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A selfish act, too terrible for words
© St. Petersburg Times On Dec. 31, at 11:33 p.m., the last baby of the year was born in Hillsborough County. His name was Carson Darnall. On Jan. 1, at 12:03 a.m., the first baby of the year was born in Hillsborough County. His name was Adrian Miguel Trinidad. Both boys. Carl James Ishikawa was also a boy, just 7 months old. On Jan. 2, about 6:20 a.m., he was the first baby murdered in Hillsborough this year. He was killed by his father Carl Erik Ishikawa, who then killed himself. You try to figure this. You think of scores and scores of anxious women sitting in the waiting rooms of fertility doctors, praying for them to work their magic and make them pregnant. You think of the hundreds of couples waiting and waiting for years to adopt. One Tampa adoption lawyer, Anthony Marchese, told me Wednesday he has 100 couples on his list alone. Then a man kills a baby. The police aren't calling this a case of domestic violence. But it has all the signs. It's the ultimate act of domestic violence by a crazy, controlling man. Days before the shooting, Ishikawa argued with Stephen Jones, who appears to have been the new boyfriend of Bobbie Jo Caraballo, Ishikawa's former girlfriend. Wednesday morning, Ishikawa returned to Jones' home in Riverview with guns and a mission. He took the baby, put him down on the driveway and, in front of his ex-girlfriend, shot him. Then Ishikawa ran and shot himself. This is the way it goes in domestic violence cases, although most often it's the woman who dies, not the child. The death of this child is what takes the story of 7-month-old Carl Ishikawa to a new level of horror, for in this case a baby has been reduced to the status of a thing. According to Linda Osmundson, of St. Petersburg's domestic violence shelter, the child's father in cases like this usually doesn't want his ex-lover to have the thing -- remember that, the thing -- she loves most. The father decides that if he can't have the baby, nobody can. "There are variations on this story," Osmundson said. Sometimes the ex-boyfriend keeps a lot of guns. And sometimes he threatens suicide. "That's a red flag." A baby is killed. This isn't the first time. It won't be the last. Women like Linda Osmundson will wring their hands with frustration over why more isn't done. You know the drill. The police should have more money. There should be more publicity. More places for women in trouble to go to. But why do we treat a baby as a thing? What class do you go to get that thinking driven from your head? Somehow I guess baby Carl lived in two worlds, one that was safe and one that was not, with the adults around him praying the two worlds would never collide. The safe home was done up in blue baby elephants, and matching padding on his cradle so he wouldn't get hurt, a place for blocks and trucks. What was the other world? Shouts and loud voices and fear too great for describing? I think of parents who can't bear to see their children grow up and leave, or the ones in the offices of the fertility doctors. What love they could have given a 7-month-old. What a life he'd have had, bicycles and sunlight. -- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or 813-226-3402.
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Times columns today Mary Jo Melone Gary Shelton John Romano Tampa Uncuffed From the Times Metro desk |
