Mrs. Henderson’s Magnificent Dinosaur Collection

A week or two ago I received an e-mail from my mother. Subject: Is anyone surprised? I don’t know that I wasn’t, when in the message she told my siblings and I that a man from home and his teenage girlfriend had been arrested under suspicion of infanticide. Regardless of who is involved, such things tend to be surprising.

Charlotte County, New Brunswick is hardly a densely populated area. Crime happens though, as it does everywhere. Usually it is quite run-of-the-mill: drugs, impaired driving, bar fights, domestic abuse -- there’s even an idiomatic flair for vigilantism, and the occasional rich St. Andrews townie getting caught up in embezzlement schemes -- nothing remarkable. But then there are the remains of two unrelated newborns found near St. Stephen in as many years.

I’m in no position to speak on the specifics of these events. What I know of the subject can be read by anyone with Google or a copy of The St. Croix Courier or Telegraph Journal at hand. It is all very easy to find because, well, things like this just don’t happen in small communities (except that they do) and we like to talk about them.

A woman I am friends with on Facebook but whom I’ve never met in real life to my knowledge (she’s years older than me but grew up in the same town, population two-thousand), invited both my sister and I to a Group called “A Child is a Child (petition is located in the discussion board)” which we at first thought to-our-discomfort was a Pro-Life group, but turned out to be about the most recent infanticide. Neither of us joined because as far as we have been able to tell, the petition mentioned in the name of the group is to be sent to Southeast NB’s MP Greg Thompson with the object of… well, stopping the murder of newborn babies. The implication presented by the group is that a) if you don’t sign, you support baby killing and b) this is a productive use of your time because certainly were someone thinking of ending their child’s life, seeing that 199 people had signed a petition online saying it's a bad idea would demonstrate the error of their ways.

That isn’t how the world works.

It just isn’t.

The man who has been arrested and charged with First Degree Murder in the death of a baby went to school with my brother. I know who he is, and have a few hazy memories of being a very small child and actively wanting to avoid his ilk on the playground before school (they were much older bullies, and this was the only time “big kids” and “little kids” were mixed in a social setting). I recall years later hearing that he was dating a girl a grade below mine, and knowing this was not a bright idea. He is, however, predominately just a Name to me, as there are so many just Names even in a small town. Names you hear in passing or anecdotally (So-in-so broke into a house and stole underwear), but frankly nice-girls wouldn’t actually know the person.

I responded to my mother’s email with “Yikes. Psycho.” because my instinctual reactions to things are always politically correct and considered. This is what she replied: “We met him when the boys were six. He’s the little boy who terrorized the elementary school with an almost theatrical intensity. No one was safe, and little girls were frequently and viciously targeted. Driven mad, teachers were unable to cope or discipline. In third grade, he brought a knife to school and murdered Mrs. Henderson’s magnificent dinosaur collection, slicing them to ribbons and shards. Everyone knew how disturbed he was and is. No one successfully intervened and I wish that I believed that someone tried to help him in some small way .”