Talk:Death of Samantha Reid

Latest comment: 2 years ago by 23mason in topic Describing the victimizing crime

Quality

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As I stated in my edit summary the wording of the article as well as the sentence structure are not of near high enough quality for an ecnyclopdia entry and seriously compromise Wikipedia's integrity. Now, we need an expert familiar with this cime and its tragic results to completely rewrite this stub. Thank you. Best Regards, Signaturebrendel 06:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Since the above comment was made in July 2006, the article has been almost completely rewritten, yet I still only consider it to be a Start class article because the lack of reliable sources means the statements made in the article cannot be verified. Because this article documents the circumstances leading to the death of a young person it should be treated like it was a biography of a living person and cite its sources. A strict reading of Wikipedia BLP policy would suggest this article should be shortened to the single sentence that is cited, though that would not be needed if sources for the the rest of the article can be cited. Consequently, this article needs attention to add citations as soon as possible. Also, the article needs to clearly explain why the death is considered a manslaughter. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 09:28, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Describing the victimizing crime

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While the perpetrators were initially charged with manslaughter, their manslaughter related convictions were overturned on appeal and only the poisoning convictions were upheld. It would seem more probable than not this is a case of manslaughter, though it was also found beyond reasonable doubt to be a case of poisoning. Should the charges laid or the outcome upon appeal be used? The reason it makes a difference is that the subject is described as a victim of manslaughter, yet the perpetrators were ultimately only convicted of poisoning. What standard should be applied here for the victim? How is this victimization classified? Is the subject best described as a manslaughter or a poisoning victim? - Cameron Dewe (talk) 10:47, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Excellent point. I totally overlooked the fact that the first sentence identifies her as a "Date-rape victim." While GHB is often called the "Date-rape drug," there were no rape charges, nor any sources suggesting that any of the involved men had sex with her that night. Poisoning is appropriate since it was the cause of death and the crime that the perpetrators were convicted of. 23mason (talk) 16:54, 22 April 2022 (UTC)Reply