Well, as you said, the father of the two-year-old was on drugs. Too bad no one else in the complex kept an eye on her.

As for the woman — I don’t want to sound heartless, but any female who voluntarily leaves any place with two men who are strangers to her is not sane. There are too many incidences of this type of thing going wrong for anyone to claim they didn’t know better.

I don’t understand it as well. Why that woman trusted those men and why the men did whatever they did to her is baffling, but between her father and the evil that lurks that poor baby didn’t seem to have a chance.

The world is pretty much as it always has been. We just hear more about it.

One time I asked a police officer friend that joined in the late 60's if there is an increase in these kinds of crimes. He said no the level is steady, they just were not publicized as they are now. Between social media and sensationalized tv reporting the news of these crimes spreads farther and more rapidly.

And since they are more publicized, you would think adults would make better choices.

The adult woman did leave a bar, so there's a good chance her poor decision was made while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

All this stuff has been going on as long as I can remember. But in the case of a woman being assaulted by strange men met in a bar, it wasn't publicized because women knew they would be branded as cheap and asking for it back in the day, even by the police.

I too think these sorts of awful deeds are not new. But Glenda it's good that evil still bothers you. It shows you're not numb. You and all of us need to strive to protect the innocent ... that's part of being human, too.

I've been reading old newspapers from the last couple of hundred years. I've been amazed by how much went on. People got away with more because they didn't have our technology.

It's heartbreaking... then and now. Some of our local stories have made international news. No place is really safe. There is just an illusion of safe.

I'm thinking maybe the woman was an addict, addicts will sometimes do anything for their next high depending on what they are on. They risk their lives all the time for drugs if they are on heroin or some other highly addictive drug.

I've been following the case here in Texas, where the woman from Houston, killed the woman from Austin...supposedly her best friend...to steal her baby. That is so evil. I can't even wrap my mind around that.

I have to agree with all of the above- it certainly does make one wonder what the world has come to.

If the woman was "roofied", it would appear that she left with the men willingly although that would not at all be the case.

It's usually just poor decisions, but there was a recent case in Chicago where women at a certain bar were drugged, then raped in the back alley. One woman came forward after reading of another's plight. She'd been with gal friends; had ONE drink (which she said she had kept her eye on); blacked out; was being raped in the alley when her friends thought she'd just decided to go home. None of it made any sense to her until she read the subsequent story.

I think one of the most common catalysts is a drug of some kind. When I was young and dating in the late fifties and sixties. I never knew anyone that used pot. Had a pretty diverse group of friends and hung out in large groups. Today, most news reports include mention of drugs and or alcohol as being involved in the violence. I live in a rural area, the high school has many people on the security staff because of drugs. Grateful our 4 grandkids used good judgement.

I don't understand either. Similar case in KY, young mother, who just had twins weeks before, leaves a bar in Lexington with 2 men. They found her body on the property owned by one of the men's parents or grandparents months later. Very sad. Totally preventable. Such a waste and heartbreak for her family.

Of course it has been going on for longer than we can imagine and yes, everything is publicized from everywhere now. There is evil everywhere and everyone needs to be aware of their surroundings at all times, especially young people when out at night.

Katrina Ellen, that is very presumptuous to assume she was an addict. Unless you have read something to that effect, that is also very judgmental.

The remains of Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney tested positive for methamphetamine and Trazodone, an anti-depressant used to treat insomnia, after the 3-year-old’s body was found 10 days after her abduction

As a teenager in the 60's there was drugs & sex & cigarettes & liquor everywhere and not just in the big cities. When we graduated and started working we all had fast cars, partied hard and hung out with fast boys (and girls) ... but I don't remember hearing about murders or rapes (although I'm sure they were out there). I don't really understand why things now are just so violent and sadistic. I know this may sound odd, but we really did have some integrity and were the first to make sure someone was taken care of if they were doing something that might hurt them (or someone else) or get themselves in trouble. We were also very active and did alot of activities like camping, swimming, skiing, hiking, golfing ... very accessible & affordable back then despite our low wages. We didn't have cell phones or computers & life just seemed less competitive & stressful. We never doubted for a moment that we wouldn't have a job or buy a house or meet someone to love. I'm not sure that everyone thinks like that anymore. I don't know if that has anything to do with the 'climate' out there today but it certainly can't help.

Glenda....it's ALL very disturbing. It's like you can't "unhear" these things. Thinking about it all makes it so REAL and VIVID.

My father, sister, brother in law, nephew and husband were all police officers. The stories I heard over the years, of some of the calls they handled, are heartbreaking. The same horrid assaults and murders happened even back in the 50's when my father first joined the police department, but the media capability was obviously far less reaching than today.

Today, fortunately, many crimes are easier to solve, with so many surveillance cameras mounted in and on buildings, bridges, and over roads, as well as easily traceable cell phone, computer and banking histories, DNA forensics, and social media, to advertise and share the suspect's photo. Unfortunately, even with all that, nothing deters the motivation of a person with an evil mind and no soul.

We have to do a better job of recognizing a mentally ill child, before they become a mentally ill teenager, then a mentally ill adult. No child comes out of the womb with an urge to harm. But whether a person's mental illness truly developed from a physiological defect in the mood/impulse area of their brain, or a psychological aberration, stemming from a history of inhumane or perverted 'nurturing,' matters not. The end result will be the same, if we can't catch any signs of skewed thinking in childhood, in time to reverse the mindset before it becomes ingrained, and leads to deviant, catastrophic behaviour.

Very interesting, amicus. I have a question though. You said that no child comes out of the womb with an urge to harm - how do we know that all “urge to harm” is learned behavior and not hereditary?

I don’t mean to argue but am curious. I know some adoptees who are light-years away from their parents in the ways they think and act, even though they were adopted as infants.

littlebug, sorry, I must have written in a way that was misconstrued. I wasn't stating that an 'urge to harm' is learned behaviour. In fact, it only is if a person, (usually a child) was constantly exposed to inhumane, cruel or aberrant behaviour, which would technically fall under the category of 'nurture' (but obviously in a very unhealthy, non 'nurturing' way.)

I too believe that an 'urge to harm' can be hereditary, if a genetic defect in the mood/impulse area of the brain, causing 'Antisocial Personality Disorder' is passed down, and manifests in a personality lacking empathy and remorse, with a strong proclivity for aggression.

Of course there is always the third possibility, where a person has a brain disorder that was neither inherited from parents, grandparents, etc., nor due to their upbringing, but simply occurred for the first time in them, either from a congenital anomaly, or caused by drugs or another thought altering process, that damaged their brain's ability to differentiate between right and wrong.

So in essence, no matter HOW the person's brain/thought process became aberrant, they might have been helped if their skewed thinking had been recognized in its very early stages. No infants are born sociopaths or psychopaths, is what I meant. They only may develop either personality disorder as they grow, due to one of the causes I mentioned above, if no treatment or intervention is given while their mental development is still forming. We need to find a way to see the reg flags earlier.

I don't really understand why things now are just so violent and sadistic

One of the most wildly popular TV shows of the past years was filled with graphic depictions of misogynistic, sadistic violence. We didn't bat an eye, accepting in it the name of entertainment.

I really have no idea if things are worse - they seem to be, judging from the local newspaper (murders and shootings, over even trivial matters like an argument over a parking space, are definitely increasing here) - but if they are, or if the nature of the crimes are indeed becoming more violent, how can we continue to close our eyes to the "violence as entertainment" that we are consuming from a young age now?

Why oh why did she do this? She had to be intoxicated.

The body was found in a shallow grave behind a house in Hueytown, according to Trussville Police Detective Ben Short.

Police were led to the house after developing information on Thursday.

Houston, 29, lived in Trussville, about 15 minutes from Birmingham. She was last seen leaving the Tin Roof bar with two heavyset black men, according to police.

According to a Facebook post by her mother, Charlaine Houston, Paighton Houston texted a coworker who accompanied her to the bar “if I call answer, I don’t know these people and I feel in trouble.”

A sad but expected ending (after so many days) to close the uncertainty. What a shame. The background of the story doesn't suggest that this poor woman had particularly good judgement.

I think people are no more sketchy, no more erratic in their behavior, and no more violent than they've always been. But our society has changed for the worse. Drugs are more available, guns are more available, more people are living in unfortunate economic circumstances, these tend to encourage and exacerbate bad judgement and antisocial behavior in people. And popular culture fosters and amplifies the coverage of cases that in earlier days would have remained as just local news.