Like Yeardley Love three years ago, a beautiful, promising college student has been found dead in her dorm room, the victim of an apparent attack (allegedly) by her boyfriend. Alexandra Kogut was a freshman at the College of Brockport in New York. Her worried mother contacted campus police after she couldn't find her and they found her dead in her dorm, beaten and bruised.
It's a horrific story no matter who the victim is, but when she is a young college student, so lovely and full of promise, it's especially upsetting. The man who allegedly confessed to her murder, Clayton Whittemore, 21, was also a college student at Utica and was visiting his girlfriend at her school.
He was a star athlete. She was a beautiful, younger girl. It seems like the perfect high school/college match, right? Wrong. Obviously.
This is the classic wolf in sheep’s clothing story and it's also one we see again and again. This entitled golden boy who thinks he can do no wrong (like George Huguely) who has succeeded in everything except, perhaps, this love. He just goes crazy. Now, Whittemore hasn't been convicted, but if he did this crime, then he and Huguely are both important lessons for women: don’t judge a book by its pretty cover.
More from The Stir: Teens Reportedly Beat Mentally Challenged Woman & Videotape the Horrific Attack
Most of us older women might (hopefully) know this by now. But teens still need to learn it. It doesn't matter how many trophies the guy has or how romantic he seems, if you have any questions at all, you speak up. The only clue Kogut left was a cryptic Twitter message: “Should've known.” We may never know what she meant by that.
We do know this: A promising young woman is dead before she even had the chance to spread her wings. Again. Enough is enough. Dating violence is just as real as domestic violence and it's hurting people younger and younger. My heart just breaks for her frantic mother. I can only imagine what she feels.
Do stories like these make you worry about our daughters a little bit more?
Image via Thell/Flickr
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Comments 7
I agree DV is affecting younger women more and more. The D now, is for dorm. I pray for my daughter who wishes to attend college away.
Makes me glad I don't have a daughter, though having a son makes me worry about motorcycles, fast cars and girls who don't use birth control and the draft (was in high school during Vietnam, trust me when I say it could happen again). I think girls have to be a lot more careful than they did when I was young, and it's scary. Date rape drugs--you name it, it would have me worried sick. My boy is staying home the first two years of college, will live with us and go to community college, then can go to university for the last two years. I want him to grow up a little before he leaves home. Eighteen year-olds don't always use the best judgement--wish I had been a little older when I left home.
I noticed that the sexualization of young girls was rampant by advertisers at the behest of corporations and the medical industry.
I heard advertising for breast augmentation on a pop radio station that my young teen nieces were listening to.
At the same time young boys are taught to idolize athletes and music artists and unfortunately there are plenty of examples of domestic violence among this lauded group. The videos now seen on tv are mostly half nude women fawning over a masterful, menacing man. Simulated sex in many cases.
Yea do you think the average young person could identify a Rhodes Scholar ?
It's just such a sad story, lives young and promising, gone before they've even started, this world is full of evil people, they come in all shapes and sizes, how is anyone suppose to know good from evil - especially if you are the sort of person that looks for the best in people, not judging a book by its cover, so tell me what saves you? Just luck and fate? sad and dishearting - I have 2 daughters and I pray for every night that they get whereever they are going safeand home safely - what el can a mother do without going insane with the thought of "who and what are really is our neighbors, my kids friends, their families, their neighbors - it's just overwhelming to think about as a parent, daughter or son, is there a difference? We as parent love them all until their old and gray, they're still our babies, and sadly enough we can't protect them all the time and everywhere