Murder of Laree Slack

Laree A. Slack (July 4, 1989 – November 11, 2001) was a 12-year-old child abuse victim who died in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. According to Wikipedia's account of the case, she died after receiving what was described as a "Biblical whipping" using "an inch-thick section of rubberized electrical cable filled with strands of wire." She was struck with this implement repeatedly and died from internal bleeding several hours later.

Investigators found that the beatings of Laree and her eight-year-old brother began after a dispute over a claimed failure to properly clear away laundry, which led to difficulty finding a credit card. The parents were reported to be devout Jehovah's Witnesses who home-schooled their six children. According to investigators cited in the source material, the parents decided to administer "Biblical discipline" in the form of "40 lashes minus one, three times," reflecting the father's interpretation of Biblical injunctions regarding the punishment of children, which was described as a factor in the severity of the beating.

Laree's father, Larry Slack Sr., was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006 as a result of the beating. He received a life sentence for the murder and an additional 30-year sentence for aggravated battery of a child. Laree's mother, Constance Slack, received a 25-year sentence after pleading guilty to murder.

The case was later referenced in the 2005 edition of the textbook "Delinquency in Society" as an illustration supporting the argument that an "intact two-parent family" with strong religious values is less important than having a "loving family" in preventing violence toward children.

This dossier is based on a single detailed source (Wikipedia's article on the case). A corroborating contemporaneous news reference from highbeam.com is cited in the article's references but its specific text content could not be independently retrieved or verified for this dossier; it is included here as a citation only, per sourcing protocol, without additional facts drawn from it.