Over thirty years ago, we lost our precious ward to rape/murder. She was actually a second daughter to us. The murderer apologised to us in court prior to being sentenced and stated that he never meant to kill her, 'just' rape her. His defence was that she 'led him on because she was wearing a mini skirt'  ( the fashion at that time'). His 'remorse' contributed to a short sentence.

During his incarceration, he attempted to seek our forgiveness several times. We never replied. We were visited by a priest who had 'led him to the path of the Lord'. He actually told us that we would be damned because we could not forgive this piece of shit. I have to admit that I experienced a 'red haze' ; something that is most rare for me and I actually hit the bloody priest and physically threw him out of our house.

On getting up, he said, of course, 'I forgive you'.

For many years, the murderer has been free and lives in La Défense in Paris. He has lived on our taxes ever since and is himself a senior citizen now, of course.

A number of other damned priests have attempted to preach forgiveness to me and frankly, I have a job not not hit them too.
The question is, would an execution twenty years later using L.I. have made me feel better? Would we have been able to begin 'closure'?

I have to say that for me, it would not help a lot. The bastard would have lived a further 20 odd years and his death would have been so peaceful that I actually feel envious as many of us non murderers cannot usually find death, when it comes to us, that easy and painless. 

The reality is that I  wanted REVENGE. I still want revenge and know I will never get it. I never did seek to obtain revenge personally as inevitably I would find myself in his shoes but I really did want the state to give revenge by proxy.

I wanted him to die in a very scary way, such as by guillotine, hanging or electric chair and I wanted to watch him die.

I still feel this way.

So, for many, the word revenge is now not PC when discussing capital punishment. So I am not PC....sorry. Those who are executed may have 'paid their debt' to society but in such a humane way, it hardly seems, to me, to be a debt at all.

Closure never comes for most survivors and the anger remains.

Our murderer has family, who also tried to contact us. He no doubt has friends. Frankly, I just do not care. I would still like to kill him in a most horrible way and then, perhaps, at least the anger would have found an outlet.

To top it all, now that the bastard has found God and thinks he will be forgiven, because that is what the damn priests say, he will even die in peace.

The term 'Debt paid', is only a PC sop for society but never to the survivors.

Frenchy