Why?

Yesterday afternoon I was traveling the stretch of road featured below (story) but was unaware of what had transpired earlier that day. I didn't know about this either. No connections are made as yet, but one has to wonder.

I was visiting a friend who lives east of the incident; he hadn't heard this news either but he was distraught over the death penalty, torture and the generally unfair brutality of life.

- what did I think of the death penalty?

- how would I FEEL about executing someone?

-could I torture a person if I hated them enough? Should the family be allowed to torture the killers?

-how do you plan anything or do anything if someone is just going to walk into yout home and kill you?

-how can someone commit such acts?
why? why? why?

Whoa.
Slow down.
What the hell is wrong with you anyway?
( These are very uncharacteristic questions from this person )

It turns out that my friend was related by marriage to the Harvey family, who were brutally murdered in Richmond at the beginning of this year. One of the killers recently received the death penalty and my pal, who I considered to be somewhat of an insensitive boor, had been agonizing over the ethics of capital punishment for nearly a month...dude, who knew?

Give me a sec to breathe and let me answer you:

-I'm against the death penalty.
Unless you kill someone I know, like Kathyrn and her family.
Or if you kill a child or murder a helpless person.
Or if it's a sex killing.
Or if it's anything other than self-defense or war.

And I'm sure as hell not going to take part in a candlelight vigil when it comes time to put this bastard to death.
I am not that forgiving.

So I guess I'm not as anti-DP as I thought.

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-I don't think I could pull the switch. Hypocritcal? Sure.
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-Same thing for torture used as criminal punishment. On an emotional level, I have no problem with any and all suffering inflicted on a family annihilator- but I seriously doubt that I could torture anybody.
It seems that a victim's family often tries to forgive the killer, there must be an emotional or spiritual reason for doing this but I hope I never quite understand that need- I'm sure it's one of those "unless you have been there, you will not comprehend" things. Life is full of them.

However, I do think that a society that condones or even overlooks institutionalized torture is a society that teeters on the brink of disaster.
Whoops!
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-Dude. You don't stop swimming in the pool just because there are sharks in the ocean.
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- I don't know why people commit such crimes. I don't want to know.
I understand crimes that have incentive or motive: Theft, drugs, crimes of passion etc..."I stole the TV to buy dope"..."I saw them together and..." etc., but I do not-will not- understand what would make one person kill one or more random strangers.

Maybe it's better not to think about it.