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What now for killer teens?

By GREGORY K. MOFFATT
Special to The Citizen

Last week, observers listened silently in Fayette County Superior Court as Holly Ann Harvey chillingly recounted the murder of her grandparents, Sarah and Carl Collier.

The sensational murder case that began last August ended with a fizzle this past week as Sandy Ketchum and Holly Ann Harvey both accepted plea agreements in Superior Court. Standing before different judges, both girls accepted responsibility. Well, sort of.

Last August, after a night-long binge of marijuana and crack cocaine, the two girls returned to the Collier home where Harvey lived.

The girls conspired to steal the Colliers’ truck and Harvey admitted that it was her idea to kill the Colliers even though Ketchum suggested “hitting Harvey’s grandfather with a lamp.”

They practiced stabbing a mattress to “see if the knife was sharp enough to stab them wherever the knife went.” When the Colliers were lured to the basement by the smell of marijuana, the girls ruthlessly stabbed them to death.

Last week on April 14, Ketchum, 16, stood in front of Judge Johnnie Caldwell and blamed Harvey. Since the beginning, investigators have believed that Harvey, also now 16, was the instigator.

But almost simultaneously in a separate courtroom, Harvey addressed Judge Pascal English and blamed Ketchum for the murders.

Harvey was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the two counts of malice murder and will be eligible for parole in 20 years. Ketchum was given three concurrent life terms and will be eligible for parole in 14 years.

I believe Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan of the Fayette County Sheriff’s office who said that Harvey was the “dominant one in the relationship.” I said as much in my article on these murders back in August.

Harvey showed little remorse and her words in court rang hollow in light of her history of manipulation.

I cannot know what is in her heart, but I can see what her behaviors have communicated. In my opinion, she was demonstrating in court what she has always been, a selfish and manipulative girl.

I believe Ketchum truly is remorseful. I have always believed she was the follower and followers often do things they would not do under different leadership.

If Ketchum had chosen to follow a star student or if she had hooked up with an Eagle Scout, her life would have taken a very different turn. This truth will become evident to her over time and the decisions that led to her relationship with Harvey will haunt her for the rest of her life.

But whether she is truly remorseful or not is a tangential issue. Both girls participated in the murders and both girls have been held accountable.

Unfortunately, judges are regularly presented with conflicting stories and are thus saddled with the burden of trying to distinguish who is more believable. Blaming is typical in the legal system. Save your own skin is the rule of the day.

These girls probably have learned a lot about how the system works since they were taken into custody eight months ago, but their education is just beginning. Now that they have been convicted, here is what awaits them.

Both girls will move several times over the coming years. They will move from one detention facility to the next until they reach their final destination in the adult correctional system at age 21. Each move will bring a new set of challenges and a new set of rules to learn.

Both girls can expect to be bullied and intimidated by other inmates. There is a de facto justice system behind prison walls and inmates often take it upon themselves, when presented the opportunity, to mete out their own form of justice when they deem it necessary.

Perpetrators of exceptionally cruel crimes often find themselves the target of such bullying. Harvey and Ketchum will have to learn to survive amid this type of threat.

They can expect that the system, even though it is called “correctional,” is more about management and punishment rather than correction. There are no friends in prison and there is no trust in prison.

I can think of no lonelier place in the world than in a prison yard. They will be on their own and there is little that anyone from the outside will be able to do to help them.

The system is callous and inflexible. Everything from the material their uniforms are made of and the cold metal doors of their cells to the stone-faced guards and monotonous routines will be daily reminders that they are bound in a sterile and unfeeling environment.

As melodramatic as it sounds, it is the truth. They will have to grow up fast and their trivial interests of money and relationships that apparently led to the murders will quickly seem unimportant in the context of their lives behind concertina wire.

Loving human touch will be nearly non-existent. They most likely won’t have face-to-face contact with people from the outside without being separated by glass and they may spend the next two decades talking to loved ones over a telephone line, even when the loved one is three feet away.

Prison, even minimum security, is highly structured. Things most of us take for granted every day are luxuries in prison.

These girls won’t be able to stay up late if they want or sleep in. They won’t be able to get a glass of milk from the refrigerator, watch a television show on their own TV, or enjoy a quiet book on a grassy hillside.

Depending on where they are incarcerated, they may not even see the sun most of the day and when they do it will likely be through a very narrow window high in the wall of a commons area. They won’t even be able to use the restroom in private.

Most painful of all, both girls will have to face what they have done. It will be hard to escape.

I am always pained when I think about children like this. Even in light of their convictions I know they cannot fully understand how their actions will affect their lives.

They will miss much of what many of us remember most fondly from our youth: the prom, dating, our first job, and high school graduation. They traded this away in a few impulsive minutes.

As they mature, they will become ever more aware of the broad ramifications of taking a life. Grief and remorse could easily overwhelm them.

This will become even more evident as they watch their own child-bearing years slipping away and they will realize they might never have families of their own.

They took life, but they may never be able to give life. This truth won’t fully be realized for years.

As the possibility for parole grows nearer, they will face the truth that much of their lives are gone. At the very earliest, Ketchum will be 30 when she is released and Harvey will be 36.

By age 35, most of us are established in life, we have families, our education is behind us, and we have a clear direction.

These two, assuming they are even granted parole (which will likely be denied the first time), will have almost nothing. They will be starting from scratch: no money, no savings, no social contacts to help them up the ladder of life, minimal job skills, and minimal education. This alone will limit how far they will likely go in life.

However, even facing this dismal future, there is a possibility of rehabilitation. Whether in jail or not, change can only come about when the individual wants it.

In 20 years Harvey and Ketchum will have become what they decide to become. It won’t be the system’s fault, the judge’s fault, or some attorney’s fault.

In 20 years when they look back, whether they will deserve blame for their failure to make the most of the life they had left or accolades because of the growth they have demonstrated, it will be their own based on their own choices.

As he prepared to sentence Harvey, Judge English asked her if she thought 20 years was “a pretty good exchange for killing your grandparents.” Harvey said she thought she should be dead and the judge responded with, “Well, we both agree on that.”

I can’t agree with either one of them. The lust for revenge makes it easy to wish bad things on both girls. They did an awful thing and there must be justice, but I still hold out hope that people can change.

I asked Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard what he thought about the possibility that these girls might one day walk the streets of Fayette County again.

“I’m frightened on several levels,” he said. “I’m personally frightened at the thought that either of these girls being at large unless they change significantly.”

His fear is reasonable, but significant change is indeed possible in 15 or 20 years. I have seen amazing transformations in people just like Harvey and Ketchum.

I have hope that Ketchum will make the best of her circumstances. While she is incarcerated, she can earn her GED and learn a vocation.

Even though in many ways it is harder, there are opportunities in prison life to develop educationally, spiritually, and socially.

Fifteen years from now, she could be a changed woman and might easily fit back into society. Her childhood and early adulthood will be lost, but statistically at age 30 the majority of her life will still lie ahead of her.

My hopes for Harvey are not as bright, but she has identical opportunity. The starting point for both of them is to admit they did an unconscionable act, regardless of the culpability of the other.

From there they can begin a new life. The choice of paths will be their own and no one else’s.