Have you heard this one? A family feud leads to a mother cyber-bullying the family of dying 7 year old girl. Worse then that, her and her husband taunt the child by driving around with a coffin in their truck, honking the horn and telling the kid “I can’t wait until you die.” This happened in Trenton, MI a suburb of Detroit and you can read the article here. And I haven’t mentioned the worst stuff.
The article was released last week and Jennifer Petkov, The Devil of Detroit Street, has already apologized for what she has done. What is impressive is, again, the cyber-response against this woman and her family. Facebook pages have gone up and come down already. Death threats, job threat and school threats to this woman’s family members. ‘They’ have organized a rally for the dying child and her family on October 23rd.
What strikes me is the indecency of what this woman has done. So if the internet not existed, would she have apologized? Had other news agencies not picked up this story would the world even know about this? Had I not selected ‘ABC News’ for my igoogle portal, would I even be aware of this story? And if you hadn’t gone to my webpage, would you be aware of this story? But should this story even exist?
This story hits me personally due to my own story. When my parents died in February of 1975, we were out of school for that week. The following Monday my brothers and sisters and I went back to school. The sixth graders lined up outside on the concrete stairway to a main entrance to the school on that freezing February morning. Patches of ice had formed in the alcove and boys, being boys, began sliding on these patches of ice. Sliding turned into pushing. And, inevitably, someone got hurt. I had pushed a boy who slipped, fell and hit his head on the iron railing. He was obviously in a lot of pain, and he struck back – verbally – “Too bad what happened to your old lady.”
You could hear the hush of the other kids. I could hear the frozen words echo, “to your old lady” in my head. The doors opened and the sixth graders filed inside. The boy I pushed didn’t cry but we could see he was trying not to. I didn’t cry, but I had fight not to. Over thirty years now, those frozen words still echo, and I still fight against crying.
Eight words and thirty year seems like a long time to hold on to something. How long do you hang on to seeing your dying daughter’s face over cross bones or your dead wife’s face hugging the Grim Reaper last?
A sixth grade boy hurt by another sixth boy’s poor judgement can lash out with evil spiteful words but its a reaction to pain – and he’s only 13 years old. A mother Photoshops a dead wife/mother’s face with the Grim Reaper and posts it on Facebook? This neighbor taunts a dying 7 year old girl – “I can’t wait until you die.”
The Devil’s husband Scott says his wife’s “brutal honesty” has caused his family to “not get along with a lot of people.” “Brutal honesty”? Is there some truth that this woman is speaking that this dying child needs to hear? Is there some lesson this family needs to be taught? Isn’t the death in a family reason enough to back off of your feud? Doesn’t watching a second death unfold in the same family cause you to pause? to reflect on what’s really going on? You can only wonder how people justify their bad behavior to themselves.
The internet has gotten hold of her story and backlash, as you can imagine, has been harsh, immediate and quick. They have give the spending spree at a toy store. They are organized a rally for her.
And the Devil? She’s been arrested for trying run a neighbor over with her car, and has two of her own kids taken away. You can call that Karma, Justice or God’s Will. But Kathleen Edward will never forget the words and the actions of that devil – even if she could live until she was 50, or even a 100, trust me.