Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review April 5, 2001 / 12 Nissan, 5761

Bob Greene

Bob Greene
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


Two torturers of children back in prison


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- TWO women from two Midwestern states -- two women who were convicted of torturing helpless children in ways so unconscionable and cruel that veteran police officers wept when describing the crimes. ...

Two women from two Midwestern states -- two women who, as we have reported, were able to all but laugh at the courts system as they received trivial punishments for what they did to the children. ...

Two women from two Midwestern states -- two women back in prison this morning, after judges in those two states finally appeared to get the message: The public is sick of this, and will stand for it no longer.

Two women:

- Angeline Rogers, convicted of repeatedly locking her 7-year-old daughter overnight in a small dog cage in a dark, unheated basement in Brillion, Wis., and depriving the girl of food and water.

- Carmen Grad -- who now calls herself Carmen Quaife -- convicted for her role in locking her husband's 6-year-old son in a lightless, tiny bathroom broomcloset in Marshall County, Ind., for 24 hours at a time, in caging the boy in tightly wrapped wire, in chaining him under his arms so that he could not sit down to rest, in rubbing the boy's feces into his face as punishment for losing control of his bowels in the closet.

First, to Mrs. Rogers:

Last week, in Fond du Lac, Wis., she appeared before Judge Steven Weinke and asked that he shorten or eliminate her prison sentence. Weinke is the judge who gave Rogers and her husband, Michael, no state prison time at all, even though they had entered guilty pleas to crimes that could have put them away for 40 years. When Mrs. Rogers escaped from the county jail where Judge Weinke allowed her to live for a year (and to leave for up to 60 hours a week), and was recaptured 11 days later in Texas, the judge still did not give her additional time.

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections was not so forgiving; it revoked her probation on a 10-year prison sentence that Weinke had originally stayed. Another judge sentenced her to four additional years for the escape itself. But Mrs. Rogers wrote a letter from prison to Judge Weinke, asking for another chance. He agreed to hear her last week.

She told him that she is undergoing counseling, and that she is doing well as a cook in prison.

(If she is preparing nutritious meals for fellow inmates, that is more than she did for her own daughter, who was kept hungry down in the basement cage. When the girl's brothers would try to sneak food to her, and Angeline Rogers caught them, she would beat them with wooden rods for trying to feed the girl.)

Judge Weinke said last week that she was out of chances: "Unfortunately, you failed, and now you'd like me to reverse the clock. As far as I'm concerned, this is the end."

She is back in prison this morning, serving her 14-year term. Calumet County, Wis., prosecutor Ken Kratz said: "I hope that now the children, with their new families, feel secure that they can go on with their lives."

Now, Carmen Grad, who is going by the name Carmen Quaife:

The State of Indiana was allowing her to live in a halfway house instead of a prison.

While a resident of the halfway house, she was working at a Holiday Inn. She told the people responsible for her at the halfway house that she had injured her leg, and received their permission to sleep at the Holiday Inn instead of the halfway house.

(Any families made a little queasy by the idea that the person in the next room at the Holiday Inn might be a convicted child torturer whom the courts had sent to prison should direct their questions to officials at the top levels of Indiana government -- it was under the supervision of the State of Indiana that this was allowed to happen.)

But when a probation officer, informed that she was not at the halfway house, went to the Holiday Inn to check on her, she wasn't there, either. She later said that she had gone out to a birthday party with some friends.

She tortured a child -- she was supposed to be a state prisoner. Holiday Inns, birthday parties out on the town ... this is the punishment she was receiving.

In Starke County, Ind., Judge David Matsey told her that she had violated the conditions of her sentence, and that he was sending her back to an Indiana women's prison. She is there this morning.

If only the children whom Angeline Rogers and Carmen Grad hurt and caged while those children pleaded for mercy had been given as many chances as their tormentors. Holiday Inns, birthday parties -- those would have seemed like dreams to those children locked in the dark.



JWR contributor Bob Greene is a novelist and columnist. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

04/03/01: Welcome home -- especially if you didn't go
03/29/01: 'Why wouldn't she believe she can get out?'
03/27/01: Judge Weinke, child torturer to meet again
03/22/01: What they did to her at her own front door
03/21/01: "I'm not proud to say that I witnessed this"
03/19/01: "WHY WEREN'T YOU HIS FRIENDS?"
03/13/01: When will there be zero tolerance for bullying?
03/09/01: She wouldn't dance with another ... well, yes, she would
03/06/01: Our lasting legacy will turn out to be a four-letter word
03/01/01: The things we've won, and those we've thrown away
02/27/01: Civilians on subs: A civics lesson that's well worth keeping
02/23/01: Well, he did sing: 'This time you gave me a mountain ...'
02/21/01: The world's insanity can fit into a parking space
02/16/01: The words and ideas in this column are unauthorized
02/13/01: He has a family now: 'He just wants to be a boy'
02/12/01: Child torturer grad is walking free -- and using an alias
02/09/01: They didn't even know how to find the children
02/08/01: 'The little boy's face had been burned with cigarettes'
02/07/01: Child-protection chief in grad case ousted
01/30/01: There is something wrong when we begin to assume that all death penalty cases are flawed
01/29/01: Sometimes a police story begins with a poem
01/24/01: It's a dog-eat-dog world -- unless you're the only dog
01/23/01: Can we be civil and bombproof at the same time?
01/19/01: First came Saints, next came Sinners, then came Bronson
01/18/01: Of Saints and Sinners, and the nearness of faraway dreams
01/15/01: Does anyone care that Germany owns the Jeep?
01/11/01: The day that America heard the locks click shut
12/28/00: The talk of 2000? It's right there in your hand
12/27/00: There actually is a lesson for us in all of this
12/26/00: 'You weren't supposed to love me; that wasn't the program'
12/21/00: The words from this election year that may echo the longest
12/19/00: The most impressive things are the ones strategists can't shape
12/14/00: There is a word for what the country is going through
12/13/00: Courtroom moments that never make the front page
12/07/00: Does Justice Scalia really believe Americans can't take the truth?
12/07/00: Al Gore slept here -- and there goes the neighborhood
12/06/00: In the midst of all the noise, the truth will be heard
12/05/00: If you think the election has been weird up until now ...
11/30/00: If two men applying for a job were treated like this ...
11/29/00: Will all of this turn people away from politics? Dream on
11/28/00: Send Bush and Gore to their rooms -- bring in the pros
11/23/00: Three little words-- and two strange weeks in Florida
11/22/00: Did you hear the one about the farmer's daughter in Florida?
11/21/00: The shocking saga of the incredible shrinking men
11/15/00: The glorious mess that has come our way
11/09/00: How do you cross the line when the line has vanished?
11/08/00: The wave of the future
11/06/00: The crime that hides behind a wall of silence
11/02/00: If you have been asking yourself what you can do ...
11/01/00: 'He will never know what it is like to ride a bicycle'
10/31/00: 'It makes you feel that you are absolutely powerless'
10/30/00: THE KILLER LEARNS 'ANGER MANAGEMENT' AND IS FREED
10/26/00: `I'm not going to go up there and yell and scream'
10/25/00: With prosecutors silent, the other killer is released
10/24/00: The boy's killer: 'I've served my time, and I'm out'
10/23/00: Blaming the boy for bringing on his own killing
10/20/00: The child's killer is released -- to care for other children
10/19/00: Words that the judge would not allow to be spoken
10/18/00: A courthouse game in which the boy was not included
10/17/00: The killers get 7 to 25 years ... with a wink
10/13/00: While the killers maneuver, the boy goes unburied
10/13/00: The killers demand a concession -- and they get it
10/12/00: The prosecutors decide it doesn't qualify as murder
10/11/00: 'He wouldn't eat his eggs, and we put him to bed'
10/10/00: The autopsy leaves no questions: 'It was a homicide'
10/06/00: 'Had they shot him in the head, he would have suffered less'
10/05/00: 'I remember the moment that I first saw the human bite marks'
10/04/00: They killed a 3-year-old boy -- and they are free
09/29/00: This just in, sort of: How the news can make you calm
09/27/00: Like being with old friends in places you don't remember
09/21/00: If the Olympics banished television . . .
09/19/00: As summer ends, have the executives learned any lessons?
09/14/00: The new stardom that doesn't require paying any dues
09/12/00: Leave a light on for us children of the pioneers
09/09/00: River banks? How to turn water into an endless cash flow
09/06/00:Oh, give me a home, where the megabytes roam . . .
09/01/00: If this works, it can literally change young lives
08/30/00: From inside all those screen porches, one more cheer
08/24/00: Who will make your life better by August of 2004?
08/24/00: Four men running -- Why do we have to throw out two?
08/16/00:The certain way to measure the Lieberman factor
08/10/00: Can a library be a library without books?
08/08/00: Can't they spare eight nights every four years?
08/04/00: Cheney, Abe Lincoln and Ricky Martin -- do they add up?
08/02/00: Convention aside, you might want to tune in
07/27/00: How to make a killing
07/25/00: 'If we didn't do it, no one else would'
07/24/00: The executioners who walk among us
07/20/00: On Main Street, signs of the times tell two stories
07/18/00: Have the choices changed, or have we?
07/14/00: Gable, Hepburn, Zanuck--you wouldn't find them at HOJO's
07/13/00: The Great Lie about political conventions
07/06/00: If this is victory, what would defeat feel like?
06/29/00: A bright moon and a missing person on Orange Ave.
06/26/00: They're not singing our song
06/22/00: The name game
06/07/00: It's like knocking on a revolving door
06/06/00: Steven who? A close encounter of mistaken identity
06/02/00: Of summer days, summer nights and pebbles in a jar
05/31/00: The best laughter, the truest voices, will never fade
05/25/00: Of distant visions, close views, and Bobby Knight
05/24/00: 'The luckiest thing that ever happened to me'
05/23/00: 'It's funny how you remember the little things'
05/22/00: 'The whisper of a generation saying goodbye to its children'
05/19/00: The place to find life is not a keyboard
05/18/00: A problem of suds but no duds
05/17/00: Are those lazy, hazy dot-com days fading?
05/16/00: The truest things in life require not a single word
05/15/00: 'Evidently he didn't like the way she dusted the house'
05/12/00: Why news executives are hoping this 'woman' is a hit
05/11/00: Ted Koppel, Hitler, Mellencamp . . . and words of love
05/10/00: Maybe it's time for the right people to hear our cheers
05/09/00: The lesson that they always learn late
05/05/00: 'Excuse me, but there seems to be something in my water'
05/05/00: When your first dream turns out to be your best dream
05/04/00: Even baseball couldn't make light of this superstition
05/03/00: The ringmaster who looks back from your mirror
05/02/00: There they go, just a-yappin' down the street . . .
05/01/00: You must remember this (Unless you don't)
04/24/00: Now that casino ads are allowed to tell the truth . . .
04/13/00: The man in the seat across the airplane aisle
04/11/00: A star is born, but do you know where it's @?
04/06/00: Through the eyes of Norman Rockwell
03/21/00: 10 good reasons to avoid making this list
03/21/00: 'I tell myself that they've gone on vacation'
03/21/00: Monday Night Football memories
03/02/00: This report card deserves an 'A' in every subject
02/29/00: What really happened on New Year's eve
02/23/00: Of paste pots, Denver sandwiches and finding Dr. Sam
02/17/00: What would you like to stay exactly the same?
02/04/00: Politics: When did the stagehands step onto the stage?
02/01/00: An awesome idea to make you sound better
01/26/00: Y3K already? We haven't yet recovered from Y2K
01/21/00: Watching the pot that always boils
01/19/00:The story behind the men on the museum steps
01/13/00: Here's to the students who never hear a cheer
01/11/00: The oh-so-sweet sound of modems in the morning
01/04/00: The person in your mirror just got wiser
12/31/99: A lesson -- and a memory -- to last a millennium
12/29/99: Racing the clock, even when it's running backwards
12/13/99: The right to bear coffee
12/08/99: From teen idol to ink-stained wretch: Can you Dig it?
12/02/99: Human 'search engines'
11/30/99: Here's looking at you -- now hand over the cash
11/23/99: Who'll say 'I'm sorry' to the other Decatur students?
11/18/99: "From bad things, good can come"
11/16/99: The man who didn't know the meaning of 'whatever'
11/12/99: Is this progress? We have made the weekend obsolete
11/09/99: Today he would probably be called Kyle Kramden
11/04/99: And you thought the IRS was heartless
11/02/99: When it's free, what will the real price be?
10/29/99: The tissue-thin decisions that define who we are
10/26/99: One way to cut road rage down to size
10/22/99: Asking all the right questions takes a special pitch
10/18/99: The signs are talking to you; Are you listening?
10/12/99: Even Capone would be disgusted
10/08/99: Don't ever look your neighborhood bear in the eye
10/06/99: Land of the free and marketplace of the brave
10/04/99: German warplanes in American skies
09/30/99: While you fret, something is sneaking up on you
09/28/99: In these busy times, why not bring back a certain buzz?
09/24/99: The storms whose paths no one can track
09/21/99: Who's minding the store? Oh . . . never mind
09/17/99:Here's another place where you can't smoke
09/14/99: As certainly as `lovely Rita' follows `when I'm 64' . . .
09/09/99: Why is patience no longer a virtue?
09/07/99: Once upon a time, in an airport close to you . . .
09/03/99: The answers? They are right in front of us
09/01/99: Up the creek with a paddle--and cussing up a storm
08/30/99: $1 Million Question: How'd we get to be so stup-d?
08/27/99: Fun and games at Camp Umbilical Cord
08/25/99: How life has been changed by the woodpecker effect
08/23/99: If you don't like this story, blame the robot who wrote it
08/20/99: A four-letter word that has helped both Bob and Rhonda
08/18/99: They have picked the wrong country
08/16/99: From paperboy to stalker--how the news has changed
08/12/99: Why wasn't anyone watching his brothers?
08/10/99: Come to think of it, stars seldom are the retiring type
08/05/99: The national gaper's block is always jammed
07/29/99: 'Can you imagine the gift you gave me?'
07/27/99: A view to a kill -- but is this really necessary?
07/23/99: Some cream and sugar with your turbulence?
07/21/99: When your name is JFK jr., how do you choose to use it?
07/19/99: The real world is declared not real enough
07/15/99: The real victims of cruel and unusual punishment
07/13/99: A 21st Century idea for schools: log off and learn
07/09/99: Are life's sweetest mysteries still around the bend?
07/07/99: Of great minds, cream cheese and Freddy Cannon
07/02/99: The perfect spokesman for the American way
06/30/99: 'He's 9 years old . . . he trusts people'
06/28/99: A $581 million jackpot in the courthouse casino
06/25/99: A nighttime walk to a House that feels like a cage
06/23/99: At least give men credit for being more morose
06/18/99: On Father's Day, a few words about mothers
06/16/99: If work is a dance, how's your partner doing?
06/14/99: Should a dictionary ever tell you to keep quiet?
06/10/99: A story of Sex, the SuperBowl and your wife
06/07/99: Take a guess where "California Sun" is from
06/03/99: Of summer days, summer nights and pebbles in a jar
06/01/99: Putting your money where their mouths are
05/27/99: Pressed between wooden covers, the summer of her life
05/25/99:The lingering song of a certain summer
05/24/99:We could all use a return to the Buddy system
05/20/99: Now, this is enough to make James Bond double-0 depressed 05/17/99: It's midnight -- do you know where your parents are?
05/13/99: And now even saying "thank you" creates a problem
05/11/99: The answer was standing at the front door

©1999, Tribune Media Services