Suspects arrested for young girl’s murder

(21 Action News)

Officers took 20-year-old Perry Riccardi of Struthers into custody on Sunday for his alleged role in the murder of 12-year-old Shannon Kos. The victim’s body was found on Thursday. She had been stabbed multiple times and partially burned. Neighbors described Perry as someone who was trying to turn his life around. “He’s going with my niece, and they have a baby together,” says one area resident. He just got a job and has been working everyday. He’s trying to straighten his life around because he has a kid. He just go caught up in something that shouldn’t have happened.” The other suspects, 21-year-old Bill Monday and 20-year-old David Garvey, have also been charged with Kos’s murder. Also, authorities believe they have now found the weapon that was used to kill Kos. The Mahoning County Dive Team pulled a knife from the waters of Lake Hamilton on Monday. Lab tests on the blade will continued on Tuesday in order to confirm that the knife was the one used to kill Kos.

My take on this event

I attended this community's local school system for 6 years, and I knew all of the three suspects in this horrid murder case. I would have never expected that these three individuals would have done such a thing, especially to a little girl. Perry Riccardi was such a sweet, talented and well-mannered young man. He was involved in a lot of activities in school. He always seemed pretty much goal-oriented, although sometimes, I could always tell that he was going through some difficult times. He seemed to never really let his stress show, and he kept a certain distance about everybody. But if he felt like opening his mouth, he was very sociable, and had a lot to say. In our senior year, Perry always appeared to be "down" at a constant, and would walk around like a lost soul with a blank look on his face, smiling whenever someting moved him strongly. But he still kept going. David Garvey, of whom I also graduated with was a very quiet person. He usually kept to himself and seemed to hang here-and-there with the wrong crowd. He was very smart, and he always got what he needed done. His opinions about things were always a one sentence-type deal, and his emotions never really showed onhis face, or ever really seemed to affect his schoolwork. He didn't participate in any activities in school. Dave was just there. Bill, however, always got into the wrong things in school. I wouldn't call him a troublemaker, but he followed in a lot of footsteps that were set before him by some of his older frends that had already graduated. He always wore a "half-shaved" mohawk for a hairdo, and was very much into the black trench coat-grunge look. He was a nice person, if you could get past his sheer ignorance and his desire to e a bad fellow and cause chaos in classrooms--there was a little boy inside of him that never grew up.

I suppose that this could explain the reason why he was with a twelve year-old girl. But let's not blame this relationship all on the man. What was the girl thinking in the first place to be seeing such a man? His look and his outlook in life were all very apparent; often shown by the empty and troublesome looks on his face; Why and how could she have not seen this disaster before it was coming? And then, she was only a child. At 12, and dead. Never will she see what life has to offer her. Her smiles through her school picture flashed on the news depicted an innoccent happy child. And then the blame, also reflects on her parents. Why would they permit such an illegal premature "union" or relationship? Where are the morals their child should have been raised with? Most good parents, having been raised well themselves, would not even think twice about permitting a child of their own to date until the age of 16. What can you know about life and getting involved with other people at 12?? Seriously! The whole purpose of dating is to find a partner---no one in their right mind would be trying to find their soul mate in life at such a young age. Maybe I'm going a little further, and more than likely stepping on some toes, but being that this is America, doesn't mean that ANYTHING GOES!! And then the same parents that let their children do whatever they please and let them rule the household, are the same parents who complain about this world not having justice, and lash out against the peoples that use these children as targets. They half-raise their child, and then expect that America should pick up the rest. It complete nonsense! If Shannon Kos' parents would have stopped this from the beginning, all of this ridiculousness could have been prevented. It's time that we, as adults, face the reality of life.

Getting back to Bill, her boyfriend, in what state was his mental capacity that he couldn't look elsewhere for a companion and sumbit this child into stress and agony that would later compel him and two other friends to murder her? And to make matters worse, they had a child togather. This story is so tragic, but yet another lesson to prove that if you ask for trouble, you often get what's coming to you. Sometimes, things don't always work out the way we expect them to. But we have to be prepared for these situations and take preventive measures so that the odds of these catastrophes happening is slim to none.

-j.m.

October 17, 2000.