My thanks to all who understand and share in my grief- and I'm sure that every single one of you here do.

Jeff, revenge is in my mind only. I have no wish to go to prison myself, and that's the only place that I could get revenge. He will never get out. And if I did rob a gas station to meet him in prison to get revenge, then I would never get out and be able to waste my money on more magic tricks.

And you'll notice that I said that if I ever meet him in hell, I'll get my revenge. I don't believe that I will end up there, but who knows- maybe that's God's punishment for my stealing a candy bar when I was 11 years old.

I used to be against the death penalty.

I'm not anymore.

I only posted the newspaper article here for those that care to look into the details. It was a really big thing when it happened, but not because of my sister- because of the driving on the sidewalk and hitting over 2 dozen people, killing one.

The story of my sister was buried in the back of most of the New York newspapers.

And, of course, my family refused to be interviewed by any of those papers anyway- we are not those kind of people.

I guess that it feels good to come out in public after all of these years- I've held it in for so long. People where I work now know what happened, but it means nothing to them. Nobody here remembers the incident with driving on the sidewalk, and that was MAJOR news back then.

I remember major news events without fail.

By the way, I know that I claim to be Jack Straw from Wichita, but I really lived my first 42 years in NYC and now I live in a suburb 10 miles away.

I never lived anywhere near Wichita.

If you want to know why I use that handle here, google Jack Straw Wichita, and I think you'll understand.

Or maybe you'll be totally confused.

If you hate someone you generally want them to suffer. If you forgive them, you may wish they find happiness, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take steps to prevent them from doing further harm.
Situation A: I hope he rots in a tiny jail cell, while being severely mistreated by the other prisoners!
Situation B: I hope he's treated well while in jail, learns from his mistakes, and becomes a better person.

Anyway excluding a miracle, I believe either life or death would be by far the safest sentence for the community.

Hi Jack,

I'm sorry for your loss. I can only guess how I would feel if the same were to happen to me. I suspect that I too would have a very difficult time forgiving.

I'm assuming that it was this event that changed your mind about the death penalty. If so, I'm curious. What was your opposition to it in the past and what about those reasons you were against it changed?

Hi, Rockwall-

I'm at work right now so it's a little difficult to write a book here (and believe me, I could!), but I'll try.

I think it was Winston Churchill who said, "If you're not a liberal when you're 20, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative when you're 40, you have no brain."

I like that quote a lot.

I was VERY liberal when I was 20.

Now that I'm north of 40, I lean toward the conservative side, although not totally.

That actually was not the event that changed my mind about the death penalty. It changed slowly over time as I saw things happen with the criminal justice system- you know, murderers suing for better blankets and more rec room time and getting out after serving only 10 years while the victim is dead forever, and other stuff like that. Why was I against it? I'm not too sure how to answer that. It was just the liberal way, and it's not right to kill someone, is it? Of course, I would not want to see an innocent person get put to death for the wrong reason. But that could never happen here in this country, could it? OF COURSE IT COULD! How do we prevent that from happening? I don't know.

I didn't all of a sudden wake up and say "Hey, I'm not a liberal anymore!"

It happened over time.

I'm a white guy of Italian and Irish ancestry. My Italian side came here almost exactly 100 years ago. The Irish side came over during the Great Potato Famine.

My wife's family came over on those big slave ships from Africa sometime in the early 1800's. They were not at the helm. I trust you all understand what that means without me spelling it out for you.

We'll be married for 22 years in November. And we've got two kids together. Oh my god! Unfortunately we did not do our job and produce any gay kids. (Sarcasm) Oh, well, we can't all do the right thing in this rainbow world.

Is that surprising for a 90% conservative?

Why should it be?

My wife and her family are also mostly conservative and church-going. I'm not big on the church-going. My liberal side again.

As far as my sister goes, if you read that article you'll see that she was married with a 12 year old daughter, and her killer was described as her "boyfriend". Well, in his MIND he was her boyfriend. She (as well as I) was a diabetic since the age of 8. She went out riding her bicycle one day, and she passed out from insulin shock. Her killer stopped to help her. He was a nice guy. Offered to give her rides anywhere (while her husband was working), and she accepted his friendship. But it soon started to get creepy, and on the day that he shot her she told him to leave her alone. My sister survived almost 9 months before she passed on and was never able to tell her side of the story, but it all came out after much questioning by the police. He was so upset by my sister "Breaking up with him" that he just had to go and try and kill others. He succeeded in killing one more.

Oh, well. And so it goes.

I just can't imagine what those nine months were like.

You've walked a pretty tough road, that's for sure.

Jack- My sympathies as well.

Personally, I'd be forgiving AFTER a death sentence was passed and the price had been paid.

Thanks, Bob.

I agree with you on that 100%

I did not think that you would be in favor of the death penalty, though.

And, Jeff, the tougher road was walked by her husband and 12 year old daughter.

But here's the kicker- I thought that her husband did it when I answered the phone and got the news, especially since he owned a gun.

Isn't it always the husband that did it?

I feel really rotten to this day that I thought that. My other brother-in-law advised me to calm down and wait until all the facts were in. It didn't take too long for the facts to fall into place.

Generally I'm not, but as I've stated many times, my problem is with the standard of proof. Proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" has sometimes resulted in convictions of the innocent. In the Charleston case, there is NO doubt.

I suspect there were many other cases where jurors were convinced there was NO doubt and later were proven wrong.

Yes, there have been. But the standard is only "beyond a reasonable doubt."

In this case we have eye-witnesses and an immediate confession by by the killer, whose motive was established in his own words and in his written "manifesto."

If he goes to trial, though, the standard will still be "beyond a reasonable doubt" even though the facts show there is no doubt at all.

The same could be said for Lee Harvey Oswald, yet look at all the doubt.

Not at all. There were no eyewitnesses to Oswald pulling the trigger and he made no confession. In fact, the last statement he made was to the effect of, "I didn't shoot anyone. I'm just a patsy."

There were eyewitnesses in Charleston and a confession by Roofl.

So, no, the same CANNOT be said for Oswald. The cases are completely different.

I agree with all that has been said since my last post.

We don't live in a perfect world, unfortunately.

A large sum of money was just awarded here in NY to a man who was convicted 20 or 25 years ago for murder and did lots of time for it.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/08/justice/ne......viction/

I actually remember the case from way back then because of it's unusualness.

He claimed to have been at Disney World in Florida with his family. The prosecution was able to prove that he came back to NY, committed the murder, then went back to Florida. I remember saying something to myself like, "What a slick dude. Establishes an alibi, but sneaks back to NY to do the dirty deed".

A woman testified that she saw him commit the murder.

However, he (his lawyer) recently proved that he DID NOT commit the murder!

And he was released.

And he won a truckload of well-deserved money.

How could the prosecution make such a mistake?

It sure does make me wonder.

They certainly can convict an innocent ham sandwich.

I'd like to think that this does not happen very often.

The woman who testified that she saw him commit the murder, and the cops who convinced her to falsely testify, should each do 25 years in prison.

I am not anti-police, but I'm anti-bad police.

Addendum to my last post:

Most of the doubt, however, in the Kennedy assassination, revolves around whether or not Oswald acted alone or was part of a conspiracy.

Although my thread began with mentioning that one lady who forgave the mass-murderer, it should now be added that ALL of them have forgiven him. That is, the family-members of ALL NINE murder-victims have forgiven.

In the latest from Charleston, many Black Americans express worry that the public forgiveness actually provides cover for White-America to tolerate racism. As one African American said,"it's almost like White-America is telling to help us to forget the past by telling us that you forgive us." So you wonder about forgiveness. Is it always good?

I asked early on in this thread. Just what do these people forgive?

Here is what I asked:

Why those forgive...what do they really mean? I mean what do they forgive? Do they forgive that you killed their son or father or daughter? Really? I mean does that mean they are good to go? They are now friends and all is forgiven? I highly doubt that. So just what is forgiven?

With a crime such as this I cannot see myself ever forgiving this individual whether my family or anyone else's family was murdered. I guess I am just not that forgiving. But at times I am brutally honest and say what I feel because of what I have been through, and what I have seen. I find it just about impossible to forgive some acts, and this act is definitely one, that I cannot forgive.