Stupidity.
Pictured above are Larry and Carri Williams, and in the middle Hana Williams. The couple adopted the Ethiopian girl along with her brother, joining the couple’s already large biological family.
To raise the adopted children at least, the couple followed the draconian, Biblical-inspired teachings featured in the child-rearing book, To Train Up a Child. To give you an idea of what the book is like, at one point, it recommends “baiting” (the very word used in the book) children into misbehaving, and then punishing them for it. It also advocates hitting babies with a willow branch for “misbehaving”.
Following this book’s advice, the couple regularly spanked Hana, locked her in a closet, denied her food as punishment, refused her clothing (only allowing her to wear a towel), forced her to sleep in a barn and to take garden hose showers. In May 2011, she was found lying unconscious outside, in temperatures as low as 4C. Her beaten and emaciated body succumbed to hypothermia, dying aged just thirteen.
The woman who adopted her younger brother after the couple were arrested, noted how thin he was, that he was perpetually hungry and covered in scratches, and that he was afraid to talk about his parents. Nevertheless, the boy was brave enough to testify against his abusers at the trial, saying they were both beaten and switched. Carri was subsequently found guilty of murder, and her husband of manslaughter.
To follow something so blindly to the point of tragedy… it’s far from a new concept. Still, it boggles my mind as to how people can be this stupid, and serves as a reminder to how stupid people and stupidity itself is unnerving. Scary.