If I had to choose only one paper to read for the rest of my natural life it would probably be the New York Post.
I love it. Always have. It’s tabloid-ish but still contains all of the news I need or want to know. And every once in a while it latches onto a fascinating trial concerning a particularly brutal or rare crime and the daily accounts are simply riveting.
A trial that’s currently underway concerns the murder of a 47-year old nurse and her two daughters and the beating and attempted murder of their Dad, who survived. It all occured in the family’s own home which the criminals gained access to because of an unlocked door. (If this doesn’t convince my friends who occasionally leave their doors unlocked to be more careful, I don’t know what will.) The accused is one of two men alleged to have carried out torture, ransom (forcing the Mom to withdraw $15,000 from the bank which was all caught on surveillance camera, also posted on the Post’s website), rapes of the Mom and youngest daughter, who was 11, as well as the savage beating and torture of the Dad and then set fire to the home. It’s absolutely horrible and no sane person could think otherwise. Except, of course, the defence lawyers.
One particular legal scumbag intimated in court yesterday that because the girls were unconscious as they died of smoke of inhalation they weren’t technically being tortured at the time so, you know, the accused should get credit for that. Seriously.
As a person who once dreamed of become a criminal prosecuter I am routinely baffled at the lengths some defence attorneys will go to in a bid to get their – in this case obviously guilty – client a break. There are no words to describe this kind of logic. What about comparing what innocent and carefree activities the two girls did on a normal summer’s evening to what they went through on their last night alive? That is where the discussion should start and stop.
Sadly the prosecution had to point out that the older girl’s body was found away from her bed because she had been able to break out of her restriants after the fire started but the smoke prevented her from making it out of the house. Connecticut has the death penalty so the defence is grasping at straws to spare the life of the monster who ended three innocent lives and ruined a fourth. I hope it fails, miserably.