Endoh’s Dungeon

Warning: This post may be potentially emotional and long.

1. If you’re having a good day, don’t read. I don’t want to spoil your day.
2. If you’re having a bad day, don’t read. I don’t think you need me to make your day worse.

I understand that most people probably felt Charles Dean Hood deserves to die. Maybe, a certain part of me feels the same. One must be punished for their crimes. Yet, I wanted to explore on the circumstances surrounding the committed crime. Sometimes I find that such information are useful even if we are not dealing with convicts. The same understanding can also be used on friends, children and family around us, knowing why they did what they did.

I was pretty much losing sleep for about two hours. Reflecting back on my previous post, I decided to search for some stuffs to read. I was also pretty much led on by Ian’s post (I subscribe to his feeds), where he shared his views about wrongful convictions. I found the interview transcript of executed convict, James Filiaggi, who was sentenced to die for killing his ex-wife. He was executed on 24th April, 2007.

When I read through James’s transcript, I began to formulate a certain image of him. First of all, he wasn’t really as evil as he was made out to be. If all of us are able to cast away the judgmental tendencies in us, it is not hard to tell that this was a sinner whom was truly remorseful. The other thing that can be made out of, is the kind of influence (call it revenge) his ex-wife had in his life.

Does that means I am about to condone what he had done? Absolutely not. He did indeed kill him somebody. What’s harder to prove, wasn’t the crime. The real difficult thing to prove was the torment he suffered in his life which was brought about by his ex-wife. It’s always easy for us to say “oh… be a gentleman” or “this killer doesn’t know how the victim feel”. Honestly, did his ex-wife cared how the convict felt prior to the murder?

The fact that he pulled the trigger because he was losing his children tells us, he is a father who loves his children totally. If that makes a man evil and deserving of death, many of us should be rotting in hell by now. We casted the light on his life, his education (wow… 3 degrees and an aspiring entreprenuer!), his family so on so forth. One miserable thing we left out was looking at the family background of his murdered wife, Lisa Filiaggi.

For a woman to be engaged to another man so quickly within a few months after the divorce, I think that is also quite suggestive of the woman’s true character. The thing was, bringing her new beau to pick up her children was definitely a bad idea. If the interview was truly what James felt in his heart, then I would agree that it was a purposefully planned trip to aggravate him into doing something according to the hidden video he referred to. Except for the fact, Lisa didn’t know a bullet was what she would get.

It’s normal for parents to condemn the killers of their children. If I ever had to face such a situation, I will want justice to be served. This is a unique case though, because if you do a little paparazzi-style search you would have found out that Lisa’s mother - Ellen Jane Harris - ain’t someone without a shady background too. Ellen had been married and separated multiple times. I remembered reading 6 or 8 times, I can’t confirm on that. Has that become a childhood influence in Lisa’s character which contributed to this conflict?

Is the desire for multiple partners running in Lisa’s family blood? I wouldn’t discount that, it’s perfectly possible. So if Lisa has inherited this trait from her mother, try thinking how you will feel if you were James. At the end of it, not only did James lose his wife. He’s possibly losing his children to a wife with questionable character issue based on all the facts above. In a certain way, maybe Lisa asked for it equally as much.

But such is the law, it’s supposed to be impartial. Being impartial, the law most probably wouldn’t accept emotional distress into consideration. Yet, it is precisely this emotional distress in us which made some of us did what we did at some point in our lives. The only difference is, we weren’t forced up to a wall like James had been. If we were, can we really guarantee we wouldn’t kill anybody?

Most close friends know I am a divorcee, even though they cannot completely understand how it feels to be one. Likewise, I could have flashed a chopper and made damn sure my ex-wife will never see the next sunrise again. My point is, emotional breakdown can happen to anyone. You and I, alike. Does “emotional breakdown” necessary mean a person is evil in the heart?

Convicts are to be punished for their crimes. Today, I questioned if putting a person to death contributes real values to our society. Maybe, keeping them behind bars without possibility of parole while at the same time, using them to speak to small-time convicts and influencing them not to do crime again might yield better values out of an impartial system. Is legalized killing murder, not?

In Singapore, educating and reforming convincts is what the Government preached. Isn’t it?