A Michigan jury wiped the smile off Lisa Holland’s face when they found her guilty last Friday of first-degree felony murder and child abuse in the death of her adopted son, Ricky, age 7.
In Michigan, felony murder carries a mandatory life sentence without parole. Formal sentencing is scheduled for November 28.
Holland’s husband, Tim, was found guilty of second-degree murder and faces life in prison with the chance of parole when he is sentenced November 15. Holland never did anything to stop the abuse, which included locking Ricky in the basement, taping him to the refrigerator, and finally beating him to death, because he “loved his wife more than he loved his son”.
According to the Detroit News, “Tim Holland was forced from his job as a civilian intelligence analyst with the Army for downloading pornography and soliciting escorts from his government computer.”
The Holland case has been a cause celebre in Michigan; the state’s Office of the Children’s Ombudsman has investigated the Department of Human Services, but it will not release its report until the County Prosecutor’s office “is done with the case”.
It’s fascinating that even after two convictions, the Children’s Ombudsman will not release its report. I don’t suppose the fact that Republican candidate Dick DeVos has made this an issue in Michigan’s gubernatorial campaign has anything to do with it.
One wants to congratulate the jury as well as the prosecutor. One wonders how the no fewer than two social workers assigned to monitor this little boy’s well-being can sleep at night. One marvels that a grotesque horror like Lisa Holland could have found a man to marry her when so many sane, refined, hard-working women live in not-so-genteel poverty as singles and spinsters. One wonders at a system that considers monsters like Lisa and Tim Holland as fit parents for anyone, let alone permit them to adopt a child and his siblings.
While 7 year old Ricky Holland was left to die in pain over the course of a week, where were all those pious right-to-lifers who literally raised the devil with Congress and the press over a woman whose brain had turned to liquid mush?
Where are the people so financially well-off and trouble-free that they have the time and energy to meddle into areas that are none of their bloody business, like whether a teenager should be able to get an abortion without parental consent, or gay couples who simply want to get married? Why aren’t they in Michigan demonstrating for change rather than picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq?
Why aren’t the Bushes, both Jeb and Dubya, the Frists, the Romneys and the rest of the “family values” crowd campaigning publicly and vigorously for Dick DeVos?
The answer, as you and I know, is money. Little children like Ricky Holland and those who advocate for them can’t capture the attention of politicians the way big companies, powerful labor unions or wealthy evangelical churches can. There is no AARP, Sierra Club or K Street lobbyist dedicated to the welfare of kids, especially throw-away kids.
And where are the business leaders, the heads of charitable foundations, the authors, the playwrights, the actors, the sports figures, and other wealthy, high-profile celebrities who fight diseases in Africa but are oblivious to the needs of children in Michigan, California, New Jersey, Mississippi and the rest of the 50 states? They have been given so much by this culture: why aren’t they giving back even a paltry amount to those of us who need their help so much?
Where are Bill Moyers, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and other members of the intelligentsia? When we are talking about the survival of young children, it seems to me that even their weighty social and moral concerns pale in comparison.
If there were no other reason to ponder on the degeneration of American values, the decadence of American society, and the power of Denial to paralyze even the most gifted and the most privileged of us, this would be cause enough.