Remembering Jesse Dirkhising

Editor's note: The following column is not appropriate reading material for children. It is not for squeamish adults. It contains graphic details of a heinous crime.

In the news business, you've got to have a strong stomach.

It's like being a cop.

You get to see the darkest side of a dark world. And what you see, hear and read is often unforgettable – and not in a good way.

The case of 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising continues to haunt me since I first wrote about it 10 years ago – before anyone else in the national press.

Jesse Dirkhising

The details of the crime in Prairie Grove, Ark., Sept. 26, 1999, were chilling enough before I read more than I cared to read in the affidavit filed the next day. This is not an easy story to write nor read about. Be warned.

Joshua Macave Brown and David Don Carpenter were found guilty in the murder and rape of Jesse Dirkhising. The pair were convicted of drugging the boy, raping him repeatedly and killing him by asphyxiation.

If you have the stomach for it, here are the shocking details of what the police investigation found.

About 5 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 26, two patrolmen from the Rogers, Ark., police department responded to a call to assist an ambulance crew at the home of Brown and Carpenter. When they arrived, they encountered Carpenter, who kept repeating: "He's not breathing!" Brown stood in a hallway, according to police, completely naked, holding a flashlight and a telephone.

The officers observed a young, naked male subject, later identified as Jesse Dirkhising, on the floor in the middle of the room, next to a mattress. His genitals and abdomen were covered with feces. His mouth was blue. He had a weak pulse, but did not appear to be breathing. One of the officers noticed that his right hand was wrapped in duct tape.

When Brown was asked about the tape, he explained that they were just playing a game.

An empty prescription bottle was on the mattress. Some pills and a razor blade were spotted on a mirror at the front entrance. Paramedics took Jesse to the emergency room where he was pronounced dead at 5:30 a.m.

During police questioning, Brown explained that he and Jesse frequently tied each other up, though not for sexual purposes. But on this one occasion, he said, he decided to sneak up on the boy, tie his hands behind his back, shove underwear in his mouth and bind him with duct tape. He then placed a T-shirt over the boy's head, but checked to ensure his nostrils were not blocked. After all, this was only a game.

He placed belts around Jesse's knees and ankles to hold his legs together. He then untied his wrists and secured them to opposite sides of the mattress. He positioned Jesse on his stomach, placing pillows under him before penetrating his anus with various items, including three fingers of his hand, his penis, a cucumber, a sausage and a douche bottle. Brown told police he also prepared and administered an enema for the victim, using his own urine as a liquid.

Brown then positioned a cucumber so that it was slightly penetrating Jesse's anus and secured it with tape. He went to the kitchen where he took a lunch break from his fun and games. When he returned to the bedroom, he found Jesse was not breathing. Brown says he pulled the T-shirt off Jesse's head, cut the tape and a bandanna used to secure his gag and removed the underwear from his mouth.

Before calling 911, Carpenter says he attempted to administer CPR.

A search of the premises later turned up numerous small green pills, various forms of prescription medicine, including the controlled substance amitriptyline, a heavy sedative used to treat depression. Two cucumbers, one covered in petroleum jelly, the other in feces were found in the bedroom. A tube-shaped sausage, a crushed banana and a plastic disposable douche bottle with applicator secured in place with duct tape were found among numerous items used in bondage – belts, more duct tape, strapping tape, handcuffs, nylon rope, a rubber jump rope and electrical cord.

In the living room, detectives found a computer and related equipment still running. When the monitor was turned on, a program entitled "Medical Drug Reference 4.0" was running. A note written to "Baby" was found. "Baby," detectives learned, was a term of endearment Carpenter used to refer to Brown, his live-in lover. The note listed three types of prescription pills, advice on forcing someone to take them, positioning pillows beneath a male subject in a certain way and a threat to sexually assault someone for the next 14 hours. The note included a diagram depicting a person on a bed, face down, bound in tape.

And this is where it really gets interesting. It appears Jesse Dirkhising was not the only victim of these fiends.

Another letter describes seeing "Baby's little 10-year-old blond whore" at her bus stop in the morning. The note graphically describes how "Davie" can envision "Baby" engaging in various sexual acts with her. Another handwritten text describes a man giving a 9-year-old girl a glass of milk with a drug mixed in and laughing out loud about it, knowing that, in 20 minutes, the drug would render her helpless. It then describes in detail the man having the girl masturbate and perform oral sex on him.

Brown says when he had sex with Jesse, Carpenter stood in the doorway naked and masturbated.

Just so you don't think you're safe from such monsters outside of Arkansas, consider that the pair previously lived in three other states in the previous two years and that Carpenter lived in 26 different states and boasted of having friends in all 50.

But, fear not. This is just a homosexual rape and murder – not a "hate crime." No. This was just fun and games that got a little out of hand.

I thought perhaps the attention the Jesse Dirkhising story received in 1999 might lead some people to have second thoughts about our nation's embrace of the homosexual lifestyle. I'm sorry to say it did not.

The last decade has witnessed the capitulation of America to the "queer agenda." We're headed for a moral collapse that will make our economic downturn look like a cakewalk by comparison.

Ten years ago, I wrote: "Remember how the nation stood riveted to the details of a hideous murder that took place in Wyoming when a homosexual was tortured to death? Never mind that the crime had little or nothing to do with the victim's sexual proclivities. Uh-uh. That didn't matter. This was a hate crime. New laws were needed. New brainwashing programs must be introduced into the schools. New sensitivity outreach projects were required by all media outlets. Bill Clinton sounded off. Janet Reno chimed in.

"And then there was Jesse Dirkhising. There was no hand wringing, no candlelight marches, no national news coverage for the 13-year-old victim of homosexual rape and murder. No presidential proclamations – even though the heinous crime took place in his home state."

Jesse Dirkhising was brutally raped, tortured and murdered – for fun, for thrills, for the hell of it, because it felt good, maybe even because a certain politically protected lifestyle has been elevated to virtual sainthood.

But that wasn't a "hate crime" – not under the law. Jesse Dirkhising was just a 13-year-old boy, not a member of a politically protected class of Americans. And that's the way so-called "hate crimes" work.

I don't know how many more Jesse Dirkhisings there have been since 1999, but I do know a day doesn't go by any longer that there isn't news of adults having sex with children.

I also know a day hasn't gone by when I haven't thought about the suffering and humiliation that poor boy experienced at the hands of those animals.