Somebody else's problem

"And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?
And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?"

Genesis 4:9

I want to write more about responses to crises and social apathy. I mentioned this subject before in my post "Where Altruism Lies," in the section "The Bigger Picture," where I hinted that there may be utilitarian and political reasons for international cooperation to foster a baseline standard of living for all human beings. Here I would like to approach the same discussion from another angle -- what do we become, if we shut our eyes to the value of human life? I stumbled across one example as I prepared for my criminal law class tomorrow morning. And with Professor Robinson's permission, I thought that I would share the story, just as I encountered it in my textbook. A sensitive reader may want to skip this post; the material is very ... powerful.

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The following text is excerpted with the permission of the author, Paul H. Robinson, from his book Criminal Law, Case Studies and Controversies 463-471 (1st ed. 2004).

CAUTION: This true story contains graphic violent and sexual content.

The Case of David Cash

It is Memorial Day weekend, 1997. Best friends Jeremy Strohmeyer and David Cash are seniors at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. Classmates consider Cash smart but socially awkward. He acts cool by spiking his hair and growing sideburns, but he is still baby-faced, short, and interested in subjects like engineering. In contrast, Strohmeyer is outgoing, wild, and worldly, after living in Singapore for several years while his mother was working there. He drinks, has a fake ID, and is very flirtatious. The two have a firm friendship, though, after meeting in computer class during their junior year, just after Strohmeyer returned to the States. Both have aspirations for after graduation. Strohmeyer wants to be an officer in the Air Force, like his adoptive father, and Cash a nuclear engineer.

Strohmeyer is responsible for introducing Cash to the wilder side of high school by taking him to parties and getting him drunk for the first time, even bringing a camcorder to tape the evening. Cash's parents, who are reconciling after being separated for years, are not terribly concerned. They treat Cash leniently because he has always been independent and trustworthy, and his grades remain good. Even when Cash returns home drunk with Strohmeyer, they do not get angry. Strohmeyer also shows off to Cash his upper-class lifestyle, which includes a maid, a jet, and four cars.

Strohmeyer's behavior is increasingly wild and erratic, and his grades have dropped since he returned from Singapore. For example, a teacher who once described him as one of the best students he ever taught has recently changed his mind; he now sees two different sides to Strohmeyer. In school, he is thought of as a hard partier with a violent temper. His Internet sign-in name is "Killer." He also has a secret interest in child pornography. Recently, he had an Internet chat, under the screen name "flyboy1030," where he wrote that he fantasizes about sex with five- or six-year-old girls. He even asked a girlfriend to dress up in a young girl's school uniform and put her hair in pigtails. (She refused.)

Over the past year, Strohmeyer has slowly spiraled into a destructive pattern. He uses drugs more often, drinks frequently, and is taking amphetamines, the combination of which explains his recent behavior at parties. At one, he spit in a jock's face and screamed profanities at a girl after she asked him to leave. On another occasion, he sneaked a kitten out of a host's house and threw it out of a car's window as he drove away. He even incited others to help him throw marshmallows, then books, and finally bottles down a hallway at a party, which he followed up by personally kicking holes in the walls. His parents think he is just going through a typical teenage rebellion stage, while classmates attribute his behavior to extreme senioritis.

Nonetheless, Cash still looks up to Strohmeyer. Strohmeyer is one of the "cool kids," and helps Cash overcome his struggles of trying to fit in by introducing him to people and giving him the chance to hang out with the other "cool kids." Cash sometimes joins Strohmeyer in a big group when it goes cruising the town, which occasionally also includes harassing prostitutes and the homeless. Strohmeyer often brags about smashing eggs in the faces of prostitutes.

Strohmeyer also benefits from his friendship with Cash. As the more impressionable of the two, Cash helps Strohmeyer feel cool by laughing at all of Strohmeyer's jokes and pranks and defending his actions. Cash is also allowed to drive his mother's red Chevrolet convertible, while Strohmeyer's parents never allow him to drive their cars. The two recently used Cash's mother's car for a road trip to UC Berkeley, during which they got their tongues pierced. The university is Cash's top choice. A serious car crash ended their trip, but Strohmeyer's father bailed them out by purchasing them airline tickets back to Long Beach.

For the long Memorial Day weekend, Cash's father invites Strohmeyer along for a trip to Las Vegas as a thank-you to his parents for letting Cash stay with them for three weeks. Cash is looking forward to the trip.

On the evening of Saturday, May 24, 1997, they leave for Las Vegas. On the way, they stop at several towns for food and gas, reaching Primm, on the Nevada border, at midnight. There they visit the Primadonna Casino. Cash's father gives the two some money and tells them to meet up again at 3:00 a.m. He then goes to play poker. Cash and Strohmeyer want to ride Wild Bill's Roller Coaster, but cannot find the entrance. Instead, they end up at another casino and then an arcade. Neither place thrills them, and they eventually make their way back to the Primadonna.

Sitting by the pool, Strohmeyer uses his fake ID to order some drinks. He has a whiskey and Coke, while Cash goes for a strawberry daiquiri. As the night creeps on, they grow restless. At one point, Strohmeyer tries sneaking into the gambling section, but casino security promptly kicks him out. They order more drinks and play arcade games. Strohmeyer starts talking to a girl who he thinks has a nice body. He asks for her beeper number, but she refuses, recalling later that she thought he was creepy. Strohmeyer leaves to get more drinks, but when he returns he keeps trying to talk to her. He tries to impress her by showing off his nipple and tongue piercings. When her mother arrives, they quickly leave.

Cash and Strohmeyer are tired of playing video games and decide to urinate on them to entertain themselves. They quickly become distracted, however, by two young children having a spitball fight. One of their wet paper towels hits Strohmeyer, and he throws it back. He then starts playing with the kids, and they run through the rows of video games.

One of the children is seven-year-old Sherrice Iverson of South Central Los Angeles. Like them, she has grown tired of waiting for her father. Casino security has twice taken her back to her father and she had already fallen asleep in the driver's seat of a video game. She is used to the long nights that the Nevada casinos trips bring, because her father, a diabetic on disability, has "gamblin' fever." While thinking it too dangerous to allow Sherrice to play in front of their house in South Central, he thinks the Primadonna is safe and lets her have the run of the place. Sherrice is generally well cared for; she always sports freshly pressed clothes and neatly braided hair. At age seven, she likes "The Little Mermaid," purple, and jump-roping, but is still afraid of the dark. When she grows up, she wants to be a "nurse, policewoman, model, or dancer." She is less than four feet tall and weighs about forty-six pounds. Her playmate on this night, Strohmeyer, is almost six feet tall and weighs about one hundred fifty pounds.

They continue playing in the arcade for another ten minutes or so, until Sherrice runs into the women's restroom. Strohmeyer gets a drink of water, takes a puff of his cigarette, and follows her in. A few seconds later, Cash follows after him. In the bathroom, Sherrice swings a plastic "Wet Floor" sign at Strohmeyer and he gets angry. He picks her up, placing one of his arms under her armpit with his hand over her mouth, while using the other arm to lift her into the handicap stall, locking the door behind him. He chooses this one because it has more room.

Thinking that the game has gone too far, Cash becomes a little concerned. He tries to get Strohmeyer's attention by standing on the toilet in the stall adjacent to the handicap one. Cash tells him to let Sherrice go and tries to convince him to leave the bathroom. He then starts tapping on Strohmeyer's head to get his attention. Finally, Cash catches Strohmeyer's attention when he knocks off Strohmeyer's "Bruins" hat. Strohmeyer just stares back weirdly, like "he [doesn't] care what [Cash] is saying." After his unsuccessful attempts to get Strohmeyer to stop, Cash gives up. He leaves the arcade and waits for Strohmeyer and his father on a bench in the resort's courtyard.

Strohmeyer notices Cash's intervention, but quickly refocuses on Sherrice. He takes off her boots, followed by her pants and underwear. She screams when he "fingers" her a few times. He notices blood on his index finger. To quiet her down, he puts her on the floor, with her hands pulled around her neck. He holds her in this position for about ten minutes and then puts her on the toilet and begins to masturbate against her body. He thinks she is unconscious but alive.

When women suddenly come into the restroom, Strohmeyer quickly props her up on the toilet and sits on her, so that only his feet show under the stall's door. With people still there, he tries masturbating again, but cannot maintain an erection. Strohmeyer quickly covers her mouth when he hears Sherrice gasping for air.

After the restroom empties, Sherrice is limp. Strohmeyer thinks that it would be cruel to leave Sherrice as she is. He considers her future as a "vegetable" and decides to "put her out of her misery." He tries to break her neck. Despite hearing a loud pop, he sees her still moving, and uses all of his strength to do it again. This time he is convinced that she is dead.

Strohmeyer cleans up by putting Sherrice's boots, pants, and underwear in the toilet. He then wipes his forearm clean of white foam and blood before finally putting Sherrice's legs in the toilet and propping her up so that none of her limbs are visible from under the stall door. Twenty-two minutes after following Sherrice in, Strohmeyer leaves.

As he walks out of the casino, he stays close to the walls of the arcade in an attempt to avoid the security cameras. He meets Cash. On their way to the car, they talk to a valet and show off their piercings. Cash asks Strohmeyer what went on in the bathroom after he left. Looking him straight in the eye, Strohmeyer answers, bluntly, "I killed her." Cash later recalls being shocked by the revelation and having no idea how to react. His only other question of Strohmeyer is whether she was "wet" when he digitally raped her.

Shortly afterwards, Cash's father arrives and they finish driving to Las Vegas, arriving there on the morning of Sunday, May 25. They check into the Holiday Inn at noon. Strohmeyer and Cash play slot machines, drink beer, ride a roller coaster, and check out all the casinos. During their explorations, they discuss what happened at the Primadonna. Cash is convinced they will be caught because of the video surveillance that was all over the resort. He is also worried that they made themselves conspicuous by showing off their piercings and saying that they were from Long Beach. They make a pact not to tell anyone. If caught, they make up various excuses for Strohmeyer to use, ranging from sheer innocence to intoxication to insanity. Early Monday morning, the three arrive back in Long Beach. At the Primadonna, meanwhile, a female employee has found Sherrice's body and has informed the police and the girl's father.

On Tuesday, school is back in session, but Cash sleeps in and skips his classes. He hangs around the house all day and during the five o'clock news sees that there is a videotape of him and Strohmeyer entering and exiting the restroom. Realizing that they will certainly be found, the color drains from his face. He calls Strohmeyer to tell him about the video. Cash watches it again with Strohmeyer. To gain perspective, they decide they need to tell someone about the incident. They tell the whole story to a friend, James Trujillo, in a Kinko's parking lot. When Trujilo does not believe them, Cash tells another friend, Jeremy Philips, who tells Cash to turn Strohmeyer in to the police.

The next day, a classmate, Melissa Ellis, sees the video on television before school. She immediately recognizes the pair, identifying Strohmeyer from his posture and walk and Cash by his sideburns and hair. Strohmeyer and Cash drive to school that day in Cash's mother's red convertible with an LA Times newspaper in the backseat. On the front page of the paper are pictures of the two (stills from the videotape). They talk with Justin Ware, whose mother called him at 10:00 p.m. the night before to see if he recognized the boys in the video. Ware asked them if they really did it; Strohmeyer says he did. Ware is speechless. The pair goes to class and Strohmeyer acts normally the entire day, goofing off and flashing his piercings.

Later, Ellis runs into her friend, Lisa Cota, and finds out that she too recognized Strohmeyer and Cash in the video. They talk to Carmela Rhmyer, who says that Strohmeyer just told her that he and Cash were in Las Vegas over the weekend, but that he was drunk and is innocent. Later, a girl in Ware's class says that the LA Times photo looks like Strohmeyer. Ware tells Strohmeyer about it and asks him what he is going to do. Strohmeyer says, "Nothing," and that another student has already confronted him. Strohmeyer and Cash go to Taco Bell for lunch and make "last supper" jokes throughout the meal. Cash thinks they will be arrested when they return to school. Acting on information from Ellis and Cota, Assistant Principal Greg Mendoza contacts Officer Birdsall about the video. Birdsall interviews the two students and arranges for surveillance on Strohmeyer's house.

Strohmeyer goes home after school, growing increasingly anxious. He calls an ex-girlfriend, Agnes Lee, and asks her to come over. Although she feels ill, she does not want to let him down and goes. They go to Jamba Juice, where she notices that he is nervous and fidgety. She drops him off at his house just as his older sister, Heather, is arriving. He runs back to Lee's car and asks her to stay because he has to tell her something -- that he has done something horrible. He tells her that he strangled a young black girl and asks her to leave the country with him. He also says the girl was sexually molested, but (falsely) blames it on Cash. Lee refuses to flee with him and tells him he deserves to be punished. When she gets back to her house, she sees the video and recognizes Strohmeyer and Cash. Lee calls her father and recounts her conversation with Strohmeyer. Her father immediately calls the Long Beach police. They contact Lee, who warns them of Strohmeyer's temper and desire to leave the country.

By now, Cash has received a phone call from his father, instructing him to stay home. Cash is certain that his father is now aware of their involvement in the crime at the Primadonna. Cash calls Strohmeyer to explain that his father knows and that he will probably be forced to talk to the police. Strohmeyer agrees and says that he understands the situation. He is now aware that he is being watched. He takes his ADD medication off the shelf, empties the bottle into his mouth, and writes a suicide note. He then goes out on the porch to smoke a cigarette while the police sit in their cars, watching patiently. Strohmeyer's sister drops their mother off at home, but he does not want her to see him in this state and scrambles out the door and down the street. He does not make it very far, however, before the police overtake him.

They take him to a community hospital, after his mother alerts them to his drug ingestion. Meanwhile, Cash's father asks Cash if he saw the video. They go to the police department. Cash is scared, thinking, "even though I didn't do anything, I could get into more trouble." The police take his picture and interview him, but do not charge him with a crime. cash goes home to finish homework that is due the next day.

At the hospital, Strohmeyer tells the police he wants to talk and get things out in the open. They inform him of his rights. He tells them that Cash had nothing to do with the murder. Strohmeyer "wanted to experience death." He describes that it was like a dream and he can only remember bits and pieces. After giving a full account of the evening, Strohmeyer adds that he hopes some good will come of his crime, in the form of parents keeping better watch over their children.

At school the next day, Cash is curious whether things will be different and what people's reactions will be. His day is cut short, however, when he is thrown out of class for his project -- a collage of pictures of pierced female genitalia. When he finally returns to school, Cash is shocked to learn that he will not be allowed to participate in his class's graduation or its prom. He is told that his diploma will be sent to him and the cost of his prom tickets refunded.

The story is sensational and the media quickly descends on Cash. They interview him and even pay for the video of him getting drunk for the first time with Strohmeyer. he sells it for $1,500, keeping $500 for himself, and gives the rest to Philips for orchestrating the deal. Cash and Phillips later show up outside the school prom, standing through the sunroof of a limo screaming, "I'm not going." The media cover the stunt heavily, and Cash later recalls that he enjoyed being in the limelight. He later goes with friends to watch a belly-dancing performance at a restaurant.

On Saturday, May 31, Sherrice's funeral is held at Paradise Baptist Church. Her parents are not speaking to each other and both are using Strohmeyer and the Primadonna. (Sherrice's father is also involved in another lawsuit for slander, after a casino official told reporters that the father asked for $100, a six-pack, a hotel room, and payment for Sherrice's funeral, after learning of her death.) The Primadonna files cross-claims and third-party claims against Cash and Strohmeyer. Sherrice's mother says she still dreams about her daughter. Strohmeyer's parents are receiving death threats.

In an interview with the LA Times, Cash says that "if anything, the case has made it easier for [me] to score with women." When asked whether he is angry with Strohmeyer, Cash says no, only that he misses his friend. When asked if he feels sorry for Sherrice Iverson, he says that the "situation sucks in general." He says he feels worse for Strohmeyer because he knows him.

"It is very tragic, okay? But the simple fact remains I do not know this little girl. I do not know starving children in Panama. I do not know people that die of disease in Egypt. The only person I knew in this event was Jeremy Strohmeyer, and I know as his best friend that he had potential. ... I'm sad that I lost a best friend. ... I'm not going to lose sleep over somebody else's problem."

The aftermath: Strohmeyer was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Cash was never charged, and went on to attend UC Berkeley, where other students reportedly shunned any association with him. Nevada passed the Sherrice Iverson Bill, making it a misdemeanor to omit reporting the murder, rape, or sexual assault of a minor 14 years of age or younger.