News & Views

Samuel Markus DyeA 61-year-old woman was attacked in her South Carolina home at 4 a.m. by a 20-year-old man who mounted her in her sleep and began hitting her in the head with a hammer. Terrible, right? Random instances of violence always are, particularly when they involve defenseless, unsuspecting people.

But this horrific story has an even more unbelievable twist: the assailant was her grandson, who also attempted to rape the matriarch of his family because he was having trouble getting a girlfriend and was determined to “get some.” When his grandmother pleaded with Samuel Markus Dye to pray with her, he knocked her in the head with the hammer again and exposed himself to her.

Dye’s father heard her screams and managed to pull his son off of his mother. 

There are horrific crimes and there are crimes that make you wonder whether the world is really coming to an end. When young, viral men start trying to sexually assault their own grandmothers because their dating lives aren’t going the way they want them to, that’s a sign that something is completely and totally off in the universe. Depravity is on the loose.

But there has to be more to the story. I need there to be more to the story. Because between random shootings in sacred houses of worship and unsuspecting crowds just taking in a movie at their local theater, murderous terrorist plots and bullying violence, the media will have us believe that folks are just going bonkers left and right. And its effects could unfold anytime, anywhere. In the grocery store. At an elementary school. On the grounds of an amusement park. Every day, average goings-on and every day, average people turned upside down by the manic craziness of one other person.

Otherwise it means that too many of us are walking around mentally unstable, rapidly depleting time bombs who make everywhere is a dangerous to be—including your own bed in the middle of the night.

I don’t know how this woman can and will recover from this, not just physically but emotionally, too. Not only did she experience the horror of the attack, but the perversion of a grandson determined to sexually violate her, even with his own father in the house. More details will unfold in the case, but it’s the media’s job to tell us what they are, to help us at least try to understand why things like this happen, what the build-up was to this kind of depravity.

In the meantime, Dye wouldn’t pray with his grandmother—clearly he was too far gone to—but I will. Goodness gracious.

Do you think the media does a good job of giving us the whole truth?