If the families choose---and we can be sure many will---let them play tapes of the people he killed. Let them run, over and over again, family albums, phone conversations, speeches, sermons, class plays".whatever they choose to put in front of this sick creature that hurt them so deeply.
Let them also have the ability to speak with him directly. Let him have email access only to the accounts of the family members who agree. Let the loved ones who have so much to say about those he killed communicate all they want to him directly. Over and over and over. For as long as they may choose.
Perhaps it will help those who've been so damaged begin to heal in ways merely killing this murderer could never do. Some might brand this "cruel and unusual". But how does it stack up with execution, or being locked up forever in a blank cell?
And sooner or later, maybe something will sink into him. A glimmer of understanding. A flash of empathy.
If we kill this kid, we get a corpse. An eye for an eye will once again have made the whole world blind.
But if we lock him into communication with those most appropriate, especially those who want to heal through this process, sooner or later something".we don't know what"surprising, good, uplifting"just might emerge.
It might take a year, a decade, a lifetime.
If there is no breakthrough, then we'll know we have locked up a true monster for the rest of his life.
But I suspect otherwise. And not just in this case.
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