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“In our understandable desire to be fair and to protect the rights of
offenders in our criminal justice system, let us never ignore or minimize the
rights of their victims.” The death penalty is a necessary tool that reaffirms
the sanctity of human life while assuring that convicted killers will never
again prey upon others. Through the death penalty many families of victims find
solace and retribution by seeking to put an end to it all; the sleepless nights,
the terrifying nightmares of what their son, daughter, wife, husband, sister,
brother, aunt, uncle, cousin or friend went through and the constant reminder of
why their loved ones aren’t with them. In June 1997, a parade of witnesses at
the trial of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, described the
explosion’s impact on their lives. Survivors of the blast expressed their belief
that killing McVeigh would be justified, given their loss, and many expressed
their fury.
“The sooner McVeigh meets his maker, the sooner justice will be
served,” said Darlene Welch, whose 4-year-old niece, Ashley, was killed in the
blast. “He will get what he deserves in the afterlife, where he will meet Hitler
and Jeffrey Dahmer,” says Ernie Ross, who suffered serious injuries from the
blast while working across the street. “He deserves the death penalty, there’s
no doubt about that.” This would seem to be what Americans want. In poll after
poll, more than 70% say they support the death penalty, a figure that has
remained consistent for the past decade. But increasingly, another argument for
the death penalty is being voiced, one far more basic. It centers not on the
criminal’s debt to society but on the right of a victim’s loved ones to gain
peace of mind through his death.
The right, in other words, would be therapeutic
vengeance. Death-penalty opponents have traditionally viewed this kind of
personal retribution as barbaric. But isn’t bringing solace to a victim and
their family a legitimate justification for the death penalty? And isn’t
providing solace a powerful form of compensation? On the afternoon of October 1,
1997, 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley told his grandmother, “I have to go do
something. I’ll be back in a little while.” Then he left her house in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. His grandmother would be the last one to see him alive. When
Curley did not come home that night, his family, their neighbors and police
organized a huge search. They also distributed flyers with the boy’s picture on
it. The next day Salvatore Sicari, Curley’s neighbor and adult “friend,” arrived
at the Curleys’ home with a handful of the flyers. He expressed his concern over
the boy’s disappearance and offered his assistance.
Sicari also began to speak
to Cambridge police, offering bits of information. Sicari told police that he
had last seen Curley on the morning of October 1, when Curley had apparently
threatened him with his dog. Sicari said that he told Curley that he would kill
the dog if the boy didn’t stop. After that encounter, Sicari said he met up with
Charles Jaynes. Sicari told authorities that he had seen Curley riding in Jaynes’
Cadillac in the past. He also claimed that Jaynes had promised Curley a bicycle.
He had warned Curley to stay away from Jaynes. Cambridge police contacted Jaynes
on October 2. While he denied knowing Curley, he was arrested on an outstanding
warrant and taken into custody. In Jaynes’ wallet, police found four receipts
for items purchased with a credit card bearing his father’s name: Edward Jaynes.
The items included a receipt from Bradlees for a Rubbermaid container, a receipt
from Home Depot for cement and lime, a receipt for a bicycle and a receipt from
an Osco Drug Store for cigars and caffeine pills.
All of these purchases were
made on the day of Curley’s disappearance. When questioned, Jaynes said that he
knew Curley, but denied seeing him on the day the boy disappeared. Sicari was
contacted again by Cambridge police and continued to provide details. In his
statement, Sicari described the killing. While he drove Jaynes’ Cadillac, he
explained, the 250-pound Jaynes sat on Curley in the back seat. As Curley
struggled, Jaynes allegedly told him, “Don’t fight it.” Jaynes then placed a
gasoline soaked rag to the boy’s mouth and held it there, killing him. After the
boy had been suffocated to death Sicari and Jaynes drove to numerous stores to
buy the items necessary to dispose of Curley’s body. Video cameras in two of the
stores captured the men at the checkout counter purchasing a Rubbermaid
container, a bag of lime and a bag of concrete.
The men then left Massachusetts
and drove to Jaynes’ apartment in Manchester, New Hampshire. There, Jaynes took
off Curley’s clothes and molested the boy’s dead body. When Sicari became sick
he ran to the bathroom and Jaynes said to him, “Don’t be a baby. Come out here
and help me, he’s starting to stiffen up.” Sicari then admitted to helping
Jaynes prepare the body. First they placed Curley’s body in the cement-filled
Rubbermaid container, put lime on his face and in his mouth to speed
decomposition, and sealed the container with duct tape. Then they drove to
Maine, where they dumped the container into a river. Prosecutors believed that
Sicari and Jaynes lured Curley into Jaynes’ Cadillac with the promise of $50 and
a bicycle.
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