Cauthen Gets Life In Prison
Summary:
In the article “Cauthen gets life in prison”, David Cauthen gets life for the murder of his girlfriend Brenda Steen. The killing occurred on Oct 17, 2004, when Brenda Steen was brutally stabbed. After he took the stand in his own defense Cauthen told the jurors that he found Brenda’s body in the trunk of his car and didn’t know how it got there. Several witnesses saw Cauthen frantically trying to start Steen’s car and never got it started then later he had it towed to Thompson Rd the same day she went missing. Months before the killing, David was charged with domestic violence against Brenda several times before this murder. Once the cops studied through all of their evidence they found that David Cauthen had to be the murder of Brenda Steen and came up with the conclusion that he had to be in SC, but never could find him after looking they found David had went to Virginia then to Louisiana where he was arrested.
Relationship with Psychology:
Looking back on what we have learned I noticed about the subject Behavior Modification and in this chapter we talked about positive and negative reinforcements. The paragraph talks bout a brutal killing for a woman and a man going to trial about this murder. It seems they are using a negative reinforcement to take away something valued or desirable to Cauthens “Life”. Then again a positive reinforcement by giving this person life in prison both subjects can relate to this topic because the person is being punished by his cause of behavior. If I would have to choose which one it would be negative because they are using punishment by removal which means taking something earned free away and making Cauthen lose his ordinary life out side of prison by gaining confinement behind bars.
Published Sunday Nov 22, 2009
The Lancaster News Paper
Chapter 5, Behavior Modification