Child killers
This VodkaPundit posting brought back some bitter memories. Here are the guts of it, a quote from PittsburghLIVE.com.

A McKeesport man with a history of child abuse allegations told police he threw his girlfriend's 16-month-old baby into an empty tub and shook him, slamming the child's head, because the baby had soiled his diaper, Allegheny County detectives said Thursday.

James M. Ferree, 41, is now in the county jail on a charge of criminal homicide after little James Walsh Jr. died in UPMC McKeesport hospital from his injuries.

When I was chief of public affairs of US Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID), my unpleasant duty every morning was to read the worldwide Army crime report. CID only deals with felony offenses; misdemeanors are handled by the military police.

One morning there was a ROI (Report of Investigation) of a dead baby case. A young soldier had stopped on the way home after getting off duty for a few beers. He got home both late and looped. His wife was also a soldier, on a different duty schedule. Husband's tardiness caused her to be late reporting for duty, a very serious thing in the Army. As soon as husband got home, wife was out the door. She couldn't leave before then because they had a baby son nine months old (or so; the child was still in a crib).

Baby started crying by and by, and drunken father got mad. He picked his baby son up by his ankles and quieted him by slamming his head against the wall several times - which killed him, of course. Then, father took the corpse to the balcony of their third-floor apartment and hurled it to the ground three apartments away.

Then there was the case of three-year-old Andrea McKinney, who was so brutally killed that you wouldn't believe me if I wrote it, and I just don't want to write it anyway. She died at the hands and other organs of a total stranger who kidnaped her from her bedroom about 4 a.m. So even though I wrote earlier that I am skeptical of the reported facts of the Elizabeth Smart case, I also have uneasy feeling that poor Elizabeth is lying dead somewhere after suffering more horribly than any of us would like to know.

VodkaPundit says that the case he cited is basically prima facie justification for capital punishment. I have worked to oppose the death penalty in my state, but honestly, I have a hard time finding mercy in my heart for anyone who murders or abuses a child.