In that case, one thing we learned was how the ripples of her life and her death touched so many people, and how many people felt the loss. Thank you for focusing on her story.

19 years ago I lost my father in a home invasion robbery. His killers were a pair of drug addicts who had been in and out of the ’system’ all their lives. To this day I wonder what if I had been at home that day? What if I had called my dad and said, let’s have dinner together. What if we had a better burglar alarm. What if, what if, what if. The questions will never leave me, just as they won’t leave Lily’s parents.

As much as I condemn my father’s killers in the same way as I condemn Lily’s killer, I take no solace from their life sentences. It’s too late. It doesn’t bring my dad back, and it doesn’t bring Lily back.

Over the years I have come to realize that repeatedly locking these institutionalized sociopaths before they ‘up the ante’ in their criminality, does not achieve anything, other than guaranteeing someone’s personal tragedy. Sooner or later they do get out. And when they get out, they are far worse than when they went in.

Our society can no more afford to lock them up for ever (like 3-Strikes does) than it can afford any meaningful rehabilitation. The ‘drug program’ that Lily’s killer left only hours before he kidnapped and killed Lily did nothing except, perhaps, save the prison system the cost of 6 month parole violation incarceration, which (you may be surprised to hear) is actually only a 3 month imprisonment as parole violators get 50% conduct credits (“good time”) on their sentence.

The Governator was poised to release 27,000 “low risk, non-violent” prisoners to balance the budget. Each of of those 27,000 were poised to receive precisely the same level of post-release service and supervision as Charlie Samuel received – next to nothing.

Now, please do not take what I just said to mean that each of those 27,000 are going to spiral as far downwards as Samuel. The vast majority wont. The vast majority, 66%, will re-offend within 3 months of release, based on current statistics, because if there isn’t enough money to keep them in prison, there is even less money to supervise them on release.

So please tell me the answer? If the 27,000 don’t get early release to balance the budget, they will nevertheless get out eventually, and when they do, the problem of what they are destined to do will still be there.

Your very vile words have been deleted.

A few weeks ago I was speaking to a crime beat reporter for a local paper concerning the tragic, senseless shooting deaths of two young acquaintances of mine here in Las Vegas (the young men were 25 and 26 years old). I was, I told the veteran beat reporter, devastated to hear about the loss of both young men on June 8. “The problem as I see it,” she said, “is that we should all feel so deeply any such loss of human life to senseless violence in our community.”

Indeed.

Thanks for staying on top of this sad, tragic story, Celeste.