90-year-old woman.
According to the boy’s mother, Martha Virbitsky, the boy had a history of “mental difficulties”. His mental state may be considered if he later petitions the court to transfer his case from adult court to juvenile court, the district attorney’s office said.
The boy and his parents had better hope that his still undefined “mental difficulties” are sufficient to convince the court to send his case over to the juvenile court because at present he faces adult charges because under Pennsylvania law, the crime of homicide is specifically excluded from the juvenile code.
It all began on Saturday morning when the boy went to visit his grandfather Anthony Virbitsky at his home in Tyler Hill in northeast Pennsylvania. Although I’m not certain, it’s my impression that Tristen visited his grandpa on a fairly regular basis. According to Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards, Anthony Virbitsky was the deceased victim, Ms. Novak’s, caretaker.
It appears that while visiting his grandfather, at some point Tristen was alone with Ms. Novak in her room. It’s unclear whether Tristen was in the habit of checking in with her when he visited his grandfather or if he was even allowed to do so.
The Pocono Record Staff reports:
About 11:15 a.m., state police received a call from the Wayne County Communications Center that a woman was dead at the residence, according to the DA’s office.
The Wayne County coroner was contacted and Deputy Coroner Carol Leinert went to the scene and found Novak dead in her room. She was examined by Leinert and transferred to the Wayne Memorial Hospital morgue.
According to a DA’s office press release, at 3:20 pm on Saturday afternoon, Tristen’s mother Martha Virbitsky took him to the state police barracks in Honesdale. Martha told the officers that her son had told her that he had gone into Novak’s room and that Novak yelled at him. Thus, it’s still unclear whether Tristen was allowed to enter Ms. Novak’s room. As to his claim that the deceased yelled at him, who knows? It obviously sounds like an excuse, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen.
In any event, whether or not there was any provocation, it seems reasonably clear that the boy was on the level when he told his mother and/or the police that he “lost his temper, grabbed a cane and put it on Novak’s throat,” not unlike (for those of you who are old enough to remember the series) a demented Bat Masterson.
Once the cat was out of the bag, Pennsylvania State Trooper John Decker met with the boy and his mother for the purpose of discussing Novak’s death. Before the interview began, the Trooper “mirandized Tristen and reviewed his legal rights with him and his mother.”
The affidavit gives a stark account of what transpired stating that Tristen told Officer Decker that “he pulled Novak down on the bed and held a cane on her throat and then punched her numerous times.”
After that the boy must have panicked. He reportedly left the room, went to his grandfather and told him that Novak was bleeding from her mouth.
Then Tristen’s grandfather went in to check on Novak and, according to the affidavit, said she was OK. (This makes little sense. How could she be okay if she was bleeding from the mouth? Of course, the grandfather could have been in denial at first.) The grandfather must have been suspicious, though, because according to the DA’s office, he “then asked the boy if he had done something to Novak and the boy said “No.”
Anthony Virbitsky reportedly went back to check on Novak about 11 a.m. This time he found her unresponsive and called 911, after which he again asked the boy if he had done something to Novak. The second time around, Tristen reportedly admitted to his grandfather “that he had punched Novak and put a cane on her throat.”
The autopsy, which was performed Monday by Dr. Gary Ross at Wayne Memorial Hospital in Honesdale states that blunt force trauma to Novak’s neck was revealed, and “that the account given by the boy to state police was consistent with the injuries he observed.”
Thus, it seems clear that whether or not Ms. Novak “yelled at him”, Tristen clearly killed the elderly woman.
I may be way off base on this but I wonder if Tristen didn’t kill Ms. Novak simply because he thought (or knew) he could. There is something in some boys that drives us to do bad things at times even though we really know we shouldn’t. I am reminded of the time down on the farm many lifetimes ago when I – for absolutely no good reason – decided to hang one of our cats. I was busily trying to string it up (ineffectually I might add), when the Fuller Brush Man drove down our driveway, spotted me trying to play hangman, and went immediately to our front door and informed my mother that I was trying to murder an innocent beast.
So I was stymied and you can be sure I heard about it. Yessiree Bob! Now I’m not sure that I would have actually gone through with it and murdered the cat if I wasn’t so ineffectual a hangman or if I hadn’t been caught in the act. The point, however, is that I WAS TRYING TO HANG OUR CAT. And I wasn’t a particularly cruel or violent child most of the time, but I clearly had my moments.
Apparently Tristen did also. He has been charged and arraigned and is being held without bail at the Wayne County Correctional Facility. He won’t be going anywhere until his prelim at 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 22, and I would warrant that he won’t be going anywhere after that either.
Some will insist that there is no way on earth that Tristen should be tried as an adult and I am of this camp. Others will be out for blood.
In thinking about this tragic situation, I am quite shaken. If I had been just a degree or two more twisted as a child, might I have done something like this if given this opportunity ON A WHIM, impulsively, because as Edgar Allan Poe would explain it, The Imp of the Perverse suddenly gained control of me?
In “The Black Cat”, which is probably one of our first great 19th century serial killer stories, Poe’s creepy protagonist starts out by killing a cat, more or less by mistake if I recall correctly. Then another cat falls prey to his mounting bloodlust. And, I believe, a third innocent feline. And then he graduates to humans and his wife becomes his next victim because she frustrates him over some meaningless little thing and because he could.
The great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky plumbs this issue in Notes from Underground when he has his troubled and miserable protagonist abuse a rather helpless prostitute who has befriended him purely for the fun of it; i.e., the author’s bothersome little worm of a civil servant abuses her simply because he could, despising himself all the while.
Many of us try hard to do the right thing because we believe it is our moral and ethical duty, but others among us purposely do the wrong thing, at least some of the time, simply because we want to and because we experience twisted pleasure in doing precisely that, no matter what degree of guilt we may feel afterwards.