"You can hear a rat sneeze..."

These were the words that Mark Lunsford used to describe the thinness of the walls in the trailer home where John Couey held his daughter while he raped her. It defies the imagination that the other three people residing in that trailer could not have heard the sounds of Couey committing his depredations, and it boggles the mind that these people, who aided and abetted this child-murderer, are walking free today.

Couey is a waste of DNA, and the death penalty is too good for him, unless he is also taped into a Baggie™ and buried alive in a shallow grave.

I have two daughters, who are fortunately adults today. People like Couey took swings at them when they were younger. I spent time driving the streets looking for those people, and fortunately for all concerned, I didn’t find them. (I was armed, and they would have been dead, and I would still be in prison to this day for killing them.) My daughters heeded their old man’s paranoia, and were not easily lured. They ran home and told their papa what had almost transpired. I went hunting.

The three people who aided and abetted Couey—their names escape me at the moment; just as well to avoid libel suits—are singularly ugly people. Not just because they are physically unattractive by any human standard, but because they have an ugliness of the soul that is beyond description. They knew what was going on in that trailer. They lied to the cops. One of them bought Couey a ticket to Georgia, to help him escape the police dragnet.

I have been in situations where I stood by and let events take their course, knowing the outcome would not be good for someone. That’s apples and oranges; my events involved adults, and the recipients of the negative consequences were not only adults, they deserved what happened to them, which was often grisly.

I have written here often about the murder of my father. I have some idea of what Mark Lunsford lives with every day, but I cannot fully comprehend his grief. My father at least had a full life before he was killed. The notion that one of my children predeceased me, especially by murder, would drive me insane.

Mr. Lunsford is an unlikely American hero. Like me, he has long hair, and favors baseball caps. He is the kind of guy I’d be drinking a beer with if I had a social life. Before Couey went on the prowl, I’m sure Mr. Lunsford was just living life and trying to cope with it. Today, he is a crusader for The Jessica Lunsford Foundation and a tireless advocate of mandatory sentencing for child molesters. He used the full word for “BS” on Bill O’Reilly’s show, in reference to the Florida prosecutors who refuse to prosecute Couey’s three accomplices. He apologized instantly for saying it, knowing that comments have to be “air conditioned” for content on international TV. Sitting at home, I was not only not offended, I muttered “Right on!” at the TV. It is BS that these three skate. Mark called it for what it is.

“Rehabilitative justice” is a myth, especially for child molesters. Other folks who have committed criminal offenses may find the gumption within themselves to change their lives, but baby-rapers are a peculiar breed. Whatever compulsions drive them to recidivism, they are also enabled by the leniency of the courts. Judges are reluctant to hand out appropriate sentences to pedophiles, under what they consider the “cruel and unusual punishment” doctrine. These judges are not stupid or uninformed; they know that other prison inmates, no matter what their transgressions, probably have wives and children. No matter what their social maladjustments may be, these run-of-the-mill convicts have no tolerance for “short eyes”, especially those who kill their victims. Most child molesters now spend minimal time in protective custody, and then are freed to return to snatching children and having their way with them.

Personally, I think every child-molester ever convicted should be sent to a desert island for life, if they haven’t quite crossed the line into execution territory. I have no problem with capital punishment, either.

John Couey deserves to die. I can think of few things, including strangulation, knifing, gunshots, or a blunt instrument trauma, that would carry the terror of suffocation and burial alive as a pathway to death. Little Jessica was a young girl, on the verge of having a life that was snatched from her.

When Jeffrey Dahmer was bludgeoned to death some years ago, I cheered. I didn’t have any personal interest; I just enjoy seeing evil permanently eradicated. What the courts failed to do, a convict handled. Business was taken care of.

I have a sentencing proposition for those judges who believe in “rehabilitation”. Give those child-molesters the time they deserve. Then, specify they be put into the general prison population, so the other convicts can explain the error of their ways to them. Then, if the state allows it, put them out on the chain gang, chopping weeds alongside the highway, where they are easy prey to a suddenly swerving hit-and-run car or a mysterious disappearance.

I have zero tolerance for murder, even if it’s an adult who might deserve it. My father didn’t deserve it, and Jessica never even had a chance.

There is some controversy today that lethal injection violates the Hippocratic Oath; those subjected somehow suffer. Hence, trained medical pros won’t administer The Really Big Shot. Okay. My EMT training included how to start an IV. I hate needles, but I’ll start the IV on Couey and, should he ever be caught and convicted, my dad’s killer.

Witnesses say the electric chair blows your eyes out and occasionally fries the subject in place.

I say, even better. Strap ‘em in! Talk about harvesters of eyes!