Monday, August 10, 1998
Cashing in on tragedy illuminates society’s problems
WITNESS: Quest for profit goes too far, but curious public
partially to blame
For over a year now, Jeremy Strohmeyer, 19, has been in jail,
charged with the kidnapping, sexual assault and first-degree murder
of 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson. Strohmeyer’s best friend, David
Cash Jr., says that he was present when Strohmeyer, he alleges,
hauled Sherrice into a bathroom stall at the Primadonna Hotel in
Nevada. Now Cash has discovered that witnessing a crime can make
one rich.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Cash alleges that Jeremy
picked up Sherrice and carried her into a handicap stall while
muffling her screams with his hand. Cash went on to say that he was
curious about what Jeremy was doing and entered an adjacent stall
in the bathroom. Cash told the Los Angeles Times that he peered
over the wall of an adjacent stall and tapped Strohmeyer on the
head while calling his name, but Strohmeyer simply gave him a look
and continued assaulting Sherrice.
Cash said that he spent only two minutes in the bathroom,
returned outside and sat on a bench for 24 minutes. Cash told the
Los Angeles Times that when he asked his friend what happened,
Strohmeyer responded, "I killed her." Sherrice Iverson was dead in
a handicap stall at the Primadonna Hotel, and David Cash Jr. said
he witnessed Jeremy Strohmeyer bring her there.
Strohmeyer is currently residing in a jail cell in Nevada where
he is held without bail and awaits his trial later this year. David
Cash Jr. is implicated only as a witness.
"Witnessing a crime doesn’t make you a part of it," District
Attorney Stewart Bell said to the Las Vegas Sun. "There has to be
some conduct in which you participate in the crime. If he did
something that promoted the crime, then he might be charged."
The Los Angeles Times reported that Cash has expressed an
interest in possibly negotiating a movie deal once his friend’s
trial gets underway.
"I’m no idiot," said David Cash Jr. to the Long Beach
Press-Telegram. "I’ll get my money out of this."
As the week of Strohmeyer’s arrest came to a close, the media
blitzed Cash’s home. Cash told the Las Vegas Sun that a
representative from a movie studio offered him $21,000 for the
rights to his story. According to the Los Angeles Times, Cash sold
a video of him getting drunk with Strohmeyer to the television show
"Extra" for $1,500.
Cash seems to be waiting for the media to pay attention to him.
He can then sell his story for a large amount of money.
But Cash should spend time feeling sympathy for the victim and
her family, not making money off of them. "I’m not going to get
upset over somebody else’s life," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I
just worry about myself first. I’m not going to lose sleep over
somebody else’s problems."
Any money Cash makes from Iverson’s death will be stained,
because it is born from the tragic loss of another. Selling the
story does not honor or appreciate the Sherrice Iverson’s short
life, but rather focuses on her last moments at a hotel, almost
certainly the most horrific events in her entire life. If the deal
is similar to any television movie deal common to these stories,
Cash will not be doing good for anyone except the curious.
As though the police report and testimony were not brutally
detailed enough, the Iverson family might see their own daughter’s
death on the small screen of television – or worse, the big screen
of a movie theater. The sum of money Cash receives for his story
cannot make up for the pain and agony Cash will inflict on the
hearts of the Iverson family.
Cash’s potential influx of dollars doesn’t stop at just selling
his story. With the news of the homicide, Woodrow Wilson High
School in Long Beach prohibited Cash from attending prom, his final
days of class and graduation.
"I’ll sue them eventually. They deprived me of two weeks of
education. I figure I’ll probably get a couple of million off that.
I’m entitled to my education," Cash told the Long Beach
Press-Telegram.
In fact, Cash is entitled to his education and to the fruits of
his labor for working hard in his years at Woodrow Wilson High
School – so he should be able to sue.
Some people not only want to keep Cash from making money off the
homicide but also want him kicked out of school. Cash is now a
nuclear engineering student at UC Berkeley. Local radio talk show
hosts Tim Conway Jr. and Doug Steckler traveled with a bus full of
people to UC Berkeley to protest Cash’s enrollment in the
university. They want him or the chancellor to be removed from
Berkeley to make amends for the death of Sherrice Iverson. But Cash
is not the suspect in this case.
Perhaps a small amount of shame should be placed on Berkeley for
admitting a student based only on academic achievements and
ignoring issues of character. Yet Cash is a very intelligent
person, someone who excelled in high school. Cash was exceptional
in mathematics and science and carried a 3.8 grade point average.
An honor student such as himself fits in the university. He was an
intelligent young man with honors before and after the death of
Sherrice Iverson, and his being a witness does not change that.
Cash should not be able to gain financially, but he has a right
to his education and other benefits that come from his
notoriety.
For example, Cash says that his fame from being on television
has made it extremely easy for him to find girls interested in him
at Berkeley. This is similar to prisoners striking up romances
through letters with people on the outside. Society seems to have a
fascination with crime, and this is the side effect. If Cash is
able to use his status to indirectly score with women because they
are oddly interested in him, there is no reason why he shouldn’t be
able to benefit.
David Cash should be able to live like an average student, but
he should not make money off of anything he may have seen in the
women’s restroom on May 25, 1997. If anyone should get money for
the death, it should be the Iverson family.
Although suing the school district would hurt a state system
already suffering budget problems, Woodrow Wilson High should not
have restricted Cash from his rewards for working diligently
throughout high school. Since he has committed no crime, Cash has
the right to an education and to a social life.
But by selling his story, Cash sort of sells Sherrice’s soul –
people will forever remember her tragic death, rather than her
person. Let’s not forget she was a little girl before being a rape
and homicide victim.
Michael Yan suddenly became opinionated over the past week. If
you disagree or agree with Yan you can e-mail him. Also e-mail him
conspiracy theories for his next possible article, "The
conspiracies UCLA students believe in." His e-mail address is
meyan@ucla.edu.