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for Ana Mauldin
Mar. 26th, 2008 03:42 pmA Galveston jury sentenced Joshua Mauldin to 25 years for his crime. Mauldin put his daughter in a microwave and turned it on, giving her third degree burns.
I remember being at work when this was reported. I didn't get the call, but the story was around the cubes fast. That's what would happen, when something terrible would happen. It gets easier to bear if you can talk about it with someone who understands that things happen that no sane person could ever even dream. A few days later I stood with a couple of my unit members reading the paper, how the child's mother posted on her MySpace page about how the Devil was responsible, the Devil was trying to hurt her husband because of his calling to be a preacher. We looked at each other with cynical smiles. Someone pointed out the parents were both not even twenty and from Arkansas. Far away from home, living in a motel, no money and no jobs and a two month old baby to take care of. It was easy for us to trace the path, to know when it might have just been too much in a situation so full of risk.
I remember being at work when this was reported. I didn't get the call, but the story was around the cubes fast. That's what would happen, when something terrible would happen. It gets easier to bear if you can talk about it with someone who understands that things happen that no sane person could ever even dream. A few days later I stood with a couple of my unit members reading the paper, how the child's mother posted on her MySpace page about how the Devil was responsible, the Devil was trying to hurt her husband because of his calling to be a preacher. We looked at each other with cynical smiles. Someone pointed out the parents were both not even twenty and from Arkansas. Far away from home, living in a motel, no money and no jobs and a two month old baby to take care of. It was easy for us to trace the path, to know when it might have just been too much in a situation so full of risk.