Post by Cambist on May 28, 2009 7:46:01 GMT -5
"Abducted" mom found after car-jacking hoax
by Maria E. Andreu
Thursday May 28, 2009, 7:35 AM
Yesterday, people across the country made a silent wish for the safe return of a mother and child car-jacked, thrown in the trunk of their car and abducted. Today, we woke up to find out we'd all been had: the mother made the whole thing up.
I watched in horror yesterday as Bonnie Sweeten's ex-husband held back tears on national television and asked her "abductors" to release her and her nine-year-old daughter Julia. Being the mother of a nine-year-old girl, my heart ached wondering where little Julia was and whether she was suffering. I wondered, who would put a mother and child (a beautiful, freckle-faced pixie whose picture the news flashed heartbreakingly often) in the trunk of their SUV?
It turns out, no one. Today I switched on the news to find out that Bonnie Sweeten and her daughter were found in Disney World. Bonnie had carefully parked her SUV in downtown Philadelphia and made the bogus 911 call, as well as a call to her husband asking him to tell her other children she loved them in case she never saw them again. Then she'd used an ID she'd taken from a co-worker to board a plane for a little vacation.
Forget for a moment the trauma to the children she left behind at home, and to the daughter she involved in her wacky plot. Forget the cost to taxpayers to activate the Amber Alert system and launch a nationwide investigation. For me, the most disappointing thing is that in the 15 years since Susan Smith drowned her two little boys and claimed she was car-jacked by a black man (also a fabrication), we have not moved forward enough as a society to get past the caricature of "bad black men carjacked me."
There will be a lot of fall-out from this case, no doubt. We'll hear details of Bonnie's unraveling and what led her to do something so absolutely strange. Already reports of marital unrest (with her new husband, father of her 8-month-old baby) and financial strain are surfacing.
But we'll also have to face it again: our collective consciousness still holds stereotypes that make it too easy for the "criminal black man" to be a short-hand we share.
Julia will be reunited with her father today and Bonnie is facing charges for her false report. At least, this story has a much happier ending than the Susan Smith case.
Read more of Maria's writing at www.MariaEAndreu.com
by Maria E. Andreu
Thursday May 28, 2009, 7:35 AM
Yesterday, people across the country made a silent wish for the safe return of a mother and child car-jacked, thrown in the trunk of their car and abducted. Today, we woke up to find out we'd all been had: the mother made the whole thing up.
I watched in horror yesterday as Bonnie Sweeten's ex-husband held back tears on national television and asked her "abductors" to release her and her nine-year-old daughter Julia. Being the mother of a nine-year-old girl, my heart ached wondering where little Julia was and whether she was suffering. I wondered, who would put a mother and child (a beautiful, freckle-faced pixie whose picture the news flashed heartbreakingly often) in the trunk of their SUV?
It turns out, no one. Today I switched on the news to find out that Bonnie Sweeten and her daughter were found in Disney World. Bonnie had carefully parked her SUV in downtown Philadelphia and made the bogus 911 call, as well as a call to her husband asking him to tell her other children she loved them in case she never saw them again. Then she'd used an ID she'd taken from a co-worker to board a plane for a little vacation.
Forget for a moment the trauma to the children she left behind at home, and to the daughter she involved in her wacky plot. Forget the cost to taxpayers to activate the Amber Alert system and launch a nationwide investigation. For me, the most disappointing thing is that in the 15 years since Susan Smith drowned her two little boys and claimed she was car-jacked by a black man (also a fabrication), we have not moved forward enough as a society to get past the caricature of "bad black men carjacked me."
There will be a lot of fall-out from this case, no doubt. We'll hear details of Bonnie's unraveling and what led her to do something so absolutely strange. Already reports of marital unrest (with her new husband, father of her 8-month-old baby) and financial strain are surfacing.
But we'll also have to face it again: our collective consciousness still holds stereotypes that make it too easy for the "criminal black man" to be a short-hand we share.
Julia will be reunited with her father today and Bonnie is facing charges for her false report. At least, this story has a much happier ending than the Susan Smith case.
Read more of Maria's writing at www.MariaEAndreu.com
