I was browsing a website page on disturbing tragedies, and came across what I think is one of the the most repulsive and sick sadistic tragedies of all!!

A 13-year-old boy - Sherman Burnett Jr., had chased, grabbed, beat, sodomized, raped and almost killed a 6-year-old girl because he said that she threw a rock at him!! He was tried as an adult and sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Miraculously, she survived the attack, but she'll be scarred for life because of the sick, sadistic and repulsive crime that this boy commited against her! But still, he shouldn't be sentensed as an adult for that long a period of time time because he's still a child, minor and a juvinile himself.


Go here to read the story;

Panache Report . Click on Distubing & Tragic. Scroll down to the title; "Thirteen-Year-Old Boy Sentenced to 60 Years".

They should just send him to some anger management classes, pay for vocational training or college, and hire him a shrink. Sending him to prison won't help anything, it'll just make him into a worse criminal.

Yeah, he needs to be evaluated, rehabilited and given some kind of medicine to calm him down.

It's very puzzling and disturbing as to why he snapped like that, went bonkers and had terrorized and sexulally assaulted her. He nearly ripped off one of her ears!!

I'm afraid that he'll be branded as a registered sex offender! I'm pretty certain that a SORI and a CORI
has been placed on him. If he's ever let go, he'll have to register as a sex offender.

But let's face it, the sentense that he was given is way too severe!! He still has the mind of a child, and his mind STILL isn't fully developed yet.

Yes, this is a travesty of justice. If they label him a sex offender it will certainly come back to haunt him and just make his future all the more difficult. What if they labeled everyone who rapes someone else a sex offender!? Then where would we be?!

This must have been a very difficult ordeal for him. I hope he is getting some counseling to help him through it all. This is the sort of thing that could scar him for life.

Because of his age, if I were a judge, I would not have ordered him to spend that much time in prison. I wouldn't have sent him there at all.

I'd order that he be placed into a reahab program for counciling and some psyciatric help. Throwing him in prison even for a few years just isn't the answer.

I hope that his mom can get a powerful attourney to help get him out of there and into a program. As horrible and sick as the crime is that he committed, he just doesn't deserve that type of adult court treatment.

He's only 13, and he shouldn't be forced to spend 60 years of his life behind bars!!! What he did was wrong, yes, and he broke the law, but two wrongs don't make it right! He maimed and scarred this little girl for life, but he himself is still just a child!! He had hoped that the girl would die so that she wouldn't be able to blow the whistle on him.

He wasn't given a fair trial. They should retry him and get some help for him. The boy has a pychological problem and a possibly suffers from some type of autistic, mental or bipolar disorder. The judge should not have been so quick to throw him into prison friggen without ordering that the boy be sent for a medical / psychological evaluation first, however long it would take!!

This case is quite similar to the one that occured years ago where a then 12-year-old boy lured a 6-year-old boy into going with him into the woods and once there, the older boy just went bonkers and strangled the younger boy, beating and punching him in the face until he died!!

Or the other case where a then overweight 12-year-old was showing his sister some wrestling moves and jumped from the stairs onto her, killing her!!

What makes young boys snap like this and just go bonkers and out of their minds where they end up going berserk, killing or nearly killing innocent victims? This is part of the reason why I don't argue with kids, especially those between 12, 13 and 16 or 17. They LOOK for an excuse to want to harm you! You never know when they might pull out a gun or a knife!!

On buses and trains, I sit with my back to the window or wall. That way, if a child wants to do a sneak attack on me, he can't get at me from behind. He'll have to try it from the front where I can see him and try to stop him. And if I walk away from a kid who wants to argue and poke me for a fight, I walk away with with my eyes on him so that he can't jump me from behind.

About 20 years ago, a man on the subway had witness three young boys between the ages of twelve and thirteen harass and poke fun at another passenger - an elderly man. Then the boys went over to that person and tried to rob him of his wallet. The boys were caught and stopped after the police came on the train because the man had reported them to the police.

Before getting off the train, one of the boys told him; "This is not going to stay like this. It's not over yet." A week or so later, that man was murdered!! The three little boys were suspected of murdering him, but it was never proven whether they did or not.

I would have. But then again am not some idiot who thinks that everyone just has bad days.
Who cares what this kids age was. Who cares what this kids history was. Stop focusing on the criminal and move your focus to the victim.

Lock people like that up and throw about the key

Oh oh, looks like someone has pegged the bullshit meter.

/snicker

I sympathize with the victim, yes, but I also sympathize with the boy because he's under age.

It's so sad and tragic that it happened, but it appears that the girl woke up a sleeping monster when she threw the rock at him.

In reallity, she's the one who sent him to prison because the judge had went on her recommendation that the boy be locked up for what would seem like the rest of his life!!

That's why I feel that he didn't get a fair trial.

Wow! That is just wow. I find that opinion to be very very sad and ignorant.

The link in the post went to some black site and I found no story so I am only going by what is being said in this thread.

Nothing in law required the judge to follow the girl's recommendation. It was the judge that did it.

Anyways, how could anybody reasonably expect to be violently brutalized and traumatized like this over a minor provocation? That's a completely insane response and, frankly, I don't think it's right to qualify the statement that it's sad and tragic with "but she woke up a sleeping monster." No, it's sad and tragic. There are no buts there. Maybe ands.

Well, she DID get the boy mad, but he didn't have to go that far.

Which is why he needs help, because what if he gets out of prison at like 16 or so, meets a girl, starts dating her and if she refuses to do something for him like have sex with him, then what will he do? Go berserk on her as well like when he maimed the little girl?

What if he starts making sexual advances to a girl, she turns him down, then what? Will he violently and savagely brutalize , beat and rape her also?

Something in his mind had snapped, causing him to go nuts, and no one even knows why because no one even bothered to take the time to try to find out why.

So then, what happens?; "Oh. Well we'll just slap a 60-year sentense on him and let him go to prison for the crime that he committed. That's easy enough.".

There IS however, a little boy at the school where I tutor the kids. I used to tuter him as well. And I've seen him go bonkers in a violent fit of rage when he can't get what he wants. He even jumped on me and wanted to beat me up!! I politely stopped him, but my worst fear is that he might still be the same way when HE reaches age 13!

A little boy will usually lash out at the least little thing that ticks him off, and it's the victim who is usually on the receiving end of his violent temper tantrums, bullying, revenge and outrage.

If we could just figure out a way to keep women from going around causing themselves to get raped, we wouldn't have these problems eh Daq? Its not a problem of too many men who snap and brutalize women, its too many women provoking their own rape huh?

We're talking about a thirteen-year-old boy here, not a grown man this time.

A person who, at his age level, shouldn't even be having sex with anyone, much less a six-year-old child. There were and still are such cases where a 13-year-old boy will grab and rape another younger boy as well. Or even go after a boy his own age! While most 13-year-old boys are either playing basketball, football, skateboarding, playing video games, watching TV or even spending hours on their computers after school, other boys that age are lusting for sex at a very premature age! I can only believe that they might have seen something at home or elsewhere.

I was also one of the ones who was stalked, sought after, sexually harassed and wanted by a 13-year-old boy while in camp, only I wasn't beaten up or brutalized at all like the little girl was. Too afraid to tell anyone, I let the boy have his way, since he was a heavyset boy and was bigger than me. But he kept on coming back for more, once I submitted to him! He wouldn't leave me alone. We ended up becoming best buddies though.

It is true that some boys still mature faster than others at age 13, and that is usually when the change in their bodies begin to take place when they start to enter puberty and their voice start to change as well.

I guess the boy, while he was attacking the girl, decided that he might as well make it worth his while to do what a grown man would do with a woman when they get mad and outraged.

Or maybe he witnessed the same thing at home between HIS mom & dad. Who knows? nevertheless, the girl was traumatized, and the boy became a mad rapist. But no matter what anyone says, I still think that his punishment is much too severe though because of his age and mind level.

I know a person who, at age 13, had also attacked, groped and sexually molested another boy a bit younger than himself. He's grown now, but I'm told by his grandmother that he's also now gay. It's just something about a boy that when he reaches 13, his hormones just seem to go out of control and drives him to commit a horrible crime such as this.

My opinion is that this is a prime example of a case which does warrant a long term custodial sentence. The kids age is a very minor factor (if even a factor at all). Prisons are full of people, many doing doing long term sentences for crimes that do not warrant such punishments (not 60 years no, I think very few get that type of sentence). I'm talking about things like non-violent or so-called 'victimless' crimes - if you want to start looking at reducing sentences where there was some kind of justification or explanation for a persons action, I would look there.

If you want to talk about prison sentences not being rehabilitative, you need to improve the prison system, not stop sending people to prisons because the prison system is ineffective.

As for sex offenders, there is I think an issue to be considered, but not pertaining to this kid. I am referring to what is considered a sex offence. I have heard of people being registered as sex offenders for basically doing nothing more than being naked in their own back yard (not heard personally, in a TV documentary). Because somehow they get charged with indecent exposure and that automatically means registration as a sex offender. Something doesn't add up there to my mind.

Dude, if you make it to thirteen and the fact that stuff like this is completely whack and not okay hasn't sunk in, you need help.
No, actually, two cases of brutal assault by 13-year old boys does not indicate that 13-year old boys' "hormones just go out of control" and drives them to commit acts like this.

I didn't brutally assault anybody at age 13. Am I a statistical freak?

No, but some kids are prone to doing it. I didn't brutally assault anyone at that age either.

It doesn't affect every child, obviously. Only certain ones.

But the bottom line is, the boy needs help so that he doesn't do that again. Actually, it can happen at any age during their teen years.

Here's what he looks like. A pic of the boy appears in my avatar.

We don't really know what caused this boy to go berserk and attack that little girl like that or the way that he did. It could very well be a mind problem or maybe he could be autistic or something else.
Autistic teens are very dangerous to themselves and others. It was an autistic 16-year-old boy who attacked and murdered a classmate in Methuen in the school's bathroom over a year ago. The boy is still in juvie awaiting a decision from the judge.

Just because a rock was thrown at him, it doesn't mean that he had the right to attack and sexually assault her, no. I'm not condoning that.

But I DO think that there is something terribly wrong with the boy. If I threw something at him, would he come after me and attack me like that? Maybe, maybe not, who knows?

I just don't like what the judge did by throwing him in prison without trying to find out what caused him to go nuts and insane like that in the first place! I think the judge mainly wanted to make a big example out of him.

It is more than just the rock being thrown at him. There ARE programs to help kids and adults who are suffering from psychological problems like this.

As far as the system goes in general, it is definitely broken and needs to be fixed! A young child shouldn't just be condemmed and thrown behind bars because he's done something wrong. At least it doesn't work that way in some states. They should have tried to have him evaluated first in a program, THEN make a decision after he's been in the program for a while.

This event could have a very dangerous effect on the boy - to the point where he might try to commit suicide! That's part of the reason why I say that he desparately needs help before it's too late.

He attacked and mauled this girl. Next time, he might MURDER someone!!

Oh. And yes, he's had some serious problems at home and in his neighborhood, BTW. He bullied the neighbors and he pretty much had the run of the house, threatening and terrorizing his parents at times. People were so terrified of him that they didn't even try to talk to him or stop him from being so mean & nasty!

Sounds like some time inside will teach him what bullying is all about.

Yes, the system is broken. The answer to that is to fix the system - not give free passes to people because the broken system might do them harm.

Yeah, the boy obviously had and possibly still has some very disturbing problems which eventually lead up to him attacking the girl. He might be on some type of medicine that probably causes him to act so violently and raging mad if and when something sets him off!

I'm beginning to think that he might have been picked on and bullied himself - possibly by his schoolmates and it might have went on for a long time, building up inside him.

The family gets terrified that he may one day do something to someone that could really harm and traumatized them. Then the girl comes along and throws the rock at him, and that set him off on a near- killer rampage! Like a mad mastiff, pit bull or a Rotwieler lusting for blood.

I really do feel bad for him though, as well as the girl. There should be some type of counciling program that would have and should have been able to help him.

It IS true that some states have this law. And the boy might have to face this down the road should he be exonerated from prison. Plus he'll be ordered to stay away from the girl he savagely mauled and raped.

There's a case where another then-13-year-old boy had forced his 11-year-old cousin into having sex with him. He's now 18, but he has to register himself as a sex offender.

He (Sherman) also knocked down little old ladies, stealing their purses and groceries. This kid is bad to the phone, didn't care who he hurt or terrorized and he backed down from NO ONE!!

Actually, Sherman is 15 now. He committed the crime about two years ago. The case is branded as 1st-degree assault - just short of murdering the girl. The sexual assault part was thrown out.

Further reseach, after having Googled his name, shows that he once offered an 11-year-old girl $50.00 to have sex with him. When the girls's brother had intercepted, Sherman Jr. threw him to the ground! His dad also is no stranger to being behind bars. In fact, they both were there at the same time before Sherman Sr. posted his own bail and was let go.

Nice guy, hey? Didn't even try to help his own son!! Who turned this boy onto sex at such an unlawful age? Sounds like he was molested by someone and then when he wanted to be with a girl, he was pulling out all stops to get what he wanted - sex!