it is certainly criminal what he did. but it comes from a mental sickness that cant be cured.
Which is why these people need to be put away forever or maybe given a lobotomy. I knew a guy about ten years. He was in a neighboring state and it was a far trip across Texas so we might have met a dozen times in that ten years but talked often on forums and in e-mails, pretty much daily. 99% the most outstanding individual on a forum as big as AZB. He came on the forum and said that he was charged with a felony and was guilty. In an hour or two there was a full page of people offering him a place to stay, any other help he needed. He was the Smorgassbored of that forum, or so everyone thought. When somebody in New Orleans offered him a place to stay I posted that he couldn't come to New Orleans, children I loved in southeast Louisiana!
A dead spot on the forum then tons of hasty retractions. Everybody assumed that any felony Bill had been guilty of had been of the manly type, not a shorteyes offense. After molesting a four to six year old that thought of him as her grandfather the best deal he could get was 13 years. His hands were ruined and he was medium sized at best, prison wasn't going to go well for him. He went out in the desert and blew his brains out, one child molester cured! I still miss the Bill I thought I knew. One percent monster outweighed the 99% good guy though. I think he did what was best for everyone when he blew his brains out. The girl was fourteen then and she knew she never had to fear him again.
With no cure I don't know what we do with the people like howard who have supposedly paid their debt to society. I will never shake his hand, I think I would forfeit in a tournament rather than play with him. No way in hell I gamble with him or socialize with him. He, and everyone like him, are time bombs waiting to go off and commit another similar crime or worse.
We can't look at someone or socialize with them the short time we see them in a pool hall and recognize these people. Not knowing details seven years seem way too short. These crimes deserve the death penalty, doesn't matter if the person is sick or not. Natural life would probably let his fellow inmates take care of things for us.
Answers I have none. I met Bill on a varmint hunting forum. I told him blunt and plainly that if he came to southeast Louisiana he would be classified as a varmint. He knew me well enough to know I wasn't woofing.
We never know the paths of pain these people leave behind. They are very seldom a one time offender.
Hu