A white woman in Greentown, Indiana who tried to scare a family out of moving in next to her by leaving racist notes, says that she was just trying to vent, although she’s not really sorry she did the hateful act.
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Deborah Cantwell, a 63-year-old Mrs. Doubtfire look-a-like, set out to torment the family who has a black child.
On Thursday, Cantwell was arrested booked in the Howard County Jail and charged with misdemeanor counts of intimidation and criminal mischief after police found a paper trail of racist attacks against the family, including toilet-papering their new home, the Kokomo Tribune reports.
On Oct. 13, the husband who owns the home with his wife, contacted a Howard County sheriff’s deputy, after finding a racist note on the door of the home and the outside of the home littered with shreds of toilet paper. The family had not moved in just yet. The husband passed by the home on his way home from work.
The police described the note as “racially offensive and threatening in nature”.
“No N—- wanted in this neighborhood-THIS IS A WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD-some people find N—–Stressful,” Cantwell wrote, capitalizing the racist insult.
Another paragraph began: “YOUR N—- KID IS NOT WELCOME.”
The final paragraph noted: “YOU CAN SELL YOUR HOUSE AND MAKE MONEY ON IT RIGHT NOW,” and, “BY THE WAY HOPE YOU HAVE DEEP POCKETS.”
When police questioned Cantwell on Oct. 18 interview, she confessed writing the hostile notes and toilet-papering the yard. But she justified her act by slamming Black people.
“I mean, the blacks get away with it every time,” Cantwell told an investigator, according to the affidavit.
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“Just rage, I was trying to vent,” she said about the toilet-papering.
Cantwell later told the investigator: “I was just trying to let them know that they weren’t really … welcome as far as us. … I just needed to let off some steam and it was the – I’m not a violent person so I didn’t think it was any big deal.”
When the investigator asked Cantwell if she was sorry what she did, she declined to apologize. Instead she said she’d seek some counseling.
“Yes and no,” she said. “I am sorry that it caused so much ruckus, but I feel like I released some anger writing that letter.”
Cantwell was released on $8,000 bond and she was issued a protection order that prevents her from stalking the family any further.
The family that was targeted has now set up a GoFundMe page titled “Raising money to fight a hate crime.”
“How do I tell my child that this was done? What words do I say to let him know it is not ok and this doesn’t represent this town, where everyone that meets him likes him?” reads the GoFundMe post, written by the mother.
“That this can’t make him angry and bitter. That he is so much better then what they are portraying him as! His skin color shouldn’t matter. I had to look him in his eyes to talk to him about something I will never understand first, but I saw firsthand the devastation on his face. I watched my child be crushed by someone else hatred and racism.”