Posted on 12/12/2010 5:15:51 AM PST by marktwain
COUNCIL GROVE – She nailed her 16-year-old daughter’s bedroom window shut.
That didn’t work.
She struggled with the girl and her 21-year-old boyfriend to keep her from leaving with him.
That didn’t work either.
So she grabbed her varmint rifle, chambered a round and took aim at the right rear tire as he sped out of their driveway.
Now, high school physics and chemistry teacher and mom Karen Vondemkamp faces two felony counts for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one felony count for aggravated battery in January trial even though, she said she fired into the ground.
“As I aimed at his tire … I just decided not to go ahead and fire at the tire. I thought ‘what if I missed’ … I thought this probably isn’t the right thing to do, so I lowered the gun, and my finger still pulled on the trigger more out of frustration than anything.”
She could spend a year in prison and pay a $100,000 fine and lose her teaching license.
She was trying to stop her daughter, Hannah, from leaving with boyfriend, Justin Allenbaugh April 20. Their home is in rural Morris County just outside Council Grove city limits.
For months Vondemkamp said she told Hannah she could date Allenbaugh only if they were supervised.
She said she told the girl he could hang out that evening at home, and even offered to order pizza.
Apparently upset with those restrictions, Allenbaugh dropped Hannah off.
Vondemkamp confronted her. She said she grabbed Hannah’s arm to turn her around to talk to her, and Hannah flipped her onto the bed. They struggled.
When Vondemkamp left the room, Hannah texted Allenbaugh to call 911. But, he returned to the home, according to court records.
Minutes later Vondemkamp returned to confiscate Hannah’s communication devices.
According to police reports Allenbaugh arrived minutes later. Mother and daughter battled at the front door. Allenbaugh used his foot and “put my weight into the door a little bit.” Vondemkamp was trying to keep the door locked and asked Allenbaugh to go away.
With a 50 lb. weight advantage, Allenbaugh restrained Vondemkamp. Hannah ran to his car.
After Vondemkamp smacked a window on Allenbaugh’s car and asked her daughter not to leave, Allenbaugh restrained Vondemkamp again, which allowed Hannah to walk away.
When he let Vondemkamp go, she ran to get her .223 caliber single-shot rifle. With Hannah perhaps a hundred yards away and the car much closer, Vondemkamp – an experienced hunter — briefly contemplated shooting out a tire.
Council Grove police and the Morris County sheriff never found the bullet.
Allenbaugh admitted in his own testimony to forcefully entering her home and restraining Vondemkamp three times, yet he was never charged.
Vondemkamp’s view is “they kind of ignored everything I said and believed everything they [Hannah and Allenbaugh] said.” She said she wonders what happened to her rights as a parent.
One police report showed Vondemkamp as a victim and Hannah as suspect but apparently was ignored when charges were filed.
The Attorney General’s office accepted the case for prosecution but did not respond to requests for comment.
For more details from police reports and interviews with Vondemkamp and Allenbaugh, read the two-part story:
* Mom’s perspective of felony charges for gun discharge * Mom faces felony charges: perspective of daughter, boyfriend, and law enforcement
Documents cited above
* Kansas Standard Offense Report showing Karen Vondemkamp victim and Hannah Vondemkamp suspect, April 20, 2010. * Partial Transcript of Preliminary Hearing, State of Kansas v. Karen Vondemkamp, June 14, 2010. * Amended Complaint, State of Kansas v. Karen Vondemkamp, June 16, 2010.
My Dad was exactly the same way. He always expected to know exactly where we were going and when we would be home. None of us dated until we were 16. The guy always came in to pick me up; no horn blowing in the driveway. If there was any danger of me being late it was expected for me to call, or else! There were a lot of drive-in eateries when I was dating (like in Happy Days) and it was normal for me to look up and see Dad in his car somewhere watching us. LOL We kept him busy during our teenage years. He had three girls that were two years apart. It was his duty to protect our virtue at any cost or inconvenience. :-)
Age of Consent -- Tennessee's rule on the age of consent, the age at which a girl (or boy) can legally consent to sexual relations is unforgiving. Under T.C.A 39-13-506, if an adult has sex with a minor less than 18 years old, and the adult (anyone older than 18) is at least four years older than the minor, the adult just committed statutory rape, a Class E felony, carrying up to six years in prison. (Though the law is supposed to be applied the same whether the minor is a boy or girl, these situations almost always involve underage girls, so that is what I will refer to.) Now, the unforgiving part of the law is that it makes no difference how old the girl looked, or said she was, or what the man thought her age was -- if she was under age, then sex with her was a felony.
The only exception is if the girl is married to her sexual partner. Then it doesn't matter if she is under age, or if the man she is with (her husband) is more than four years older than she is.
If the girl was between 13 and 14, then her boyfriend could be convicted of Statutory Rape if he was four years older than her, even if he is also a minor. If the girl is less than 13, then she can not consent to have sex with anyone, and sexual contact with the girl is Aggravated Sexual Battery, a class B felony, meaning you could do up to 30 years in prison, even if the girl consented, started it, had previously had sex with others or even was working as a prostitute, and even if you are a minor yourself when you have sex with her.
What this means is that if the girl is between age 13 and 18 she can consent to have sex with someone up to four years older than she is, but for anyone older than that it is statutory rape, and for any girl less than 13, she is too young to consent to having sex with anyone. The sole exception is that if the girl was legally married to her sexual partner at the time they had sex.
When my older daughter was 16, we lived in town and there was three young men renting the house two down and across the street from us.
Anyway she took a liking to this one clean cut young fella and started spending time after school at his house. My wife mentioned this to me so one afternoon when I was driving home, I saw him out washing his car. I pulled up next to, introduced myself as the rancher who lives across the street. We shook hands and I asked how old he was. He replied 21. I told him my daughter was 16 and that she would be allowed to see him one more time, outside in front of his house. He said, “Yessir”. No debate, no angry words, he knew that I knew.
I pulled the horse trailer up against the side of the house and went in for a shower. My daughter was waiting for me when I came out of the bedroom. She thought it was just terrible that I was controlling her life and deciding who she was going to be friends with. I told her he was 21 and looking for a woman not a young girl to be friends with.
Anyway, that was the end of that relationship. About five years later she gave me a hug and said she was glad I cared enough to break off her friendship with the man across the street.
“Could you please tell me what kind of 22 year old male (who would be 4 years out of high school) would be dating a 16 year old female (who would be in the 10th grade in High School)?”
Someone who was sent overseas on behalf of the US Gov’t, and not subject to UCMJ.
And the age of consent in Michigan is 16, by the way.
You have the only sane repsonse on this thread. Todays parents think they can control the little bastards. They better think again. Their precious offspring will put them in the slammer for a long time. Talk big people. An out of control teenager needs to be treated like an adult.
The problem with your idea is what happens AFTER you “let the little twit go” and she returns home pregnant or with a baby in her arms. Few parents can turn their grandchild out. {:0(
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