NEWS -THREE DOWN:

For those of you who may have been living in a cave, yesterday was punctuated by the announcement that 25-year-old Tarajee Maynor of Detroit, was arraigned Sunday on two counts of first-degree murder and felony child abuse. She faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of the negligent murder of her two children, Acacia D. Maynor, 10 months, and Adonnis D. Maynor, 3 years. Maynor’s kids died Friday after being left alone in her car for more than three hours.

Apparently the windows on Ms. Maynor’s car were rolled up with the children locked inside. According to the National Weather Service, the weather in Detroit was sunny on Friday afternoon, jumping up to the mid-80s. The temperature inside Maynor’s parked car was most likely a lot higher due to the natural greenhouse effect.

The really sick part of the whole mess is that aside from being completely irresponsible, Tarajee Maynor went one step further and panicked. After discovering her children had perished in the car, Maynor decided to drive around for almost three hours concocting a ridiculous story in an attempt to cover up her own heinous irresponsibility - time that might have been better spent attempting to revive her children. When she finally decided to get in contact with the authorities, Maynor first told police that she had been abducted, raped and then returned to her car. She later dropped her story once she realized the abduction story was going nowhere. She then confessed to stopping to have her hair done about 4:20 p.m. leaving her children in the car. When she returned more than three hours later, she found them dead.

What in the name of all that is twisted in this world was this woman thinking? I’m not even going to delve into the possibilities because they’re just plain ridiculous. The real question here is whether the punishment of living in prison with the thoughts of your own selfish disregard leading to the death of your children is enough. Does Maynor deserve to face death, just as her children did? While she most likely won’t face the death penalty, one can’t help but wonder if a mind capable of such disregard could ever punish itself enough? Better yet, what is enough punishment? While I have yet to take a position on the death penalty, it’s an instance such as this that make me question the deeper issues of punishment and the human psyche.

These are huge issues. Perhaps I’ll dive into them more in the future, but for now, noodle on them for a bit and feel free to send any thoughts my way. If they’re constructive, we’ll start a dialogue.

Cheers