The room fell in stunned silence, as if the very air had been stolen. So clutched at their chests or mouths, as though physically bracing themselves against the weight of the revelation while others stood statue-still.
To most, it was unthinkable that a child of eleven could do sothing so horrific.
"What do you an by saying that an eleven year old child pushed you down the stairs and murdered? Did he really do it intentionally? We are talking about a kid, right? I have so many questions racing in my mind." Grandma Mayfair blinked rapidly.
"It's exactly like I said before, I was murdered by a child." Doctor Arica spoke with firmness, pressing firmness on the word murdered.
"Goodness gracious! Was he ntally ill or sothing?" Claire leaned forward.
This was her conclusion because doctor Arica was well known for her work with troubled teens. She had a good reputation in her ability to reform them.
Arica let out a pronounced sigh. "It's a long story maybe I should start from the beginning."
"I agree." Phoebe nodded once.
David sent Roxanne a text, instructing her to look into the dead doctor Arica's young patients and their parents. Grandma Mayfair steeled her heart for yet another story on another horrible human being, Shark sent Jones a ssage telling him to find the case file on Arica's death and Claire grabbed her muffin.
Arica floated to Claire's desk and sat down.
"Throughout my career, I have seen a lot of disturbed clients especially adults, the children and teenagers most were just impulsive and acting out. With so guidance, structure and boundaries, they were reford easily.
One hot afternoon a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock walked into my office, seeking for my help. Initially I thought that one of them was the client but I was wrong. They were worried about their nine year old son that was acting odd. Apparently he was anti social and had no friends.
He had quite the temper and once angered, he would act out in the most violent ways. His mother had a bruise on her left eye and a broken arm. She had a lot of the signs of dostic violence but rather than the husband being the abuser it was the son.
The father was hesitant to admit these things but i have a one hundred percent open policy rule with any potential clients. If they hide important secrets from , i refer them to soone else.
They had no choice but to tell everything about their son. He was erratic at tis and struggled to maintain any form of a social relationship because other kids were afraid of him. They arranged play dates, camps nothing worked.
At the play ground, he would just sit and watched other kids without playing and if he played, his gas were violent or high risk often resulting in the injury of other children.
Instead of cartoons he liked to watch adult content, especially violent programs and even his choice of gas was the sa.
His favorite TV shows were those docuntaries about murders. The sight of blood excited him greatly to the extent that he cut his younger sister on the arm just to see her bleed."
Not unexpectedly, there were gasps around the office.
"Yeah, okay, he is a weirdo alright." Connie interrupted only to be shushed by the adults in the room.
"Keep going miss Arica." Grandma Mayfair told the ghost she was already invested in the story.
Arica moved from the desk and hovered just above it. "You should understand that I had dealt with antisocial kids before but not with one that was interested in murders, I certainly didn't think things would escalate.
I knew that the child had a problem right away so I agreed to see him and make an assessnt, I even freed my schedule just to squeeze them in the following day. The Whitlock's ca back to my office with the boy, Humphrey Whitlock.
Mind you I did my own digging after eting them and it turned out that i was not the first psychologist that they had gone to, they had been to see two other psychologists that i called up. They could not reveal his information of course but one did tell that it was a case of a child that was acting out and overly worried parents.
According to him, the father was simply on a mission to pump the kid with mood stabilizers. In his words, boys would be boys, Humphrey Whitlock just needed a firm hand and more physical activities to keep him away from television.
I listened but i prefer to make my own judgents. On seeing Humphrey, he was the exact opposite of what his parents had described him to be. He was sweet, charming and very likeable. He wore clean clothes with nothing about his appearance out of order.
He appeared to be very normal and simply curious about the world. He even addressed his parents worries about his taste in TV shows, claiming that he wanted to be the world's greatest detective.
As we talked i gradually started to realize that Humphrey was very cunning, he never said anything without thinking of how it would be perceived. He was cautious and his answers were too perfect like they had been rehearsed.
I discovered later on that he has an Intelligence quotient of 214, one of the highest in the world.
On that day however, i realized why to others he was a normal kid, he was a well practiced liar putting up a show.
Through the evaluation his eyes remained fixed on , with a plastic smile on his lips like it had been planted there. At that age, the kid was trying to manipulate ." Arica paused and swallowed deeply.
"He already sounds dangerous." Grandma Mayfair made the sign of the cross.
Arica nodded "More than dangerous I can assure you, when I finished evaluating him. I explained my concerns to the parents and advised that he be committed to the institute for a while.
Humphrey looked fine on the outside but their was a darkness lurking inside him. He clearly displayed a lack of empathy, manipulative, risk taking behavior and behaving erratically. I was all but ready to tell the parents that their son was a psychopath.
His mother insulted and called all sorts of nas but his father on the other hand agreed with , Mr Whitlock went ahead to reveal that their livestock was dying mysteriously and they looked like they had been tortured.
Mrs Whitlock argued that it wasn't Humphrey, she went on to say that it had to be the wild dogs in the area. In her opinion all he needed was socialize with other children and be normal.
They had a heated discussion during which ti Mrs. Whitlock shed many tears and accused her husband of wanting to ruin their son's future. If people heard that he had ntal issues or if he ended up with this on his record, his life could be considered to be over.
I on the other hand was more worried about other people than Humphrey."
Phoebe pulled her brows together. "The killing of animals?" She asked.
"Yes, but not just that, during the argunt, Mr.Whitlock reminded his wife that the boy started by killing roaches, then birds, then his sister's cat, then their livestock. To it seed like his urge to kill had grown bigger after every kill.
It was almost as though he was graduating from smaller prey to bigger one How long then would it take until he progressed to humans?"
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