Just Another ...
by: Jon Crane

Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 1, No. 20 (September 26, 1998)

In May of 1997, at the Prima Donna Casino (in Nevada near the California state line), Jeremy Strohmeyer, 18, followed a 7-year-girl, Sherrice Iverson, into the a women's restroom. Some minutes later his friend, David Cash, 19, went looking for him.

Cash found Strohmeyer in a stall struggling with the little girl. He had his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams as he attempted to molest her. When Cash asked his friend to stop, Strohmeyer just stared at him. As he later told the grand jury, Strohmeyer just looked at him, "like he didn't care what I was saying."

And for Cash, that was the end of it. He left the restroom and waited for Strohmeyer to finish. He did not try to intervene further, nor did he attempt to summon help. When Strohmeyer emerged from the bathroom, Cash asked him what had happened. "I killed her," said Strohmeyer and went on to describe the incident, according to Cash's testimony to the grand jury.

An hour or so later, the body of Sherrice, her neck broken, was found stuffed in a toilet bowl.

Jeremy Strohmeyer is now serving a life sentence in prison. But what of David Cash? What penalty was assigned to him as he idly stood by while a child was being molested and murdered? Nothing. He entered the University of California at Berkeley this fall like any other freshman. When asked by a reporter from the Los Angeles Times why he seemed "unrepentant", Cash replied that he wasn't going to "lose sleep" over someone else's problems.

He is actually looking forward to any financial opportunities which may follow. As he told another newspaper, "I'm no idiot. I'll (expletive) get my money out of this." An idiot? No. A cold, dead heart? You be the judge.

How did we get here? What brought us to this point? Where is moral outrage at this incident? Not just the fact that a pedophile molested and killed a child--that is, sadly, too common an occurrence. What background, or lack of it; what kind of upbringing could produce a David Cash? Are there souls that are totally God-less?

The press and public opinion has been dominated in recent weeks with the Clinton affair. Moral indignation and outrage has poured loudly from every level of society because--now get this for something novel--a 50-ish man had an affair with a 20-ish woman. Add something really new: he lied about it.

In the first case, a dead heart stands by while a child is molested and murdered and, in the aftermath, loses no sleep for something that is "someone else's problem." Why aren't there expanded news shows covering this crime? Where are the legal, social and psychological pundits expounding on someone like David Cash? Well, I know a rhetorical question when I write one. After all, Sherrice Iverson is just another dead child.

I read the other day that David Cash was spotted by a man purchasing something in a convenience store near the university he attends. The man approached him and asked if he was Cash. When Cash said he was, the man spit in his face. To the man who did the spitting: A grateful nation thanks you.

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