Murder in Charleroi

MURDER IN CHARLEROI

January 11, 2008

Someone’s child. It is a phrase that is often used when describing a murder victim, someone’s child. It is part of the emotional equation that drives the public’s interest in each and every homicide that happens. As all parents know, we spend years of our lives raising our children. We teach them values, both good and bad. We teach them to walk, we teach them how to live. They are our future.

So when someone takes another person’s child and not only murders him or her, but throws them into the garbage, we take notice.

Joe Natale 28 is accused of doing just that to someone’s child. Natale is accused of being the “Dumpster murderer” of Charleroi. A man that not only is accused of strangling his apparent lover with some improvised items, but then dumping her body into a nearby garbage bin.

Natale is believed by police to have strangled the victim, Amanda Lynn Faux, ignoring her pleas for life to a man that she apparently loved. A love was apparently perverted with the drug use that might have drove both the alleged killer and his lover to the small town of Charleroi.

Two young people, in love with both each other and apparently drugs, move to a new apartment. In spite of having drug problems just the night before they probably believed that things would be better in Charleroi, only Natale knows for certain. It was possibly a new start for both of them or maybe just a new way to live the lifestyle that so many in our communities live. A life of constant search for drugs and how to pay for them. But even if drugs were not involved that night as some suggest, drugs had apparently played a role in the life of both of them. Regardless whatever transpired between them that fateful night, Natale is believed to have made the decision to murder this woman that loved him.

The murderer, if it was Natale, did not care that she was someone’s child. The murderer did not care that this was another human being. The murderer’s only care was his only desire to fulfil his own desires and inner demons. As the murderer squeezed the life out of the poor Amanda Lynn Faux he could see her pleading eyes, he could hear her voice beg for life. He could feel her struggles for life. He could see as tears welled in her eyes as she realized that these horrible moments would be the last for her on this earth. He knew that everything she had done everything that she was, he was destroying. He not only did not care, but also obviously wanted to end this life. If not, then why would he do it?

Amanda wanted to live as all of us want to. Who wants to die at 22? Who wants to die gasping for air, wondering if this would be the last breath? Who wants to look into the eyes of someone they trusted and realize that their trust was the cause of their own doom? She hoped beyond hope that someone would hear her cries for help, that someone would end this nightmare before she ceased to exist on this earth. But no one came, no would be there to save Amanda. At some point she had to realize that she had made a fatal mistake, she had trusted the apparent killer Joe Natale.

Did Amanda anger him? Apparently so and for that Amanda must pay the ultimate price according to the mind of her killer. The ego that drives someone that is willing and able to murder another human being must be unbearable. What type of person believes that any slight would justify not only strangling another but to dump their body like a piece of garbage?

Amanda Lynn Faux was someone’s child. She was once feed baby food while sitting in a high chair. She once was a pretty young girl walking off to get on a local bus in her hometown. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s best friend, and her life meant something to somebody. Apparently it meant something to everyone but the man that she had decided to share a bed with, Joe Natale. Now two families could end up mourning, one the parents of Amanda Lynn Faux, the other the parents of Joe Natale as their child faces society’s ultimate punishment, the penalty of death or life imprisonment. If Natale did it, he will have plenty of time to consider was that alleged brief moment of rage worth it? Was it worth it to take the life of another?