MOREAU — If you made me king for a day or two, stealing childhood would become a crime.
If nothing else, the charge would add a decade or so to the 47-year sentence handed to Craig N. Ross Jr., who, as most of you will know, kidnapped a 9-year-old girl from Moreau Lake State Park last fall and sexually assaulted her — one of the most heinous and horrible crimes imaginable, one that riveted these region’s attention as the desperate search for the stolen girl continued.
I don’t want to say that Ross ruined the girl’s childhood or her life. In fact, a few of my prayers on Sunday will be dedicated to hoping the girl has as good a childhood and life as possible, and her remarkable court statement, read at the Wednesday sentencing by Saratoga County Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Buckley, suggests she’s determined to do just that. Ross didn’t steal her spirit.
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“I was in prison for two and a half days, and now you will be in prison for 47 years,” the girl wrote. “Years will pass, and as my life goes on getting better, yours will be getting worse. You will crumble and I will be standing tall.”
Ross didn't steal her spirit, thank God. Here’s more from the girl:
“Your happiness will be taken away from you like my happiness was taken away from me. I was very depressed when I was held hostage by you. I was lonely, sad, angry, upset and none of these are good feelings. And now you will feel the feelings I felt.”
The girl was wearing a Pokémon shirt, blue pants and black Crocs when she went for a bike ride at about 6:15 p.m. on a Saturday in the state park where her family was camping. Moreau, as I’ve said before, is one of this region’s wonderful places, with a lovely little beach on the west side of the lake where children splash and build castles in the sand. It’s a place that felt safe, where children roamed with freedom and got to be kids.
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Because of Ross' crime, fewer children will feel that freedom, most likely, at Moreau and elsewhere. He stole childhood, and not just from his victim.
Yes, you can tell parents that such crimes are exceptionally rare, and they are. But statistics don’t calm the anxiety that parents feel in their bellies. If something so heinous can happen at a place like Moreau, parents can justifiably fear their kids aren’t safe anywhere.
So children stay inside. They play video games or surf the internet. Childhood wanes.
There’s a new book by a New York University sociologist that’s getting a lot of attention. In “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt amply demonstrates that our children are in trouble, as evidenced by rising rates of depression, anxiety and suicide. Something is going terribly wrong, he contends. Something has changed.
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Haidt points the finger at smartphones and the internet, arguing both are bad for developing brains and destructive to childhood, the teenage years included. But receiving less attention is Haidt’s simultaneous assertion that American children suffer from paranoid parenting, excessive fears about stranger danger, and moms and dads who hover like mosquitoes.
Kids don’t play outside enough. They don’t experience independence, Haidt says. They spend too little time in the physical world and too much time in a virtual, online world that’s dangerous and devastating to their mental health.
I think Haidt’s assertions are dead right, which explains why the thieving of childhood would be a criminal act in my kingdom. It may not seem that way, but the parents of the 9-year-old kidnapped at Moreau were allowing her a freedom that should be an everyday part of childhood. Ross took advantage.
“Why did you do what you did?” the girl wrote in her victim-impact statement, asking the question many of us have, though there can be no satisfying answer. There is no justification, after all, for an act so evil.
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Ross, who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and predatory sexual assault, will be 93 when he’s first eligible for parole. The girl, who loves to sing and loves all wildlife, even snakes, said she wants to write books and be a therapist when she grows up. She said she’s going to have a family and thrive, despite what Ross did.
“I have no fear of you anymore,” the girl wrote. “We are living in different directions, you living in a bad way and me living my normal life. You may not ever breathe free air again. But I will breathe it until my last breath.”
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