I just finished watching this evening's edition of Dateline. The story presented was about two brothers who broke into a house where five people, three men and two women, were sleeping. The brothers made them all undress, forced the women to have sex with each other, and then forced the men to have sex with the women. They then took some of the victims one by one to ATM machines where they were forced to withdraw money. Finally, they drove all five to a soccer field far from any residence, made them kneel in the snow naked, and shot them all in the head. Only one of the women survived due to the bullet being deflected by a hair decoration she was wearing. The killers then returned to the house and robbed it; they also killed the survivor's dog.
One of the men, her boyfriend, was going to propose to her that evening. She found out about it when the two criminals found the engagement ring that he had hidden so it would be a surprise.
The crime was the last in a series that has come to be known as the Wichita Horror. The brothers were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. There is no question in my mind that the sentence is justified.
However, I don't see execution as punishment. No punishment, short of extended torture, could possibly hope to match the pain and suffering they inflicted on the victims and their families. In my opinion, they have proven that they can no longer be trusted with continued existence. I don't care what the root cause is, whether they were abused as children, grew up in a broken home, or some other reason. They are still responsible for their actions. We cannot risk them performing such crimes again. They are like a cancer. Executing them is not punishment; it is surgery.
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