Recently, in our little town of Orange Park, Florida, there has been a heinous crime against a little girl.   She was abducted while on her walk home from school and within hours had been treated cruelly, killed, and literally thrown into the trash.  She was found in a landfill a couple of days later.  For the two days she had been missing there were helicopters flying overhead, mounted policemen trotting through the neighborhoods and forests, dogs sniffing, and people blanketing the town with flyers showcasing this beautiful child.  Within seconds of receiving confirmation that the child in the landfill was indeed the missing child, the tone in the air changed … first there was incredible sorrow … then came the anger … the fear is continuing to linger … but almost immediately after the sorrow and anger came this wave of revenge from so many.

And this is where my problem begins.  (Many will strongly disagree with what I am about to say.)  While I feel strongly that this person, this very sick person, should be caught and severely punished I can’t bring myself to want his demise – I can’t crave his own death.  This is not to say that I haven’t thought – if that were my son who had been killed I would grab that man and beat him until I couldn’t any longer, and then I’d want my husband to beat him - I have thought that, but am I strange for knowing that I couldn’t actually do it and I even feel guilty for the thoughts?

Just because another human being has no respect for the life of a child – this girl, or even my son – this doesn’t give me the right to take their life, but it does make me responsible for teaching this person the better way to live or if the teaching is impossible then it is our responsibility to ensure that person can never again harm another.

I wonder if the people who are publicizing their desire for the demise of this killer; the ones writing “we’re coming to get you” on their vehicles, or the ones shaking their hands in the media and already itching to stick a needle in this killer’s arm … I wonder if they realize they are preying on this killer the same way in which he preyed on this little girl, but they’re doing it publicly.  People have a right to their pain, and people have a right to their grief, but do we have a right to prey on one another?  We are telling this killer that it was wrong of him to kill this child (and it was! so wrong!), but in the same sentence we are saying it is ok for us to kill him.  Am I the only one in the world to find fault with this logic?!

For those of you ready to lash out at me for being uncaring for this child … you have not listened to me, you have only read what you wanted from my words.

I have come to love that child as my own and I do not have any problem agreeing that the killer should be punished and stopped from ever hurting another, but is it really right for us to return wrong with wrong?