Post by Helen Dagner on May 3, 2013 8:20:51 GMT -5
JJ,there is this-I couldn't get the photo to come up,but I know I have it on the site some where *A FEAR THAT LINGERS \ 6TH GRADE BRINGS A CRUEL, HURRIED COMING OF AGE
MARGARET TRIMER Free Press Staff Writer
My carefree, whimsical adolescence ended on a chilly March day after police dusted a sprinkling of snow from Timothy King's body.
The Oakland County child killer had passed through my Livonia playground to dispose of Timothy's body on Gill Road near Eight Mile, just two miles from my house, after suffocating the boy.
I had to take him seriously.
My mother had warned me to be wary when the mysterious killing spree began. I was precisely the kind of victim he was looking for, she said: 12 years old, bold, friendly and completely trusting of people.
Before Timothy King was found, his killer's reign of terror had been fuel for slumber party stories. He seemed too frightening to be true. Besides, sixth grade was a time for Girl Scout camping and chasing boys. It shouldn't be the year to learn about sexual molestation, murder and why little girls and boys shouldn't trust people they didn't know -- and even some they did.
But now it was time for grown-up lessons.
Teachers in Livonia mobilized after Timothy King was found. They brought in one policeman after another, showed public- safety movies and encouraged every child to report even the most minutely unusual encounter with strangers.
All the warnings turned girlish gossip around Calvin Coolidge Elementary School into exaggerated, unsettling accounts of strange men who had passed through neighborhoods where they didn't belong, perhaps asking for directions, perhaps just driving slowly.
My imagination fashioned the killer to be all those protective teachers, weird neighbors and drivers of blue Gremlins. For a while, I thought my brother-in-law was the Oakland County child killer because he drove a tan Gremlin that looked like it had been repainted.
What I didn't know then was that those unhappy lessons, coupled with such paralyzing fear, would nurture the common sense and healthy, if unfortunate, cynicism I have toward people today. Nor did I know then that discussions of the killer would steel my nerves and bring tears to my eyes this many years later.
It was after school let out that my life really changed.
My mother, for whom the word "worry" was coined, was panic- stricken after the discovery of Timothy's body.
"I just wanted to lock you up someplace to keep you safe. And then it seemed that things died down and you didn't hear of a killing. For years, I thought it was just the calm before the storm," she said recently.
I had to check in with my mother every time I left the house, when I arrived at my destination and again when I left. The telephone was my ball and chain. And the buddy system was the only way I, a stubbornly independent child, was allowed to travel.
I complained relentlessly, telling my mother I was a smart, careful kid and it wasn't fair that I had to lose my freedom. I confidently assured her that nothing was going to happen to me.
Then one night, in the privacy of my own thoughts, I imagined that Timothy King's mother had probably told him the same things my mother was telling me.
I decided then to master the lessons.
CUTLINE:
Margaret Trimer was a sixth-grader when the killer struck.
****
MARGARET TRIMER Free Press Staff Writer
My carefree, whimsical adolescence ended on a chilly March day after police dusted a sprinkling of snow from Timothy King's body.
The Oakland County child killer had passed through my Livonia playground to dispose of Timothy's body on Gill Road near Eight Mile, just two miles from my house, after suffocating the boy.
I had to take him seriously.
My mother had warned me to be wary when the mysterious killing spree began. I was precisely the kind of victim he was looking for, she said: 12 years old, bold, friendly and completely trusting of people.
Before Timothy King was found, his killer's reign of terror had been fuel for slumber party stories. He seemed too frightening to be true. Besides, sixth grade was a time for Girl Scout camping and chasing boys. It shouldn't be the year to learn about sexual molestation, murder and why little girls and boys shouldn't trust people they didn't know -- and even some they did.
But now it was time for grown-up lessons.
Teachers in Livonia mobilized after Timothy King was found. They brought in one policeman after another, showed public- safety movies and encouraged every child to report even the most minutely unusual encounter with strangers.
All the warnings turned girlish gossip around Calvin Coolidge Elementary School into exaggerated, unsettling accounts of strange men who had passed through neighborhoods where they didn't belong, perhaps asking for directions, perhaps just driving slowly.
My imagination fashioned the killer to be all those protective teachers, weird neighbors and drivers of blue Gremlins. For a while, I thought my brother-in-law was the Oakland County child killer because he drove a tan Gremlin that looked like it had been repainted.
What I didn't know then was that those unhappy lessons, coupled with such paralyzing fear, would nurture the common sense and healthy, if unfortunate, cynicism I have toward people today. Nor did I know then that discussions of the killer would steel my nerves and bring tears to my eyes this many years later.
It was after school let out that my life really changed.
My mother, for whom the word "worry" was coined, was panic- stricken after the discovery of Timothy's body.
"I just wanted to lock you up someplace to keep you safe. And then it seemed that things died down and you didn't hear of a killing. For years, I thought it was just the calm before the storm," she said recently.
I had to check in with my mother every time I left the house, when I arrived at my destination and again when I left. The telephone was my ball and chain. And the buddy system was the only way I, a stubbornly independent child, was allowed to travel.
I complained relentlessly, telling my mother I was a smart, careful kid and it wasn't fair that I had to lose my freedom. I confidently assured her that nothing was going to happen to me.
Then one night, in the privacy of my own thoughts, I imagined that Timothy King's mother had probably told him the same things my mother was telling me.
I decided then to master the lessons.
CUTLINE:
Margaret Trimer was a sixth-grader when the killer struck.
****