Dear Editor,

The Maxo Tido murder case has finally come to an end. Almost 10 years after the senseless, brutal murder of 16-year-old Donnell Conover.
I am satisfied that the Crown has proven its case against the number one suspect in this tragic case, Maxo Tido.
Tido admitted that he was with Conover on the night of her death but maintained that he had nothing to do with her murder. His only crime, he said, was that he did not make sure Conover got home safe that night.
While Tido escaped the hangman's noose, he will likely spend the rest of his natural life at Her Majesty's Prisons, Fox Hill.
I listened with keen interest as it was revealed to the court by his probation officer that Tido was abandoned by his mother. It was also revealed that Tido's father was not a part of his upbringing.
Apparently, both of his parents had left him to fend for himself. The revelation of his mother abandoning him is not all that common in this country. What is all too common, however, is the fact that many Bahamian fathers are siring children but are leaving the mothers of their offsprings to fend for themselves.
The problem of delinquent, deadbeat fathers has been plaguing The Bahamas for decades. According to one analyst, since 1976, more than 60 percent of the children born in The Bahamas were born out of wedlock.
Tido, like so many thousands of Bahamians, is just another statistic. I recently heard a psychologist tell the media that more and more Bahamian women are opting to raise their children out of wedlock.
She said Bahamian women are more independent today than they were in the '70s, '60s and '50s. Women are better educated than men in this country. Bahamian women tend to value higher education more than men do. They are able to obtain well paying jobs. However, despite the many strides Bahamian women have made over the past 30 years, a mother can never replace the role of a father in the home.
American comedian Bill Cosby wrote the following in his book "Fatherhood": ''The mother may be doing 90 percent of the disciplining, but the father still must have full time acceptance of all children. He must never say, 'Get these kids out of here; I'm trying to watch TV.' If he ever does start saying this, he is liable to see one of his kids on the six o'clock news.''
American serial murderer Charles Manson was also abandoned by his father. Manson may have never seen his biological father who historians believe to have been Colonel Walker Scott (1910-1954). Manson left his mother at age 14 after years of being neglected and abused by her. She was a 16-year-old prostitute when she had him.
According to one American writer, Manson never had a place to call home or a real family. He spent his childhood being sent from one place to another and trouble always seemed to follow him. At an early age Manson began his criminal career because he never had a loving, stable home. His mother, who was alleged to have been an alcoholic, sold her son to a childless waitress for a pitcher of beer. He was later retrieved by an uncle.
By the time Manson and his followers, the Manson 'Family', were arrested in late 1969 for their killing spree in California, he had already spent half of his life in jail and reform school.
Many young impressionable persons who lack a strong family structure tend to gravitate to gangs and cult groups where they think they will get the love, nurture and security that they never got at home. The Manson Family was no exception.
Manson, according to one writer, believed in 'Helter Skelter' - an apocalyptic race war. The term Helter Skelter was taken from a song written by the Beatles. It means absolute chaos - to lack organization and order. Manson wanted, in his own words, to create a little chaos and to make people's heads turn.
I think that many of the chronic felons terrorizing the city of Nassau are attempting to create chaos. These criminally minded people are usually the products of dysfunctional homes, where the father is - for all intents and purposes - absent.
They know absolutely nothing about going to PTA meetings or taking their sons to the ball park to play baseball or to the beach for a picnic. They know absolutely nothing about disciplining their children when they go astray.
How many fathers in this country take their children to Sunday school or to church? How many of them take the time to assist their children with their homework? How many fathers tell their children that they love them on a regular basis?
I believe that had Tido's parents raised him in a stable, loving home his life would have been radically different. Perhaps he would have been a productive citizen of this country. He might have been a member of Parliament or a senator. Perhaps he might have been a businessman with a successful barbershop in Nassau.
But now he will have to spend half a century behind bars reflecting on his mistake and on what might have been. To be sure, had his parents raised him the way God wanted them to, young Conover would probably still be alive today.
We can point the finger at the prime minister or the minister of national security as much as we want for the helter skelter the capital is presently experiencing, but I believe the fathers of this nation must share some of the blame for the high crime wave that is gripping Nassau. Irresponsible, deadbeat fathers have created a generation of troubled and criminally-minded children. These neglected, abandoned children are responsible for much of the carnage in this country. Until Bahamian fathers start fulfilling their God-given roles in the home, we will continue to be challenged with a crime crisis.

- Kevin Evans

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