commentary by Patrick H. Moore
It’s well-known that the brains of young people develop in stages and that the rational function in teenagers and even young adults may seem compromised or under-developed. This is part of the reason teenagers drive their parents crazy. Their brains are literally under-developed and apparently do not mature completely until around the age of 25.
Despite this handicap, most young people survive without making blunders so catastrophic that their lives are permanently wrecked. Such was not the case with 16-year-old Guy Eagle Elk, of Lisco, Neb. and 15-year-old Dylan Cardeilhac, of Torrington, Wyo.
These feckless, albeit treacherous, boys were being held in a juvenile section of the Scotts Bluff County Detention Center in Gering, just east of the Wyoming border. Cardeilhac was in for alleged armed robbery and use of a weapon in a Dec. 3 gas station convenience store robbery in nearby Mitchell. Displaying the brilliance that we’ve come to expect from a certain segment of the Facebook population, he was arrested after bragging about the robbery on Facebook. Eagle Elk’s rap sheet seems minor – he had been convicted as a juvenile of shoplifting, according to the Scottsbluff Star-Herald.
According to an arrest affidavit for Eagle Elk, Cardeilhac told other inmates that he wanted to escape. When he got wind of this, Eagle Elk reportedly took it upon himself to become Cardeilhac’s adviser. The investigators believe that Eagle Elk advised Cardeilhac to choke a jailer into submission (in order to use her as a hostage?). The affidavit also says Eagle Elk suggested Cardeilhac attack 24-year-old guard Amanda Baker, because she would be an easy target. The insidious older teen then demonstrated to Cardeilhac the best way to apply a choke hold.
Armed with this valuable knowledge, on Valentine’s Day, the 15-year-old Cardeilhac approached Ms. Baker, who had the reputation of being perhaps too friendly, and asked her to examine something on his cell floor. According to the arrest affidavit, the minute her back was turned he pounced, applying Eagle Elk’s chokehold. The video reportedly shows that Baker, the mother of a 6-year-old boy, was strangled for more than 2 1/2 minutes.
Although Baker was taken to a local hospital, it was too late to save her. She was declared brain dead Friday afternoon, according to the report, and was kept alive on life support long enough for her organs to be harvested.
She had worked at Scotts Bluff County Detention Center since June 2012, in both the adult and juvenile corrections facilities.
Scotts Bluff County Attorney Doug Warner said Thursday in a news release that Ms. Baker’s presence alone in the cell would be contrary to policy:
“She was really too trusting of a person.”
Funeral services were pending at Dugan-Kramer Funeral Chapel in Scottsbluff.
Warner informed the media that Cardeilhac was separated from the rest of the inmates at the detention center following the attack. He is not on suicide watch, however.
“The whole community has really been in shock since this happened,” Warner said. “Everyone in the law enforcement community is saddened by this attack. Our hearts really go out to Amanda’s family.”
In addition to working as a guard at the Detention Center, Baker was taking classes at Western Nebraska Community College. In a press release, the college’s president, Todd Holcomb, said everyone at the school is “deeply saddened and shocked by this loss. She will be greatly missed.”
At the press conference, County Attorney Doug Warner announced that Eagle Elk has been charged as an adult with felony aiding and abetting assault. On Wednesday, Dylan Cardeilhac was charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the death of Amanda Baker.
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The mind recoils at the thought of this crime. The shock, fear and pain Ms. Baker undoubtedly felt as Cardeilhac’s death grip closed about her throat is awful to contemplate.
Yet Cardeilhac is only 15-years old. The half-formed rational part of his immature brain failed him utterly in the course of these events. And Eagle Elk, the purveyor of terrible advice, is 16. No matter how cruel and callous they seem, these boys are child-men, not men. Trying them as adults is not the right approach.
On the other hand, their actions, especially Cardeilhac’s, are reprehensible. The punishment must be real.
What must be done is a new approach must be developed in which juveniles who are convicted of very serious crimes such as these are neither tried as adults not as juveniles who must be released on their 21st birthdays, no matter how serious the offense. Instead, they should be tried as what they are, in this case, child-men. Cardeilhac’s sentence should be capped at around 12 to 15 years. Offenders of this ilk should be held in separate facilities with other child-men guilty of serious violent offenses.
The emphasis should be on accepting responsibility and rehabilitation. Life should not be over at 15.