Killing Time

The U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution of Mark Christeson.

In 1998, when Christeson was 18, he and a cousin broke into the home of Susan Brouk in rural Maries County, Missouri near the little town of Vichy on Highway 63, about ten miles north of where that road intersects I-44 at Rolla. The two men bound Brouk's 12-year-old daughter, Adrian, and 9-year-old son, Kyle.  Christeson then raped Brouk in her daughter's bedroom. 

Adrian recognized and identified Christeson's cousin, 17-year-old Jesse Carter.  Christeson decided that they "had to get rid of" the family.  Murderpedia gives the gruesome details:

At some point during the confrontation, Ms. Brouk and Kyle were both struck in the head with a blunt object. ...

They forced Ms. Brouk and her children into the back seat of Ms. Brouk's Bronco and also loaded her television, VCR, car stereo, video game player, checkbook, and a few other small items. Christeson drove down the highway, down a gravel road, and then across a neighbor's field to a pond at the edge of a wooded area.

They forced Ms. Brouk and her children to the bank of the pond. Christeson kicked Ms. Brouk just below her ribs with enough force that she was knocked to the ground.

Christeson then placed his foot on her mid-section, and reached down and cut her throat with a bone knife. She bled profusely, but she did not die immediately, and as she lay on the bank of the pond, she told Adrian and Kyle that she loved them.

Then Christeson cut Kyle's throat twice and held him under the pond water until he drowned. Carter pushed Kyle's body farther out into the pond so the body would sink.

At Christeson's direction, Carter retrieved cinder blocks from a nearby barn, and while there, heard Christeson fire a shot from one of the shotguns. When Carter returned to the pond, Adrian was struggling to free herself from Christeson.

Carter held Adrian's feet while Christeson pressed down on her throat until she suffocated, and Carter then pushed Adrian's body into the pond. While Ms. Brouk was still alive, but barely breathing, Christeson grabbed her arms and Carter grabbed her legs, and they threw her into the pond on top of her children's bodies. As she drowned, Carter went into the woods to get a long stick, which he used to push the Brouks' bodies further out into the pond.

Both Susan Brouk and her son Kyle -- remember this is a child of nine -- died, not from having their throats slashed but from drowning, helplessly bound, in the cold, murky water of a Missouri farm pond in the middle of January.  Christeson slowly and deliberately choked a little 12-year-old girl to death.

But he didn't have really good, expensive lawyers.  So, instead of being the 9th murderer to be executed by Missouri this year, he will get another shot at life in prison where he has spent nearly half his life already while taxpayers feed, clothe, and house him and foot the bill for his appeals.  

Susan Brouk and her children did not deserve to die.  Mark Christeson does.  At least that is the way it seems to me, but I am, after all, just a simple man.

Now I'm the kinda man that'd not harm a mouse
But if I catch somebody breakin in my house
I've got twelve guage shotgun waiting on the other side

Now don't go pushing me against my will
I don't want to have to fight you but I dern sure will
So if you don't want trouble then you'd better just pass me on by

As far as I'm concerned there ain't no excuse
For the raping and the killing and the child abuse
And I've got a way to put an end to all that mess

Just take them rascals out in the swamp
Put 'em on their knees and tie 'em to a stump
Let the rattlers and the bugs and the alligators do the rest

You know what's wrong with the world today
People done gone and put their Bible's away
They're living by the law of the jungle not the law of the land
The Good Book says it so I know it's the truth
An eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth
You better watch where you go and remember where you been
That's the way I see it I'm a Simple Man