commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Although one might expect crime fans to get a little jaded from a steady diet of horrific offenses that shock both the mind and the emotions, this courageous group displays a remarkable hardiness in its ability to keep bouncing back for more. Call it TRUE CRIME GRIT. There seems to be certain pleasures along the way — say for example the clear satisfaction many crime fans experience when vigorously denouncing certain criminals and their appalling actions. The animus directed at the fatal triumvirate of Arias, Anthony and Homolka is a prime example of the fever pitch of hatred that the crime community manifests in certain select cases.
I found this out the hard way when I was universally chastised just this week, in a moment that was construed as (and may well have been) moral weakness, for voicing a modicum of sympathy for Casey Anthony in her present incarnation as one of America’s most hated females.
It’s no exaggeration to state that as the recipient of a volley of left hooks, short rights, uppercuts and even perhaps a few rabbit punches, I was rocked back on my heels and left reeling, metaphorically speaking. What was amazing to me was the fact that some of my closest friends here on All Things Crime Blog thought it was all a put-on, that I was simply tweaking the tiger’s tale in order to stimulate feedback and readership.
Alas, would that this were the truth! No, the sad fact of the matter is that in my moment of moral turpitude, however fleeting, I felt actual sympathy for Anthony. As a result of the drubbing I took over paying allegiance to an “incorrect party line,” not to mention the fact that I temporarily believed Anthony’s defense team’s claim that poor Caylee’s death was accidental, I had to hide in a root cellar for 24 hours full of remorse and contrition, contemplating my naval and counting my rosary beads.
I emerged from this exile fully aware that I have no idea whether Caylee Anthony’s death was the result of premeditated murder on her mother’s part or an accident probably stemming from Casey Anthony’s negligence.
I realize I may be the only person in America who doesn’t know with certainty precisely what happened on that awful day. For this I apologize. My only defense is the fact I attended graduate school at an excellent American university in the late 1980s and, as a literature major, I was steeped in deconstruction and post-structuralism – theories (or philosophies if you will) that counsel the student to embrace uncertainly and accept the claim that it is often very hard to separate “truth” from “fiction” or to know most anything with absolute certainty.
I must also apologize for the moral lassitude that drove me to focus on these infernal theories when I could have been seeking truth and certainty by focusing on “moral fiction” and sound philosophy. So I hope that I can and will be forgiven. If not, it’s back to the root cellar.
In the meantime, I would like to briefly describe a crime (or rather a series of crimes) by an American mother so heinous that the crimes of Arias, Anthony and Homolka would seem to pale in comparison. At the same time, I wish to suggest that the single perpetrator of these truly awful multiple murders will not stimulate nearly the degree of hatred that the three allegedly pretty ladies engender in our dedicated crime followers. The reason the hatred directed at this multiple child murderer will be relatively short-lived is because she is in no way sexy (at least not to my jaundiced eye) and her murder technique was completely mundane, albeit very effective.
Her name is Megan Huntsman. She was a resident of Pleasant Grove, Utah prior to being arrested and taken into custody for MURDERING HER SIX OR SEVEN NEWBORN BABIES (her own) between 1996 and 2006. Her estranged husband, Darren West, fresh from spending more than eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to meth trafficking charges, made the grisly discovery April 12 while engaged in the mundane task of cleaning out the garage of the home he had shared with Huntsman. He told police he found a dead infant in a small white box covered with electrician’s tape.
This was the tip of the iceberg and when law enforcement searched the garage they found the corpses of seven babies wrapped in shirts or towels inside individual boxes in the garage.
At the time of the discovery, the Pleasant Grove police were either unaware of Huntsman’s motive for killing her babies or they wished to remain silent until they’d had time to investigate further. Now, however, Police Capt. Mike Roberts has divulged the mother’s motive to the Associated Press.
Brady McCombs of the Associated Press writes:
A Utah mother told authorities that she killed six of her newborns and stored their bodies in a garage because she was addicted to drugs and didn’t want to deal with the responsibility of raising them, police said Tuesday, revealing a suspected motive for the first time.
Megan Huntsman, 39, was heavily into a meth addiction when she strangled or suffocated the infants from 1996 to 2006, Pleasant Grove Police Capt. Mike Roberts told The Associated Press.
She wasn’t worried about potential health problems caused by her drug abuse while pregnant, she simply didn’t want to care for them, he said. “It was completely selfish. She was high on drugs and didn’t want the babies, or the responsibility,” Roberts said. “That was her priority at the time.”
Authorities think a seventh baby found in her Pleasant Grove garage after an April search was stillborn.
Police had previously declined to discuss a motive in the case, saying only that it had been uncovered during interviews with Huntsman.
Huntsman is being held at the Utah County Jail. She has been charged with six counts of first-degree-murder and her bail has been set at $6 million. She has not yet entered a plea.
Strangely, although Darren West lived with Huntsman during the decade when Megan Huntsman killed their children (he was not yet doing federal time for meth trafficking), according to Captain Roberts, he is not a suspect in the babies’ deaths. Although investigators apparently readily admit that they are nonplussed as to how he could have been unaware of the pregnancies and deaths, they reportedly don’t plan to bring him in for further questioning. (I suppose it’s possible that Darren West could have been unaware of one or two of his ex-wife’s pregnancies, but it seems unlikely that he could have been in the dark as to all of them).
Captain Roberts, however, has stated that the investigation is still open. Results of a psychological examination of Huntsman haven’t been disclosed.
DNA results revealed Tuesday showed that all seven babies were full term and that five were girls and two were boys. Those tests also confirmed that West was biological father of the infants.
Previous tests from the Utah state lab found that the babies were likely dead anywhere from two to 10 years or more, Roberts said.
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To my knowledge, this is the most egregious case of baby-killing perpetrated by a single mother in modern times. I am certain that folks will (and should) be outraged by Megan Huntsman actions and that the good folk on Facebook will make their typical “fry her” comments. I strongly suspect, however, that her case will soon be forgotten for the simple reason that she is not a very pretty lady and her children had not lived long enough to reach the “cute and adorable” 
stage (or at least there are probably no pictures of them looking radiant and adorable). Remember Dr. Starks’ admonition that for a crime to reach true high-profile status, not only must the perpetrator be attractive, but the victim(s) must also be good-looking in order to fire the imaginations of dedicated followers of crime and to inspire the media to engage in saturation coverage.
I hope I’m completely wrong; I hope M. Huntsman is reviled in a fashion that makes the hatred directed at “the three pretty ladies” seem like a mere warm-up drill. So prove me wrong, Crime Fans of America. Show me that you judge a crime solely on its merits, not on the basis of good looks and that “sexy thang.” If I might paraphrase the various 20th century European philosophers who dedicated their lives to trying to discern what is truly real, a crime should judged solely on the “crime-in-itself”, not on its superficial trappings.
Click here to view our previous post on Megan Huntsman multiple baby killings: