Child killer's marijuana link

[Tom]

SMOKING marijuana drove Timothy Kosowicz mad and he strangled an angelic little girl - but a judge blames the failings of our society.

 

A court heard yesterday that Kosowicz, 23, had used the drug since he was 12 and for the past five years was in and out of hospital with "voices in his head".

 

Despite admitting killing Chloe Hoson, 5, in a western Sydney caravan park, the Supreme Court yesterday found him not guilty by reason of mental illness.

 

Yesterday's finding reopened the debate about the mental damage caused by long-term cannabis use.

 

The court heard Kosowicz strangled, sexually assaulted then dumped Chloe's body in a creek in November 2003 after she knocked over a "bowl of pot" in his cabin.

 

"This seems to be yet another example of the link between cannabis use and mental illness, a link which from my judicial experience and reading I regard as well-established," acting Justice David Patten said.

 

Doctors diagnosed Kosowicz as a dangerous psychotic drug-user in December 1999 but he was frequently discharged from hospitals.

 

"I find it difficult to escape the conclusion that the community failed Chloe," Justice Patten said.

 

"In spite of all this, he was repeatedly let back into the community after short periods of treatment.

 

"The outcome was catastrophic in the extreme."

 

Outside court, Chloe's grieving father Michael Hoson said: "I feel sorry for the families this is going to continue to happen to in future if something doesn't change."

 

Chloe's mother Karina Louise Beharrell said she "deals with the loss of her daughter every day".

 

Chloe was living with her parents and two younger siblings in a mobile home at Lansdowne Caravan Park on the Hume Highway, Lansvale, on November 7, 2003, when she went missing. At 8am the following day her body was found naked from the waist down on the bank of a creek about 200m from her home.

 

The court heard Kosowicz "lost the plot" when Chloe spilt his marijuana while playing at his cabin.

 

The court heard that Kosowicz told police after his arrest that Chloe came to his cabin about 1.30pm asking if she could play with his cat.

 

"I gave her some stickers and said she could have them and as she was cutting them up she spilt my pot on the ground," he told police in a taped interview. "At that I lost the plot, I dunno what ... I blacked out and the next thing you know ... I was strangling her in my bedroom."

 

Justice Patten was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt Kosowicz had intentionally killed Chloe. But on one count of murder and one of interfering with her dead body he found him not guilty due to mental illness.

 

He ordered Kosowicz be held at Long Bay prison hospital until the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal deemed him no longer a danger.

 

Author:By Angela Kamper

Date:25mar05

Source:news.com.au

Copyright:© Sunday Times

 

[Pure]

It is a very sad thing what happened but really it's unfair for them to blame the pot for this , what about the mental health system he had already been in and out of for years , they should be fixing these peopel not dosing them for a days worth of meds and sendign em on thier way

 

 

I have spilled bowls , I have had animals spill bowls aswell , hell I watched an ounce of meth that was unpaid for be flushed buy my mum when I was younger but I never struck out or got violent with any of these people , the dude was loopy and fucked in the head plain and simple , to blame the bowl of weed is a cop out imo

[Tom]

The courts don't accept alcohol as an excuse any more so it looks like mj is the thing to blame things in the hope of getting a lighter sentence, if a young child tips the mull onto the floor (happens a bit around here) then it is not the fault of the child but that of the smoker for leaving it where the curious child can reach it.

 

It also really pisses me off that the judge allowed it as an excuse for murder and paedophilia. :angry:

 

[Jim666]

This makes me sick! there is absolutely no excuse for doing that. i Have spilt many bowls of pot before and it just isnt somethin that is worth getting angry over it can be fixed. I had a similar experience to what pure had by watching my mum flush an ounce of bud down the loo! i paid for it and to me at the time it was alot of money i was shitty but it isnt worth being violent over. like i said there is absolutely no excuse for hurting a little girl! If he has metal issues he should be getting proper help at a hospital! This shit gives all stoners a bad name when really it isnt about the weed at all...its just terrible i feel for the little girl and her family.

 

Jim

[jonbrown]

Yeah that is just so wrong... Poor girl and her family and friends. What a dickhead.. People who do stuff like that get me very angry. Angry that they could do something so evil, to someone so harmless and innocecnt. That person surely will never be able to live with themselves again? I mean how do you clear your conscience of a crime like that?

 

I hope the rapist murdering fuck gets hammered in jail.

 

 

ps) pure, how much was that mth werth? a grand?

[bluntman_77]

A court heard yesterday that Kosowicz, 23, had used the drug since he was 12 and for the past five years was in and out of hospital with "voices in his head".

 

"This seems to be yet another example of the link between cannabis use and mental illness, a link which from my judicial experience and reading I regard as well-established," acting Justice David Patten said.

 

if by well established he means beat up in the media over and over again then thats true . But I would have assumed a murder trial would have required some form of credible scientific evidence .

 

however if he hears voices in his head after smoking a cone hes probably severely schitzophrenic , with or with out pot and therefore its kind of hard to say lock him up and kill him if he does have a serious mental condition .

 

but rather than attack the mental health service and its total faluire and the government which has practically destroyed it through neglect and non funding he is obviously pushing an anti cannibas agenda as a smoke screen for the real issue of the complete lack of mental health services in this country .

[Amnesiac]

That's just bloody wrong :sly

 

 

How could they prove that it wasn't motivated by hate for the child? or if in fact it wasn't a pre-planned thing?

 

 

Regardless of his mental condition I still reckon he should cop whatever it is coming to him.... he did the crime (a very evil crime) and should fairly do the time and suffer the appropriate sentencing.

 

 

And what of the poor young girl? where's the justice....

[boomstix]

*peter tosh voice*

he don't even have to start to mention

he gon' to get an indefinite detention

 

i think there is some confusion that he got a light sentence

"He ordered Kosowicz be held at Long Bay prison hospital until the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal deemed him no longer a danger."

 

that will be a very long time, a lot longer than he would have got if he hadn't plead insane.

he doesn't have a release date, so they can hold him forever.

 

also i don't think the judge was blaming pot.

he was saying the guy was nuts, from being nuts, and that pot isn't good for people with mental health issues. that's how i saw it anyway.

[Pa-uul]

The portrayal of that whole story in the media enraged me. I wondered why the journalists always emphasized the "knock over the bowl of marijuana" part. So what, what the physical trigger was? Maybe she spilled a drink, but they wouldn't have emphasised that. For the judge to say that "in his readings and experience" etc marijuana causes psychosis, is irresponsible when he has no health qualifications (presumably). What is he a one-man statistics gatherer? It is pure bias there.

Did you hear the video-taped confession from Kosowicz to the police. It made me think the whole thing was a government psy-op (psychological operation) designed to bolster support for prohibition of cannabis. It was weird. Say the following with a really spasticated/retarded voice: "She knocked down fa bouw o’ mauawana. Next.. fing I knew I wash shtrangwing her. I doun know waa happened… I juss bwacked out."

First suspicious thing here is since when do schizophrenic people talk with a retarded accent? With most schizophrenic people you meet you wouldn't know had the disease unless they told you so. They sound normal. Second suspicious thing is that, for a guy who supposedly blacked out to the point where he raped and murdered a little girl he remembered the pot incident remarkably well. Third is how the police confession, especially the part damning marijuana use, was then rushed so efficiently to the awaiting corporate media conglomerate for endless airing. Fourthly, the media emphasised judge Patten's remarks of his link between marijuana and schizophrenia as part of similar package across all networks and print media. Fifthly, schizophrenic people are not very likely to be more violent… so the whole thing reeks of "psy-op".

Of course the more important observations are that marijuana doesn't cause violence or black-outs or even schizophrenia or psychosis of any kind at any age, despite the latest propaganda.

Don't think that psy-ops like this don't happen in Australia, it happens in every country in every era and they don't mind killing people or raping little girls (if that happened at all in this case).

To "60 Minutes" and "Today Tonight" really: GO SCREW YOURSELFS!! Propagandists!!!

[WantDaChronic]

The court heard Kosowicz strangled, sexually assaulted then dumped Chloe's body in a creek in November 2003 after she knocked over a "bowl of pot" in his cabin.

 

if i were the judge, he would be in prison, not a mental ward i can understand the blackout and strangling her because of his schizophrenia but when he proceeded to rape and then dump her body, he was full well in controll of his actions and deserves to be punished