Crime: Mark Dixie Gets Life in Prison

This depraved wretch is Mark Dixie. He has repeatedly been convicted of sexual assault and harrassment of women in two continents at least, that police know of.

Most recently, he stabbed a teenager to death and then had sex with her corpse, or soon-to-be corpse as she lay in a pool of her own blood. This wretch is only 35 years old.

Today, a court sentenced this recidivist piece of walking waste to life in prison.

La Casa de Los Gatos, having blogged some truly horrific stories over the past week, was not interested in diving back into the sewers of human depravity. However, we have been reflecting on an ugly and disturbing trend of violence against the female of the species, of late. We refer you to the case of Alexis Goggins, a child who was shot by her mother's ex-boyfriend. Nailah Franklin, whose only crime was to be an attractive woman who briefly dated, and was murdered by, a jerk with a history of domestic violence. Hope Steffey, whose only crime appears to have been calling the police for assistance after an assault. Angela Gabarino, arrested for driving drunk, videotaped in reasonably good condition shortly after her arrest, then taken to a hospital with horrific injuries that the police claimed occurred when she "fell."

All of these cases are horrific in their own way. However, we want to point out our support of the death penalty in some cases, and not others, and Mark Dixie is a perfect illustration for our argument.

There are many people in the world who are sick, or twisted, or deeply damaged in one way or another. And many of these people hurt, maim, or kill other people. Sometimes they hurt other people because they, like Calvin Tillie who shot little Alexis Goggins, are very flawed and damaged human beings. Sometimes, like ex-police officer Wiley Willis of Shreveport, LA, or the police officers who stripped a screaming distraught Hope Steffey of Stark County, OH, or Reginald Potts of Chicago, Ill. who is on trial for the murder of Nailah Franklin, they are bullies who are used to getting their own way and lack any empathy with others. If they cannot bully their victims into compliance, they kill them.

And then there is Mark Dixie.

For the record, we don't have a whole lot of compassion or understanding for any of the other criminals mentioned above. We feel they all deserve some sort of punishment. However, they are not beyond redemption and rehabilitation.

Mark Dixie, however, is in a different class. Here, in the words of Auntie Beeb:

Police said Dixie enjoyed hearing details of his crimes being re-told in court by his victims.

Det Supt Stuart Cundy said: "Dixie has made his victims re-live horrific ordeals. He made Sally Anne's family sit through horrific evidence."

[...]

It was only after British police made inquiries following Dixie's arrest during a minor scuffle in a pub in Surrey that his DNA was matched to an unsolved attempted murder and rape of a student in Perth.

This man is a repeat sex offender who has attacked many many women and has yet to pay the price for a single one of his crimes. He has exhibited no remorse whatsoever. Worst of all, he seems to have enjoyed the suffering of his many victims. It is the element of enjoyment that causes us to espouse the death penalty for people such as Mr. Dixie.

How any human being can be so lacking in the basic human qualities as to enjoy the suffering of another living creature is beyond us. That is not something that can be fixed with drugs or therapy or anything else. This man is lacking in a quality so basic that he can never be repaired or made whole again. And as long as he lives, he is a danger to all other living creatures, because the source of his enjoyment is another creature's suffering. Because we do not relish any other creature's suffering, we would prefer that he be put out of his misery immediately and by painless means. Barring that, we sincerely hope that until he draws his last breath he is never again in a position to cause pain and suffering to a single other creature, not man or beast.

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