Florida, 9-30-09: Convicted child killer Couey dies (of cancer) in prison; cheats the executioner.For those of you who don't remember, here's what he did: (Excerpted from a 7-2-08 Relax Max post on Yummy Biscuits)
Jessica was 9 years old. She was a delightful 3rd grader. One night she went to sleep with her stuffed animal. During the night, a man with a long criminal record and a history of abducting and raping little girls, broke into her house and took her and her stuffed animal away. Over the next several days, in between rapings, the little girl was kept in a closet at the man's house. When her emaciated bloody little body was no longer sexually attractive to him, he put her in a garbage bag, like a piece of shit, and buried her alive. When little Jessica couldn't claw her way out of the ground, she ran out of air and died. When police found her killer, the man confessed to what he had done, and even led police to her grave so they could recover her body. Later, after he had been properly lawyered up at public expense, the long-time pedophile recanted his confession. He still couldn't explain how he knew where Jessica's body was buried. The State of Florida wants to take this man's life, and he has been sentenced to die. The sentence is currently on appeal, of course, and, if things go as usual, the appeals process will go on for another 12-19 years. This length of time is needed to insure that the man was not mistreated or wrongfully convicted on any of a long list of possible technicalities, despite his tearful confession and description of how he raped her and kept her beside him in his bed the first night.
God forbid that, during his execution, this poor man might feel a burning sensation or even outright brief pain as the chemicals flow through his veins to stop his heart. God forbid that, as he loses consciousness for the last time, he might very well experience a feeling of impending suffocation. These are the things that lawyers use to stop executions on the grounds that they are briefly painful, and therefore "cruel and unusual" and so, unconstitutional. Oddly, no one is thinking too much about Jessica's feelings during this, and whether or not SHE may have been mistreated or how she felt during her own suffocation.
Please write me your comments and tell me why you think he deserves to live. I promise to forward your comments to Jessica's parents, and I am sure they will be of great comfort to them. Thank you.
So, Couey is in hell right now as you read this. If there is a God, he is in hell right now.
And Jessica finally has her justice.
