Christopher Plaskon, who was arrested in 2014 for murdering his classmate, Maren Sanchez, was finally convicted on Monday. Plaskon attacked Maren because she turned down his invitation to prom. Plaskon has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Maren’s parents are upset the sentence is not longer. Maren’s father said to the judge, “Someday, he may be able to walk out of prison. My daughter’s not going to be able to walk out of her grave.” Since Plaskon was a minor at the time of the crime, Connecticut state laws say he is eligible for parole in just 13 years.
Unfortunately, sentences like these are all too common — just look at news today. The Stanford rapist, Brock Turner, was sentenced to only six months for raping an unconscious woman. As Maren’s father said, sentences like these send the message “that if you commit a crime as heinous as murder…you’re going to do very little time, you’re going to walk out with a college degree and you have your life back at one point. And it’s not the message that we want to send to the children in our schools when this has become an epidemic throughout the country.”
How can women feel safe in a country whose judicial system supports violence against women? The right to say “no” has been lost. Apparently, a girl can’t even turn down a “promposal” without the risk of being killed for it. People are losing their lives, while those who inflicted the pain upon them are able to go on their lives, not even hiding from what they did. The culture of violence against women needs to end.
Image of Maren Sanchez via Facebook
Image of Christopher Plaskon via NBC Connecticut
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