[Ford Prefect]

I haven't posted on this incident until now because I've been at somewhat of a loss to think or say about it, other than how horrible and tragic.

I'm at a particular loss as to whether I think this guy should be given the death penalty or not. I have a relative who is a paranoid schizophrenic, and when she goes off her medication she does some pretty weird stuff which she never remembers afterwards ... stuff like strolling down the street nude, threatening to kill her parents and such. If she were to ever do something like this, hypothetically speaking, I don't know what I would advocate for punishment. Would I want her to be given the death penalty? Or would I want her to be institutionalized for life where her medications could be controlled and she would be allowed some kind of a life? I honestly don't know. Would I hold her accountable for her actions while in a psychotic state in which she doesn't know what she's doing, and won't remember her actions afterwards? I don't know. Complicating her situation is the fact that her paranoid schizophrenia was caused as a result of her cancer treatments that started when she was two years old and lasted until she was 16, so her condition was artificially induced by her medical treatments, aka "the system".

At this point I don't know what this guy's mental condition was like, or what caused it, and what kind of a state he was in when he murdered the bus passenger. I read in the Herald that acquaintances recognized he had a mental disorder, but he refused to seek treatment. If he was suffering from a mental disorder he could hardly be expected to make a rational choice about getting help.

It's hard for me to view him in the same light as a Willie Picton or Clifford Olsen. Guys like that were monsters who committed their crimes over a prolonged period of time and as far as I know they haven't been diagnosed with a clinical mental disorder. I think Picton and Olsen should be executed, but this case isn't as clear cut to me because of the guy's probable mental disease, and knowing what my relative is like. Executing him won't bring back his victim's life or erase the trauma he caused everyone connected to the incident ... other passengers, emergency responders, families. He certainly should never be released to the public ever again, but if he's legitimately an extreme mental disease victim, what does killing him prove? It's vengeance, but is it justice?

What a tragic, messed up story.