Big story on him in Vogue last month.
I completely agree with you, XJETGIRLX
There’s a scary amount of missing persons who dissapear every day but think about all of the ones you personally know about. Remember Polly Klaus, Elizabeth Smart, Chandra Levy (that one was pretty much a give in though, with the political connection) they all share one common trait. Upper, middle class white women. When was the last time you saw a story about a poor, lower class woman of color in the media for a prolonged amount of time that had gone missing? Even in a case similar to the one XJETGIRLX mentioned? When a case has that many similarities, you’ve got no choice but to look at the differences in order to determine why one got so much media attention and the other didn’t. And what was the major difference? Race and class.
It’s sad that in this day and age, race and class remains such a strong prerequisite for obtaining, what in a missing persons case is vital, ongoing press coverage. The fact that it’s sad doesn’t make it untrue.
True, Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and Elizabeth Smart’s families all played huge roles in keeping their respective cases in the media, but let’s not forget the one thing that has a huge effect on media to begin with, $$$. The media also looks for what the public is going to eat up. Let’s face it. It’s scary when an upper middle class white woman get’s ubducted. If it could happen to her, in suburbia then it could happen to anyone. Upper middle class white people tend to shelter themselves and they’re children from violent crimes. It’s something that happens to poor people, in the bad part of town. When it comes to their part of town, it’s earth shattering. That’s where the real pull is.
Who?
Kidding, sort of. I know she went missing around Christmas but this is pretty much the reaction I have whenever someone brings it up.
Maybe to some small extent, but one HUGE major difference is that the families did not let the media forget.
How so? AFAIK, a family holding a press conference every single day does not cost them a dime other than a phone call to the local and national news organizations. In the case of Elizabeth Smart, some days there would be an entire flock of national news crew, other days they would be lucky to have one measly reporter from an off-the-wall independent newspaper show up. Either way, they didn’t give up or become discouraged and they didn’t let us forget her. It wasn’t the media or the police, it was the family.
The fault in your reasoning is that you are leaving out the fact that there ARE “upper, middle class white women” who are missing and who you have not heard or read about. It is only those who have family or friends making sure it stays in the media, that you hear about.
I hate to blame the families of missing people but unless they are out there shoving the case into the media’s face, the public’s memory fades fast and their story will be forgotten in a number of days. If a missing person’s family wants the attention of the public, they need to get the information out there and keep it out there. I fail to see how race or class would prevent a family from doing this. There are volunteer’s out there who are more than willing to assist these families regardless of their race or class. All they need to do is seek it out then put forth the effort.
It bothers me that some of these families and the people who believe it is race and class driven are so quick to point fingers and make accusations of favoritism to middle/upper class whites, but at the same time aren’t willing themselves to put forth energy to make sure their case is put, then kept, in the spotlight
Off the top of my head, having a mistress doesn’t give me vibes of the marriage bing 100% happy. Maybe your marriage is a happy swinging one, but i doubt hers was.
Wow, i bet you’ve been waiting to use that stolen insult for some time. Too bad your too stupid to pull it off correctly. Better luck tomorrow.
If she stood in front of a train and got nailed, would you blame the train for not stopping? Sure Scott shouldn’t have killed her and will rot in hell, but tempting fate is stupid as well. She lost the game of life for not getting while the getting was good. Maybe if i heard about her less i’d care more.
Well what the hell do you think the families of other missing people do? Pack up and call it a day? They could remind the media till they are blue in the face, but that doesn’t mean the media will give a fuck.
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The media has a finite amount of resources, they can’t be everywhere at once getting everyone’s story out there. Therefore, although all families would like them to get the story out there, the media must chose to air some, at the expense of airing others.
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Not true
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I hope you get it by now.
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It’s not the families choice what goes in the spotlight and what doesn’t
Tars, what makes you think there were any signs…any signs at all…that he was going to kill her? He had a secret affair. Lots of people have affairs and don’t murder their spouse. Your argument is lame.
Diane, I’ve come up light on a cite, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts there are many families from all persuasions trying to keep the media interested in their missing loved ones. Just calling a press conference doesn’t mean anyone is going to show up. Certain people make headlines. It just so happens every major chart-topping crime story from the past year or longer has involved upper-class, white people. It’s more than coincidence. Mass media is a business, and they are selling a product. They are going to play up the story and the angle that sells the most papers. Different outlets to different extents of course. Fox News isn’t NPR and vice versa.
But, Laci and Scott Peterson are straight out of the soap operas. You don’t see too many daytime dramas revolving around the lives of poor minorities do you? And the way it unfolded, with Scott the obvious culprit, its was made for water cooler conversations… Rupert Murdoch probably buys a new Leer Jet every time a story like this pops up on the radar.
Tars: (1) I’m not married. (2) All accounts so far show that Laci was happy in her marriage. (3) I firmly believe you’re trying to blame the victim of this particular crime.
Ah, the Coroners Inquest has come back with a verdict of “murder”? I missed that in the news. :rolleyes: I thought they had barely figured out that the body was Laci.
Every summer, some such missing person case hits the media big time, while other, similar cases lanquish. There is no real reason for this- after a while, the story feeds off itself- that is- the story is the story- no “news” is needed. “Tonite, on the Laci Peterson story- no new developements…”:rolleyes: No-really.
There is NO, repeat NO, evidence that has come out that Scott killed her. A bad alibi proves nothing, nor does a bad hair dye job. I’d hide too, if I had those kinds of threats he was getting.
I wasn’t about to use a prime insult on a blithering idiot like you. The stupidity and sheer assholery of your posts are more insulting than anything I could come up with. If Don Rickles sat here for 10 years trying to figure out a way to make you look like a complete and utter moron, he still couldn’t do much better than the utter inanity you spewed from your piehole. In a world of douchebags and idiots who blame a woman for being killed by her husband, you sir, take the cake. Congratulations.
Yeah, sadly some do pack it up and call it a day.
Fliers don’t post themselves on telephone poles, ongoing searches don’t organize themselves without the family making sure they happen, and the media doesn’t have the option to show (or not show) up at a press conference if none is scheduled.
Exactly, and I’m not arguing that point. Weeks went by without the media reporting anything on Elizabeth Smart, but the family continued to hold press conferences even when no one showed up.
In spite of waning interest from the press and police, the Smarts continued to make her disappearance known. Had they not, her story would have moved to the back page and then fallen off completely.
You don’t think so? Contact any missing persons department in the country if you have doubts. I can assure you there are many upper/middle class whites missing in the U.S. Take a look at any missing children site or flier or even the entry way at your local post office or Wal-mart.
Get what? The fact that news stories come and go as fast as the public loses our memory? That it is completely up to the effort of non-news sources and non police officials to keep these stories alive?
I will agree to a small extend that white upper class get more initial attention, but I do think a lot depends on family and friends keeping the story alive and in the public eye. There are other ways outside what the media control to do this.
Diane,
I thought WorldEater and Cain elaborated on my post very effectively, but you’re still assuming that all families, rich or poor, are on equal footing in these kinds of situations, which is simply not true.
To get the media attention that the Smarts and Petersons got, you’ve got to have connections. Plain and simple. If everyone who made a ruckus made it in the media, we’d be bogged down with 50 of these stories a day.
To even catch the eye of a reporter in a situation like this, you’ve got to have an “in.” Do you honestly think that if a lower class Latina woman approched a reporter or a newsstation telling them that her daughters missing, they’d give a damn? Sadly, no. Do you not think they try?
Also, think about who is able to launch massive volunteer efforts for situations like these. Sadly, not a lot of lower class people. It takes money and a whole lot of time, and yes, I’ll say it again, connections. Who has all of these things? White, middle-upper class people. That’s just reality.
And, like someone said before, the media is a business, like it or not. It’s highly competitive, which gurantees that unless they think it’s going to have a large audience (which means it’s going to have to be shocking) they’re not going to bother, because their competition will probably be working on the story that the big audience is going to be enthralled by, while they’re left behind to work on their “charity case.”
I’m really suprised at your naitivity. 
i can never tell who is married her or not. All accounts can’t show she was happy, since there was the whole affair thing. friends can’t know everything, anyway, do your friends know all your dark secrets? And i am not laying the blame soley on her, i am just saying there must have been warning signs, and ignoring them is contributing to your own demise, therefore she is partially responsible.
The fact that he killed her itself is proof there must have been warning signs, some sort of strife, something going on. He must have been the greatest actor in the world to have pulled it off without giving any clue, and since after her death he’s done nothing but look suspicious, i doubt he is oscar caliber material. He must have given away what he was going to do, and she denied it to live her lie of the perfect marriage/life.
so you are saying that no matter what actions she took, he husband would have killed her. Death for her was unavoidable, her lot was up. Great logic stolen from Final destination. Too bad that movie sucked and so does your argument. Jackass abusers deserve death, but women who keep going back to them are stupid and know what they are getting into. they are far from blameless.
“There must have been warning signs.”?!?!?
Bwahahahaha!
I guess I’m the only one who remember Xiana Fairchild.
Tars, please explain how being adultrous automatically means being physically abusive. I’ve been cheated on by two boyfriends, neither of whom abused more than my trust. I’d be willing to testify in a court of law that they were not going to murder a pregnant woman based on their inability to respect the concept of monogamy.
Also, right up to the moment of discovery, I was quite happy in the relationships. Whether or not I was happy has no bearing on whether or not he is going to cheat. And no, I had no warning whatsoever. Unless you are advocating for women to monitor every move their man makes, grilling him over any perceived deviation from his registered migration pattern, you need to just accept that trust can be violated without the other party being aware.
Xcheopis, good point, but keep in mind it can cut both ways. I don’t think placing a small amount of blame on a person in a physically abusive relationship who doesn’t get the fuck out of the situation, is an unreasonable thing to do.
Keeping in mind that those relationships are very difficult to get out of for various reasons (fear, economic dependency, etc), there are people that may be alive because they made such a choice.
Of course I tend to blame the person that decapited the other person.
and
:rolleyes:
I’d comment on your chronic assaholia here, Tars, but Hamlet’s already done so far more poetically than I could, so I’ll let it go.
Now for my point:
Actually, I’ve been reading Laci’s website and the news accounts, and I can easily see how there might not have been any signs before the murder.
First, from what people were saying about Laci, I don’t think she was the type of passive/aggressive woman who would put up with an abusive relationship. She seemed pretty strong to me, and she obviously had a lot of support from her own family, so it’s not like she would have been afraid to leave him or not have anywhere to go.
Second, this has crime-of-passion and spur-of-the-moment written all over it. Unless, of course, you want to theorize that Scott had been planning to kill her in the house around Christmas, dispose of her body in such an incompetent way as to guarantee it would wash up on land close to where he could be placed by witnesses, all the while, getting blood and other evidence all over his car and such. Then, of course, rather than fleeing to Mexico right away, he hangs around town for months looking guilty as all the sordid facts about his life and behavior are paraded in the news. He wasn’t arrested at the border, mind you. He was arrested in a golf club’s parking lot. If this wasn’t spur of the moment, he is in the running for the Dumbest Criminal on Earth Prize ™.
If I absolutely had to guess what happened, here’s what I would say. Everything’s hunky-dory until Laci gets pregnant. Maybe Scott misses the sex, maybe he starts having second thoughts about his life, and so he starts an affair. Laci finds out about the affair and confronts Scott at home. She threatens to (a)Leave him and/or (b)Find the woman Scott’s screwing and let her in on the situation. Scott panics and kills her before he knows what he’s doing.
Any guy would panic. Scott probably didn’t know he’d fucked things up to this extent until Laci faced him. Add to the mixture the fact that Laci was seven months pregnant, probably not in the best of moods herself or overly attentive to others’ states of mind, and so she won’t back down. Now this is a bad situation.
Scott is a big guy. That’s the first thing that struck me when I saw him on the tube. Maybe he’s got a temper that Laci didn’t know about it, and he loses it, tries to stop her, and beats or strangles her to death before he knows what’s happening. By the time he comes to his senses, he’s got a dead wife and a dead son. He panics further and makes a bad situation worse by trying to dispose of the body. Now it’s out of his hands. He’s screwed and he knows it. From here on in, it’s a dead-man’s spiral as far as his situation goes.
Please note that I am not blaming Laci for any of this. If Scott is found guilty, I’d like to see him fry, choke, or get a dose of evil shit injected into his vein while he’s strapped to a gurny. My points are that I don’t think he was abusive before this, and I don’t think this was premeditated.
I think “resonsibility” is a better word than “blame”, when it comes to people who stay in physically abusive relationships. The victim in such a situation is not “guilty” of wrongdoing. They are responsible for their own safety, though. (Discounting the extreme situations, of course.)
Also, I hadn’t heard that Mr. Peterson was physically abusive toward his pregnant wife, only that he had one affair. Therefore, whatever our feelings about people in physcally abusive relationships may be, they are irrelevent to this situation without further evidence that he was beating his wife with an electrical cord.
I still haven’t seen a shred of evidence that Scott did it, and you dudes are debating whether or not it was premeditated, or whther there were “warning signs”. In fact- so far I don’t think they even have proof it was murder for gods sake (suicide is not impossible, you know).