JORDAN PAULDER

It is hard to fathom how anyone could bury an axe in the head of an innocent nine-year-old boy, but that was the unimaginable fate of Jordin Paulder of Fulton County, Georgia, on June 5. The killer was “Honduran native” Santos Benigno Cabrera Borjas.

Three children were playing in the parking lot of the Chastain Apartments in Sandy Springs early Monday evening when a red car with a wobbly wheel drove through.Jordin Paulder, a 9-year-old boy with chubby cheeks, called out to the car’s passengers to tell them of the bad tire.Jordin didn’t mean to insult anybody, he just thought they should know, witnesses told police.But the car stopped. A man got out and slammed an ax into Jordin’s face. Emergency workers were afraid to remove the ax during the helicopter flight to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite hospital, where Jordin died. [Boy, 9, hacked to death, 6/7/06, Atlanta Journal-Constitution]When the police approached the crime scene, Cabrera Borjas fled to a nearby apartment complex. After he broke an officer’s arm by throwing a tire iron (or maybe a “rimmed tire” — accounts differ) and made threats with an iron pipe, the officer shot and killed him.Since the accused killer is dead, there will be no trial to remind the public that illegal immigration is not a victimless crime — assuming Santos Cabrera Borjas was indeed an illegal entrant, which was apparently the case. The authorities may not pursue that detail, wishing to forget the whole sordid thing.