In the tiny community of Cement, Oklahoma, trees and telephone poles are festooned with pink ribbons. People work tirelessly to collect signatures on petitions. The activity is in support of Billie Joe Powell, a 16-year-old girl charged with fatally shooting her father, who had allegedly abused her. Townspeople hope their efforts will help persuade the court to try the high school sophomore not as an adult but as a juvenile, so that she will receive more lenient treatment.
A few years ago, such sympathy would have been unheard of. Children who killed their parents were the ultimate pariahs. Regarded as evil or mentally ill "bad seeds," they virtually always earned the harshest judgment of the public and the courts. Says psychologist and attorney Charles Patrick Ewing of the State University of New York at Buffalo: "We take the commandment to 'honor thy father and thy mother' very seriously. The implication is that you're supposed to honor your parents even if they abuse you."
That attitude is slowly starting to change. Today youngsters who slay abusive parents are drawing more understanding from a public that has awakened to the national nightmare of child abuse. Last year an estimated 2.7 million youngsters were physically, mentally and sexually assaulted by their parents, % according to the National Center for Prevention of Child Abuse. Despite the prevalence of abuse, parricide remains rare. It accounts for about 2% of all homicides, around 300 cases a year. Most of those involve teenagers who kill abusive parents. Though the numbers are small, these youngsters "open a window on our understanding of child abuse in a way that no one else can," says Los Angeles lawyer Paul Mones, whose practice is devoted to defending children accused of parricide. "They allow us to understand how abuse is incubated."
Sons are more likely than daughters to strike back violently. "Men by and large tend to act outwards and be more aggressive," says Ronald Ebert, senior forensic psychologist at McLean's Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. "Girls tend to internalize pain and blame themselves more." Abused girls often become bulimic or suicidal.
Typically, the child who kills a parent is from 16 to 18 years old, from a white middle-class family. Most have above-average intelligence, although their schoolwork may be below average. They generally are well-adjusted in school and the community, though they tend to be isolated, without many friends. They commonly have had no prior run-in with the law.
Their target is most often the father -- usually a biological or stepparent rather than an adoptive or foster parent -- and the typical weapon is a gun kept in the home. These young people generally do not show any obvious sign of the mental disorders and self-destructive tendencies shared by children who strike out at strangers on the street or at nonabusive parents. In fact, dispatching their tormentor can be seen as an act of sanity, a last-resort effort at self-preservation. "They know what they're doing is wrong," says Dewey Cornell, a forensic psychologist at the University of Virginia. "But they are desperate and helpless, and they don't see alternatives."