'I don't blame myself', says mother of girl found dead

[bijou]

It was meant to be great family adventure - then 15-year-old Scarlett MacKeown was left alone by her mother in Goa. Days later she was dead. Murder... or a drunken accident? Here, her mother insists SHE wasn't at fault.
...

But at the same time — inevitably, perhaps — Fiona and her family have found themselves exposed to the harsh spotlight of public scrutiny.

Internet forums discussing the case are awash with accusations that Scarlett's mother bears some blame for her daughter's fate.

"Yet another case of parents reneging on the responsibility of raising children," is a typical comment.

"She left her 15-year-old daughter alone while she was elsewhere. How utterly irresponsible!" reads another.

It is hard not to feel some sympathy with the comments being made, since on the day Scarlett died, her mother and the rest of her family were more than a hundred miles away.

They had headed off several weeks earlier to further explore this part of India, but Scarlett hadn't wanted to leave the beach resort of Anjuna.

She had thrown a strop and (incredibly irresponsibly, some would say) her mum had given in.

And so it was that this young girl, raised in Devon and never before having travelled beyond outside of Britain, was left in the care of a 25-year-old Goan tour-guide by the name of Julio.

"He was a hard-working young man who used to get up early and go to bed early," says Fiona, by way of explanation.

"He was quite responsible and was caring for her."

What Fiona didn't know, however, was that the guide and Scarlett were sleeping together. And that when she needed him most, he would be nowhere to be seen.
The laid-back beach bars and £5-a-night hostels that provided a backdrop for the last days of Scarlett's life must, on the surface, have seemed like a home from home for the teenager in terms of attitude and of philosophy.

For like the resort of Anjuna, birthplace of the hippy movement, Scarlett's upbringing in the countryside close to Bideford in Devon had been anything but conventional.

"Back home, we live on our own land, we grow our own organic vegetables and fruit, we have chickens and we don't eat very much meat because the children see the animals and don't like to eat them," said Fiona.

"We have water from a borehole in the ground and electricity from a generator to bring the water up. That is it."

All very New Age. And it doesn't stop there.

The MacKeown smallholding was home to ten people — mother and offspring ranging in age from five to 20, of whom Scarlett was the third-oldest.

Although Fiona declines to go into details, the children were born to more than one father — none of whom currently appears to be involved in their day-to-day upbringing.

...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=527312&in_page_id=1879

It is fair to say that while she doesn't blame herself, almost everyone else appears to do so.  Quite a long article but worth reading for an insight into hippy style parenting.

[jtyangel]

The CHILD had a tattoo on her neck and a piercing below her bottom lip...the mother has 9 children(or had) by several different men...she leaves a fifteen year old GIRL alone in the care of the 25 year old she was sleeping in a foreign land. I mean who couldn't see this coming..if not this time, then at some point? The child would have been lucky to reach adulthood. What a shame...beautiful girl too despite the 'decorations' that she has thanks to her upbringing.

[Chris_]

The CHILD had a tattoo on her neck and a piercing below her bottom lip...the mother has 9 children(or had) by several different men...she leaves a fifteen year old GIRL alone in the care of the 25 year old she was sleeping in a foreign land. I mean who couldn't see this coming..if not this time, then at some point? The child would have been lucky to reach adulthood. What a shame...beautiful girl too despite the 'decorations' that she has thanks to her upbringing.

Yes...

[DixieBelle]

So New Age Hippy Dippy nonsense parenting doesn't work?

Jty is right....she was doomed.

[Rebel Yell]

You are all a bunch of closed minded prudes!!!!!!!!!!

The fact that the 15 yr. old has a lipring and a tattoo and is having sex with a grown man doesn't mean that her mother wasn't a good parent.  You should all be ashamed of yourselves.  You all try to judge peoploe by the way they look.  That is why conservatives get the rep they do from the world.  <Nephythys mode>

[bijou]

The CHILD had a tattoo on her neck and a piercing below her bottom lip...the mother has 9 children(or had) by several different men...she leaves a fifteen year old GIRL alone in the care of the 25 year old she was sleeping in a foreign land. I mean who couldn't see this coming..if not this time, then at some point? The child would have been lucky to reach adulthood. What a shame...beautiful girl too despite the 'decorations' that she has thanks to her upbringing.

I can't imagine that her mother was against the idea of a piercing or a tattoo. 

[Lord Undies]

You are all a bunch of closed minded prudes!!!!!!!!!!

The fact that the 15 yr. old has a lipring and a tattoo and is having sex with a grown man doesn't mean that her mother wasn't a good parent.  You should all be ashamed of yourselves.  You all try to judge peoploe by the way they look.  That is why conservatives get the rep they do from the world.  <Nephythys mode>

A North African Peoploe:  Do not judge them

[jtyangel]

The CHILD had a tattoo on her neck and a piercing below her bottom lip...the mother has 9 children(or had) by several different men...she leaves a fifteen year old GIRL alone in the care of the 25 year old she was sleeping in a foreign land. I mean who couldn't see this coming..if not this time, then at some point? The child would have been lucky to reach adulthood. What a shame...beautiful girl too despite the 'decorations' that she has thanks to her upbringing.

I can't imagine that her mother was against the idea of a piercing or a tattoo. 

No, I doubt it and I bet she got hers when she was an adult and could make that decision. She should be ashamed of herself. Really. That child deserved an actual adult looking out for them. Pity.

BTW, I wonder how much 'public funding' this mother of 9 gets to support her farm...just curious...

[bijou]

An update on this story:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=530335&in_page_id=1811

The mother of murdered Scarlett Keeling is to be questioned today by police in Goa investigating whether she was negligent in leaving the teenager on her own.


The 15-year-old from Devon is said to have been high on drugs and drunk when she was raped and murdered on a holiday beach while her mother and family were in another part of India.
With Goa's police facing fierce criticism after initially claiming the schoolgirl had drowned, the region's chief minister said yesterday he had asked officers to investigate why Fiona MacKeown had left her "juvenile" daughter behind.

News of the latest twist in the hugely sensitive inquiry provoked an immediate and angry rebuke from Mrs MacKeown, 43, a mother of nine from Bideford, Devon.

Calling the inquiry into her "disgusting", she said she feared it was part of a conspiracy against her for humiliating the police by forcing a second post-mortem examination which proved Scarlett was murdered.

...

[Flame]

boy, that mom could be a moonbat poster child!!

[DixieBelle]

what a shame, she was a very pretty young lady.

[NHSparky]

Guess even "free living" has a price.  Too bad mommy will never figure it out, nor will she apparently ever close her legs.

[BEG]

This story really makes me mad.  What a  idiot.  I can't stand hippies.