CHILD MURDER: THE POLLY KLAAS AND SUSAN SMITH CASES
This research paper compares and contrasts two of the most celebrated American child murder cases of the 1990s --the kidnapping and brutal slaying of 12 year old Polly Klaas in Petaluma, California by Richard Davis in October 1993 and the deliberate drowning by Susan Smith of her two sons, three year old Michael and 14 months-old Alexander, on the outskirts of Union, South Carolina on October 25, 1994.
Because of the helplessness of the victims of child murders, the grisly details of their slaying and the suffering and trauma involved, public attention in the United States has often been riveted on, and shocked by, child murders. Berg (1998) said the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne in 1932 "affected every parent and child in America" (p. 249). The 1935 trial of Bruno Hauptman for the crime was a media circus. Berg said that because Hauptman's confession probably resulted from an illegal police beating and the evidence of his guilt was marginal, "debate about the case has never stopped" (p. 334). Criminal responsibility for the recent slaying of six year old Jon Benet Ramsey in Colorado in her parents' home has not yet been established but has attracted enormous and sometimes sensational media coverage.
Richard Davis confessed on April 30, 1994 that he kidnapped Polly Klaas from her home and strangled her to death with a rope.
He was convicted by a Santa Clara County (San Jose, California) jury on July 18, 1996 of first degree murder with special circumstances and of kidnapping, robbery, burglary and attempted commission of a lewd act on a minor. He was sentenced to death and is awaiting execution on Death Row.
Nature, circumstances and motivation for the murder. Davis broke into the Klaas home with a knife. While Polly's mother slept in an adjoining room, Davis bound two other young girls who were participatin...