Carlie Brucia will not return home.

When her killer is identified, indicted and provided with legal help, her mother will have found little comfort or relief from the pain.

Carlie will never have a 12th birthday party.

Her killer will have competency evaluations, interviews with forensic experts who will search for a way to mitigate his guilt and the inveterate opportunity for an Atkins claim in the years ahead, all designed to guarantee that he is treated with fairness and decency.

No one asked Carlie, before snuffing out her life, about her feelings and fears, her childhood or whether she had difficulty finding friends in the second grade. She was not given a personality inventory before she was abducted on her walk home from a slumber party.

Her killer will have the resources of the public coffers at his disposal. If he should find himself facing the ultimate punishment in years to come, supporters sympathetic to his plight will surface from around the world.

Carlie died without hearing any encouraging words, demonstrations by champions of her rights or legal aid societies. Her life was stolen at the hands of the wicked.

Those who will stand in her behalf, pursuing justice and seeking punishment, will do so with so many scraps thrown their way by funders of the criminal justice system. Hours, weeks and months will be spent making sure that the vicious killer of Carlie Brucia will never again have the opportunity to breathe free air with law-abiding Americans.

Carlie will never drive a car, go on a date or graduate high school. She will never again kiss her mother goodnight.

Whatever it takes to secure justice in her behalf deserves the full support of honest people, those who work and pay society's bills and those who determine what to do with the public funds. And this should be done without complaint or argument.

Whatever it takes, let the good prevail.

[This message was edited by A.P. Merillat on 02-06-04 at .]

[This message was edited by A.P. Merillat on 02-06-04 at .]

Thank you for you eloquent post.

Yahoo news reported today that the killer was arrested and tried once before for grabbing a woman's wrist and trying to pull her into his car. The woman broke free and ran across the street and escaped. At trial, the defendant argued that the woman was trying to run out into the road and he was trying to "save" her by pulling her back. A'la the Durst case, the jury bought this argument and acquitted. With juries like that, where is there any hope of justice?

We don't know what words were spoken during the video tape scene. But one thing we should all learn is to tell every person, every boy or girl, to NEVER willingly be led away by any stranger. They must FIGHT with whatever means they have. Children should be taught to FIGHT for their lives. They should be taught to kick, scream, scratch, whatever they can do, but to NEVER, NEVER voluntarily follow some stranger, no matter what the reason.

I saw a discussion about warning kids about abduction on the Today show, and they made a good point. They said to tell your kids, that if possible, yell that "This is not my parent!" because a lot of people will assume that a kicking and screaming kid is just being a discipline problem to some parent and will ignore the situation. But you're absolutely right about teaching kids to run, scream, fight, whatever. I took a self-defense class where they said that if you get in the car with someone, and let them transport you to some other location, you're dead.

AP why don't you send your not to the networks? It reflects how screwed up the system has become.

It's rare to get those folks to listen to an unknown with a pro-victim/pro-law enforcement viewpoint. If people see it here, then my main purpose of expressing my sincere compassion for Carlie and others like her who have fallen victim to evil-doers has been accomplished.

The defendant who has been charged with the crime only had technical violations of his probation. Read article. I am guessing that the Legislature would not have wanted his probation officer to make an arrest, because, after all, they were only technical violations.

But, gosh, now that there is a real crime that has been committed, I suppose we can proceed.

This is the sort of case we are going to have to show the Legislature next session to remind them of the Kenneth McDuffs in this world who don't tell us when they are going to move from a "nonviolent" drug crime to a violent crime.