Ron Levy (10/14):
Our son, Joshua Komisarjevsky, has killed and so have we.
Joshua, relative of a PR executive who is as helpless to undo the killings as we are, killed an innocent, helpless woman and two children. We have executed helpless women and men. The first woman to have been electrocuted in New York--put to death for murdering her own daughter-- was later found to have been innocent.
Hundreds of prisoners, sentenced to death, have been proved by DNA evidence to be innocent, sometimes before their execution and sometimes after.
It may seem more okay for us to kill people than it was for Joshua (and when our government kills prisoners, that's US doing the killing) because we kill as a group. Or because we didn't know which prisoners were innocent but today's New York Times quotes a medical doctor, the husband of the murdered woman, as saying of our crazy son whom the doctor has listened to closely: "Probably at this moment he doesn't think he is guilty of anything."
Perhaps it's okay to kill our son because he was addicted but is it okay to kill those in PR or medicine or sports or entertainment who have become addicted to drugs or alcohol or violence?
A jury has a right to decide, one may reason, but if our daughter ever gets an abortion, is it okay that she should be executed if a jury decides she has killed an unborn baby? Is it okay for us to kill someone who has gone out of his mind? Some of us would say yes, some would say no, and God's position He has caused to be written for our guidance: "Thou shalt not kill."
Chicago PR guy (10/14):
OMG...I had no idea they were related. What a tragedy. |