From MSNBC.com:
For the second time in recent months, somebody broke into a 16-year-old girl’s home and stole her prosthetic leg — including one that had been donated following the first crime, authorities said.
The thieves took a $12,000 cosmetic leg and a donated $16,000 leg that Melissa Huff uses to play softball, her mother, Lisa Huff, said. She said a camera in the room was untouched.
“It’s insane. Who hates her that bad?” Lisa Huff said. “I went back to the girls’ room and the room was trashed. Mostly Melissa’s stuff.”
From Yahoo.com:
“I was picking up my little brother from school when my mom called me and asked where I left the two prosthetic legs,” Huff, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Temple City, told Reuters in an interview.
“I knew right then that it had happened again.”
So this teen girl has two prosthetic legs: one for normal everyday use (that cost $12,000) and one for sports use (that cost $16,000). And now, for the second time, someone broke into her home and stole both of these legs. Unless these criminals are well-connected I doubt they’re going to be able to sell these on the black market; prosthetic legs are custom-built for one person, they’re not usually universal in their application. So that leave us with these thiefs being nothing more than mean, cruel people.
In November, thieves broke into the Huff residence and took just her prosthetic limb. After that incident, Melissa’s prosthetist and a local real estate company donated about $16,000 for a new limb.
The stolen limb was discovered in the teenager’s backyard about a month ago, apparently thrown there by the thieves.
This was not about money – this was an attack against the girl personally.
Her “sports leg” was something special, donated by the community. An act of grace and kindness by her neighbors. And now taken away by malevolence.
Melissa Huff lost her real leg two years ago while standing in front of Dana Middle School when a driver lost control, drove on the sidewalk and hit her.
“Now, she has nothing to walk with,” said her father, David Huff.
Melissa was injured in an accident. Something not of her own doing. And she lost a leg. She’s only 16-years-old. The community, seeing her athletic abilities, bought her a special one for playing competitive softball. Then they find her leg thrown back into her yard. Then someone breaks into her home and steals both legs, leaving her without the ability to walk.
I certainly hope there is a special place in Hell for someone with this level of viciousness, this level of hatefulness, this level of despicableness. This is beyond teenaged pranks or horseplay. If the community finds this person I hope they prosecute them, as an adult, to the fullest extent of the law AFTER they purchase two new legs for this girl. If the person(s) involved are reading this blog I hope you lose everything you posses and contract a terrible disease that will leave you permanently disfigured, socially outcast, and forever in pain, for you have absolutely no place among civilized people. God, with all of His boundless grace, can forgive you, but I’m not sure I can.
