Murder in Des Moines Iowa

"Stop! I can't breathe! You're killing me!" "That's the whole f-ing point! You're not gonna f-- my daughter!" How the young girl who related the last verbal altercation between Matthew Stegman and Robert "Wolf" Meyers knew what they'd said is a curiosity in itself, but probably does not bear much importance. This is not so much about a murder, a tragedy which never should have happened, as it is about family dynamics in a dysfunctional environment. The environment that is based on such concepts as "rules and laws do not apply" and "it does not matter who or what is harmed or destroyed in order to get what one wants" does not merely allow tragedies-- it sets the stage for them.

Matthew Stegman's murder was the result of a rumor which had no basis in fact. But even though the first of his accused killers has recently stood trial and been sentenced to life in prison, Terry Williams's delusions about "mind-reading" had less to do with the eighteen-year-old's death than did Robert Meyers's self-perceptions. In plain language, the planning and carrying out of this murder was based on Meyers's self-perceived role, a role to which he had no right, as the 'daughter' he was allegedly protecting and defending was merely the teenager of a middle-aged woman whom he had recently begun to 'date.' In the locale, where such terminology is tossed around at will, in the chaos and confusion as to what constitutes roles in people's lives, with no one daring to assert that it is 'wrong,' lives are thrown into an uproar, destroyed, and, in this particular instance, ended.

As in the case of Robert Meyers, who unfortunately is far from unique, it is commonplace for those who did not have what it takes to have and raise a family of their own to simply claim a place in someone else's. It is widespread-- those who either wasted their youth with "partying" or other selfish pursuits, or those who did have children but left them for someone else, anyone but themselves, to raise, to go on to assert roles which do not belong to them. The first point which creeped me out was that although I had only met Robert Meyers and Matt Stegman briefly, a couple of years apart in time, each was doing the same as the other: showing off pictures of their young sons. While Matt's only comment about his little boy was that he "wasn't big enough" to take to the downtown free-meals site, Meyers's involvement in his own child's life was generally limited to complaining about the individual he referred to simply as "my baby's mom." And, in the ways of the locale, going on to claim his latest girlfriend's kid as his 'daughter.' While having no information about the others connected to this case, the consequence is two little boys who will grow up without their fathers-- yet no one sees the screwed up family dynamics in this locale as the central cause.

The last time I saw Matt Stegman he was trotting down Walnut Street a couple of paces behind Robert Meyers-- the kid who did not look or act to be more than fifteen, acting as if Meyers was his hero. Less than two days later Matt was found dead, beaten and stabbed to death in a local cemetery by Meyers and four of his other "friends," Looking back, the question stood-- when they were walking along together that afternoon, had Meyers and the others already decided to murder him?

Family dynamics in a dysfunctional environment-- why was an eighteen-year-old kid living with this group? One of the recent newspaper accounts stated that he referred to them as and considered them as his "family." Negative influences in the form of peers is bad enough; but not nearly as much of a ticking-time-bomb as when a youngster goes outside of his family, connecting with older people, mistakenly thinking them to be his peers. Where were all of their parents-- not only during the time immediately preceding the murder, but in the years prior? What type of home-base were any of them providing for all of these kids-- not only a teenaged murder victim and his killers, but the swarms of young people in this city who appear as rootless little leaves in the wind? Years ago the first thought was "these poor kids- they do not have parents, they do not have homes.." that perhaps their parents were dead or had abandoned them; but that was only a mistaken first-impression. The vast majority of these kids in their teens and twenties have parents, have homes, but "choose" to not be there; they "choose" to crash with friends, stay in shelters, roam the streets, with most of the older generation so caught up in this lifestyle that they really do not understand it. Parents who have dumped their infants in daycares and left their kids to "everyone else" to raise should not be surprised fifteen or twenty years later when their kids refuse to listen to them, hold no respect for them, and consider them to be little more than strangers. Parents who have given their kids the message that they care more about money and acquiring possessions than they do about their own children should not be surprised when their kids come of age without growing up, and have no values. So-called adults who conduct their lives on "rules and laws do not apply" and "do as you will" should not be surprised that they are breeding yet another generation who believe "there is no such thing as right or wrong." I was told people here do not need anyone 'shoving Morality down the throat of Iowa'-- but perhaps that's exactly what they do need. You can hear the same crap from young people and the middle-aged; you can hear the same crap from 'Wiccans' and 'Fundamentalists;' all in an endless refrain of "nobody can tell me what to do-- that's Control!"

Control. Allegedly one of the "dirtiest words" in this type of environment. The thirteen-year-old who was basically a bystander in this drama was drawn in at the heart of it by being in situations where she had no place being, and by the same assertions of 'do as you will.' Matt Stegman had done nothing wrong; this girl verified that fact, albeit too late to really matter. This tragedy would not have happened had the word 'parent' had its intended meaning, and had the individual whom that role belonged to actually filled it. We must, though, take into consideration that in such an environment the word 'parent' is not considered to belong to one who has earned it by bringing a child into the world and overseeing the child's upbringing; nor is it said to mean anything beyond its monetary concerns. The individual instead was griping that her thirteen-year-old daughter was 'putting hickeys on the necks of twenty-year-old men'-- but, by-george, she could not forbid such a thing, because that would be "control"! Perhaps Iowa should get its head out of its ass and realize the word 'parent' is also intended to be a verb. Instead, a couple of older boys were cautioning the girl that she should not wear such tight revealing clothes, for people would get the wrong idea; and her response, said through a huge grin with a mouthful of metal braces: "That's why I like them!"

But in an environment where the middle-aged boast of their lawlessness, their sexual exploits, their addictions, how can any better be expected of the younger generation-- from whom do they receive guidance, from whom do they receive the information that there is indeed a difference between right and wrong when their elders are insisting there is not? But to assert that there is anything wrong with, or even abnormal about this lifestyle, would be like trying to explain a rainbow to a blind man-- as those who were born to it and those who "transplanted" and absorbed this environment as if it were their own, can see nothing beyond it, no frame of reference to see that this dysfunction and this chaos is not "real life." And for those who believe that it is, years on down the line when the two fatherless little boys are old enough to understand, go ahead and tell them that all of this is somehow "acceptable..."

As the first of the accused killers was scheduled to stand trial, locals began clamoring "Death penalty! Death penalty!" One life has already been ended far too soon and for no purpose; what gain would there be by ending yet more lives? While those who planned and carried out the murder are accountable for their actions, they are the products of their environment, they are the products of their upbringing. In their twenty-plus years of life, did anyone ever even tell them there's a difference between right and wrong?