In Canton, GA, Babysitter Let Jorelys Rivera, 7, Walk Home Alone from a Playground; Child was Raped and Murdered

 

 

By Nicholas Stix

Morally, it’s irrelevant, and we’re not supposed to care anymore about the death of Jorelys Rivera than about any other murdered child, but then you look at that pretty little face mugging for the camera, and all those fine rules fly out the window.

With that said, the first thing that strikes me is the babysitter’s negligence. The point of being a babysitter is to supervise one’s charges at all times. What point is there in paying a babysitter to watch your child, if she’ll let the child go off on her own? Either she’s not necessary, or she’s incompetent.

To anyone who will complain, “The babysitter’s just a kid,” I say, if being a kid means she isn’t responsible, well, then, being a kid means … she isn’t responsible.

Young girls are overrated, when it comes to taking care of children. When our son was four or five months old, we visited The Boss’ family in Trinidad. At one point, The Boss asked one of our nieces, then 14, to watch our son, who was napping. The Boss expressly told her never to get up from the bed and leave him alone for any reason, including answering the phone.

The next time the phone rang, the niece jumped right off the bed, and ran to answer it. I happened to catch all this (I was probably going for the phone), and so I was able to go to the bedroom, and ensure that catastrophe didn’t strike.

The next time we needed someone to watch our son, and there were no adults handy, we asked the aforementioned niece’s brother, who was then 16. At some point my in-laws’ phone rang, as it constantly did in those days in which both were alive, and my late (widowed) brother-in-law Meno was also alive and living with them. I ran to answer the phone, and as I did, I noticed my nephew sitting on the bed, his back against the wall, one leg up, and the other stretched out, blocking our son’s path. My nephew didn’t even flinch at the telephone’s ringing.

Since the babysitter was the last person to see Jorelys alive, she and her friends and relatives will also have to be investigated, to ensure that this was not more than a case of deadly negligence.

Among the many things the story does not tell us, three things stand out: The mother’s immigration status, her name, and any mention of the child’s father. So, we’ve got a woman with three children, no name, no race or ethnicity, no history, no visible husband, and a murdered Hispanic daughter in an area that until a few years ago had few or no Hispanics that is now teeming with them.

Increasingly, diversitynik “reporters” are more notable for what they withhold than for what they tell. Thus are their stories incoherent jumbles of statements that force the reader to play guessing games, like a detective dealing with a hostile criminal suspect. They’re counter-journalists. Dorie Turner—remember that name.

P.S. Since the story below was published, police have made two statements which uneasily co-exist: 1. "This was a very calculated and planned crime," according to Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan; and 2. That “no charges” are planned against the babysitter. (Director Keenan also said that the child died of blunt trauma force to the head 60-90 minutes after she was last seen.)

How could someone have planned the crime, if the child’s returning home alone was a fluke? And “no charges” doesn’t mean the babysitter wasn’t implicated. Note too that the apartment complex was crawling with convicted sex criminals. The authorities say that none of them is a suspect, but that denial is also worthless, since they wouldn’t to give a suspect reason to flee, especially given that there is a solid chance that he is an “immigrant.”

The later story also reported that the victim’s unnamed mother was working the graveyard shift at a local poultry plant.

 

Curtis Compton/AP

 

Body found in trash believed to be missing Georgia girl
By Dorie Turner
Associated Press
Charleston Post & Courier
Tuesday, December 6, 2011

CANTON, Ga. — A body found in a trash container is believed to be that of a 7-year-old girl who went missing last week from an apartment complex playground north of Atlanta, authorities said Monday.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said that “everything points to it being” Jorelys Rivera of Canton. Bankhead said officials were awaiting results of an autopsy to confirm the identity and a cause of death.

Bankhead said the body appeared to have been severely beaten and sexually assaulted. He said the girl’s mother had been notified. No suspects were in custody as of Monday night. The girl’s mother returned to the apartment complex early Monday evening. Crying, the woman entered the family’s apartment and a family friend asked for privacy.

The child was last seen around 5 p.m. Friday at the River Ridge apartments in Canton, about 40 miles north of Atlanta, Canton police Detective Candy Worthy said. The girl was at the playground with a teenage baby sitter. The girl had gone back to her apartment to get sodas for friends when she disappeared, authorities said.

Authorities brought in a specialized team of law officers trained to handle child abductions. The body was located about 1 p.m. Monday.

Canton Emergency Management Director Jeff Hall said authorities had not searched the container until Monday because it was a large garbage compacting bin that needed to be moved off site so they could go through it. Bankhead, the GBI spokesman, said investigators think the girl was killed at the apartment complex and her body left in the trash bin. Authorities planned to provide an update on the investigation this morning.

Maria Rodriguez works with Rivera’s mother at a nearby poultry plant and used to live in the same complex. “She was a very sweet girl,” Rodriguez said, crying as she held her 4-year-old daughter.

Police have removed two other young children from the Rivera home over “concern about the supervision of Jorelys,” said Lt. Jay Baker with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department.