Sometimes, as a blogger, you order up the crazy. Sometimes you have to go look for the crazy. And sometimes, like today, a friend lends a hand and brings the crazy to you.  Steve Huff must have known I was running low on the crazy, so he sent over a gift-wrapped parcel of insanity from his blog, True Crime Report. The writeup is mine, but much of the information came from him. Thanks, Steve! – Now With More Delicious Video Goodness!
http://www.myspace.com/my_baby_bianca & http://www.bebo.com/KarraeStarr
Herrin, IL - Bianca Nicole Starr celebrated her third birthday just weeks ago. Thanks to her mother, 18-year-old Karrae Starr, little Bianca will never see four. On Saturday, September 27, police were called to Karrae and Bianca’s apartment. Bianca was unresponsive. A few hours later, Bianca was dead.  The only person at home with the toddler on Saturday was her mother, Karrae.
Karrae Starr never had it easy growing up, and she grew up too fast. She spent time in foster care as a child, and she got pregnant at fourteen. At fifteen, she had Bianca.  Still, though, Karrae had managed to go to high school at Carbondale High School from 2005 to 2007. She also got into the nursing program at John A. Logan College. While Karrae went to school, Bianca went to the campus daycare, where she was known as a bright, sociable preschooler.
Karrae’s friends are in shock. No way could she have killed her child, they say. And Karrae’s Myspace and Bebo pages seem to bear that out. Multiple proud pictures of Bianca grace Karrae’s internet presence. There’s not a lot of “O I Luv Mii Boiifrenn” in Karrae’s blogs, either. In fact, Karrae described herself as bi, or possibly gay. She wasn’t totally sure yet where she was in terms of sexual orientation, but she was pretty sure that the stuff she’d already tried wasn’t working for her.
Overall, I found Karrae’s internet presence to be caring toward her child, a little pseudo-tough-cool, and….young. For example, her Myspace headline reads: “If you really want to know I am the REAL CRAZY BITCH! and dont forget it.”
At eighteen, many teenagers can’t keep their bedrooms clean, much less provide for a child. Karrae seemed to be getting her shit together, and trying to keep it there. But, like Karrae’s mother Dierdre Gibbs said at Steve’s site, “People say alot of stuff on myspace , it doesn’t mean its tru. You can be anyone you want to be on the internet as I am sure you know.”
Yeah, we know, Deirdre. We totally know.
Karrae’s neighbors described Bianca as a child who would ask them for ice cream or other treats, and they would happily oblige the pretty toddler. One neighbor told police that she saw Bianca huddled underneath a table the day before her death. The neighbor remarked that it seemed odd for such a small child to look so depressed. Other neighbors noted that Karrae had begun drinking heavily, even though she was three years too young to drink legally. And Karrae herself noted in a blog entry that she had lost custody of Bianca for a time in 2007.
Karrae’s family blames “the system” for Bianca’s death. I’m not sure why. The system didn’t place its hand over Bianca’s nose and mouth until the baby died, spewing blood and foam from her burst lung tissue all over the system. Nope, that was Karrae Starr who suffocated her daughter for entire minutes at a time, getting her baby’s blood all over herself.
Some will say Karrae snapped from the pressure of single, young parenthood and its attendant poverty. Others will say that Bianca was quite verbal and may have thrown a temper tantrum or mouthed off to her mother until Karrae snapped. Still others (*coughkarrae’sgrandmacough*) will call Bianca’s death a “drunken accident”.  I have never been so drunk that I could hurt my child. I have never been so angry that I could clamp my hand over a baby’s face and wait the two to four minutes it takes to kill a toddler who is struggling to breathe, looking into her face, watching the pain as her lung tissue blows, the panic as her body tries desperately to get air, the messiness and horror of a murderous death as the life leaves the face of a child. Nope, I just don’t have it in me.
But Karrae Starr did.
Karrae Starr is being held at the Williamson County Jail, where she is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. She was in court Monday for arraignment, and her bond was set at $500,000 or $50,000 cash. She’ll be back in court on October 6 for another hearing.
Rest in peace, baby girl. I’m sorry your family failed you. I’m sorry your mother killed you.
Tags: Child Abuse, Illinois, Murder
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