*the news media and me*
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...239521790.html
Young and troubled - two lives destroyed in a gothic tragedy
By Leonie Lamont
October 26, 2005
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She was a Goth, into body piercings and the heavy metal bands Marilyn Manson and Korn.
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So now all goths are pierced and must listen to Manson and Korn.
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Just days after her 15th birthday she, and a young man she had taken up with only three weeks before, hanged themselves in what police believe was a planned ritual suicide pact.
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This sounds more like a Romeo and Juliet type of story, I think we should blame Shakespeare.
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Yesterday, a deputy state coroner, Dorelle Pinch, was taken into the subculture of Goth, with its overtones of magic, and interest in the hereafter.
Counsel assisting, Ian Bourke, said when the bodies were discovered they were dressed in black Goth style, with markings on their faces and bodies.
"[It included] facial make-up, scratched symbols and markings on their bodies," he said.
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I think I have seen exactly the same type of thing described here: “markings, piercings and scratches” that is at many “biker bars”.
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The two were discovered by the young man's parents, in the granny flat at their home on the South Coast on October 18, 2004. The previous evening, the young man had asked his father for some rope to practise tying knots.
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So the parents paid no attention, and I doubt sincerely that “knot tying” was a normal course of entertainment when you were spending time with your girlfriend… or else the parent’s REALLY aren’t paying attention…
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After clashes with her stepmother and truanting from school, the girl had run away from home and was reported missing to police on September 24. The names of the girl and the young man, 23, and the girl's teenage schoolmates appearing as witnesses, have been suppressed.
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Her parents let her date a 23 year old at the age of 15? Where was this girl’s father?
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The inquest is inquiring into the roles of the school, the Department of Community Services and the police in the circumstances that led to the double suicide.
Police yesterday conceded that there was a "gap" in their procedures in following through an active missing persons case, after the inquest heard that when the case officer went on eight rostered days off, there was no follow-up after a call to the station informing the police of the rough whereabouts of the girl.
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… and the police failed to follow up on an underage missing person’s case, or investigate her known friends… no social worker followed up either with a case INVOLVING an underaged teen!
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The case officer, Senior Constable Ray Potts, said the information should have been acted upon. He said if he had been on duty, he would have doorknocked in the small community where the girl turned out to be.
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Then why didn’t anyone else on the police force?
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Late yesterday, a school friend - a member of a Goth clique at the South Coast high school the girl attended - told the inquest her friend had been into white magic, Wicca, not the dark magic she said some Goths followed.
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Uhmmmm? Hello? There is no white, black, good or bad magic. Magic doesn’t hurt people, people hurt people using it in a harmful manner. And btw, not all ‘Goth’s’ know squat about the occult arts.
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She said while some "heavy Goths" were into self-harm and talked of suicide, it was only once - on the night her friend ran away and came to stay at her house - that she mentioned suicide.
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What exactly is a heavy or light Goth? Reminds me of a carbohydrate commercial. Yogurt Light. Goth Light. Goth “Half and half”.
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"She said that people who cut themselves are stupid because they don't do it deep enough. They just want attention."
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… uh huh…
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The witness agreed there were some heavy Goths in their circle who had harmed themselves.
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Witnesses everywhere will also tell you that there are people in many different groups that will harm themselves.
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She said her friend had been interested in spirituality and the after life, that they read tarot cards at school, and her friend did art projects contrasting religions. Like herself, the girl wore a pentacle, which was "a sign of protection and the Wiccan afterlife".
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I would think spirituality is a good thing. And contrasting religions? EXCELLENT free thinking!
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Mr Bourke told the inquest the man had been in a poor mental state after witnessing a murder in 2000. In a troubled journey through the justice system, he was charged with murder, the charge was dropped, reinstated, and he was ultimately acquitted.
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If you knew he was in a poor mental state, did you do a single thing to try to get him help? Obviously not. And her parents didn’t follow up either to see just who she was dating.
Jolly good! too bad it didn’t have enough meat behind it before all the tragedy happened.
Again, this is what seriously irks me about the media. They take all these items, attempt to put it into context, create a scenario and BAM: “Goth’s” are bad, suicidal, depressed, Satanists who are out to hurt their friends and their lovers. No responsibility put onto the parents for looking out for their own children, no responsibility put on the police for lack of follow up, no responsibility put upon friends to watch out for each other.
So what did we have here? A couple of unhappy people (that shouldn’t even been allowed to date (in my humble opinion)) who fed off each others unhappiness… For the love of God man, there are people out there all over the place. I suppos the mentally ill woman who threw her three children over the bridge into the San Francisco Bay was goth too.
Hmm?