Cornwall ON- I like many of you am reading the sordid and frightening details of Colonel Russell Williams and his spree of sadistic and murderous behaviour. It’s the hot topic of many of us today. I talked about it on our radio station yesterday.
We live in towns, cities, racing like hamsters most of the time; but do we really know our neighbors? Are first impressions really enough? What happened to our society that monsters like Colonel Williams can get to the positions of trust he attained?
I’ve here in a lovely looking neighborhood here in Cornwall now for seven years. I’ve spoken to maybe six of my neighbors. Maybe I remember half of their names. I don’t think I’m that unique; maybe too many years of living in big cities?
No, I’m not suggesting we start spying on our neighbors, but maybe, just maybe, we should start being more neighborly? And maybe, just maybe we need to find better ways of screening people professionally especially when those positions involve law enforcement and the military or positions of trust like the medical position or certain government positions where people have access to personal information?
In the meanwhile Colonel Williams will join the ranks of his old chum Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olson and Robert Picton as monster murderers of Canada.
What do you think Canada? You can post your comments below.
Bring back the death penalty and hang the lot!
Yes! Bring back the death penalty. Scum like that doesn’t deserve to live.
You see the death penalty, according to modern psychology, doesn’t work as a deterrent. No one is to blame anymore( except if we do not pay our taxes – right!). Society on a whole is to blame for “the Colonel”. The sad part about it all, is that our judicial system believes that modern psychology is right! We are so advance in our thinking in our society today, that many believe that capital punishment is so barbaric. Are we not being barbaric to the victims of such wicked crimes when we let such off with only a slap on the hand? Case in point – the man who beheaded the man on the bus awhile ago. He was considered unfit mentally to stand trial. Now I believe he has been released on day passes!
The Bible calls for capital punishment in a fair, speedy manner, but we are wiser than God, thus our society is destroying itself. “The way of the transgressor is hard….”. We are getting what we deserve!
Our guilty silence and our unwillingness to act (in a lawful way) to change the way things are done proves how “barbaric” we really have all become. Forsake God and His word, and He abandons us to a reprobate mind – unable to judge right from wrong. That is why we elect fools for judges and politicians, and then we wonder why they all turn out to be liars!
Ecc 8:11 “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil”. Pro 29:2 “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn”.
Include political malfeasance and white collar crime on the list and you got a deal.
Tom in this case we almost agree. As much as I get called a Lefty and wear that badge proudly I am a firm believer in Capital Punishment in cases such as Colonel Williams.
Federal goverment(Harper) listen up,You have no choice but to bring back the death penalty.These animals have to pay the price and the price is death.Capital punishment has a place in Canadian justice.Bring it back.
the death penalty doesn’t work.. this comes along once in a hundred years in Canada, look at the states where they have the death penatly, there is COL williams in the paper every single day.
Although I’d like to see the likes of Williams and Bernardo dead, there is a serious problem with reinstating the death penalty. In our justice system, you are either guilty or innocent. To be found guilty, there has to be no reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty. We know that in Canada we have had a bunch of people convicted of murder who were completely innocent of the crime and were eventually exonerated. Had we had the death penalty, these people might still have been exonerated, but they would all be dead.
Furtz how about this. First conviction, benefit of the doubt and rehabilitation, 2nd stern punishment and protect society; 3rd time yer done. Society gains nothing by Colonel Williams, Paul Berndardo, or Clifford Olsen getting 3 squares. Now since we’re holding people like this accountable let’s start on our system too.
Let’s fix our social net. Let’s tax fairly. Let’s hold society accountable instead of loopholes in loopholes of loopholes by loop heads…..
Jamie, Not sure what taxes and the social safety net has to do with bringing back the death penalty. I agree that those things have to be fixed, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m just saying that if the state starts killing convicted murderers, there will be wrongly convicted people killed as well.
Furtz I’m talking about repeat offenders or clear multiple murders such as the Williams case.
Jamie, In Canada, you are either guilty or not guilty…nothing in between. Murder is murder, and if we bring back the death penalty for murder, we will be killing some innocent people. I’d rather keep the monsters like Bernardo, Olson and Williams locked up and fed for the rest of their lives than take the chance of killing a wrongly convicted person.
Furtz allow me to clarify. First conviction of Murder you get a chance to rehab. 2nd Conviction of Murder you’re gone for a very long time to prevent society with a chance of release. Conviction of a 3rd murder; well is there any point? There is no positive reason for someone like Colonel Williams walking the planet. The evidence is clear. As a matter of fact the gruesomeness of what’s been in the media the last few days has been because of his chance at parole down the road!
We’ll have to agree to disagree, Jamie. I believe that if the state decides who will live and who will die, mistakes will be made. Bernardo, Olson and Williams will never “walk the planet”. They will be locked up in for the rest of their miserable lives in conditions that nobody would like. As repulsed as I am by these murderers, killing them would serve no purpose at this time.
Just an afterthought, Jamie. Are you advocating for the reinstatement of the death penalty? If so, shouldn’t you be running for the Reformatories? Where is the Green Party on this issue?
During the cold war it would have been impossible for an army officer to walk off base and not be shadowed.
Buddy kills his wife. He’s convicted. He can only kill his wife once.
Jack contracted to have an above ground parking garage built and cheated by throwing in extra sand to save money. The parking lot collapses and kills 25 people. White collar criminals murder postponed and at a distance. White collar criminals murder at a far higher rate and with greater frequency than blue collar criminals. It’s called differential illegitimate opportunity. The blue collar criminal will have a ten buck lawyer. The white collar criminal will have five lawyers. The Crown attorney will be working alone and under staffed. The poor will hang.
Furtz what I’ve said is pretty clear. Personally I would very much consider and most likely support the death penalty at some level. I’d rather take the money used to support Clifford Olsen, Paul Bernardo, Robert Picton, and Colonel Russell Williams and put it into health care.
No, I don’t think it plays any role with me being a candidate for the Green Party. Nobody agrees with every single facet of a party platform. Democracy is a truly wonderful thing. Policy gets molded. IS this my political focus. No, not at all. It’s simply my personal opinion on the subject. Would I resign from a party because their stance was different over any single subject? Not likely. Would a political party reject a candidate because of a single issue? Not likely either. We all debate subjects and issues. We lobby for opinions. It’s all part of the process just like you and I have dialogged on it here.
What I’m hearing from you is that your issue is innocent people being executed. I respect that. I certainly would want to limit that, but I can tell you today that innocent people die each and every day because of a lack of justice. Our society needs better accountability. More people are dying because of the failing of our governments when it comes to medicare than all the Paul Bernado’s or Clifford Olsen’s ever will have killed. The common theme is that the murderers all get pensions. Their victims won’t.
Furtz writes “…killing them would serve no purpose at this time”. The purpose is that justice is served and a clear message to all that crime does not pay! Locking them up for life and than paroling them after 25 years is not a life sentence in my book. Premeditated murder, one example, should always be punishable by death – “an eye for and eye”.
“He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die”. Exo 21:12-14
In situations such as this our government reps will suggest better ways of policing, maybe hire more civil servants. They seem to miss the point that allowing the existing civil servants to use a gun would reduce the need for more money on hiring people.
What is it $0.35 per bullet opposed to $35.000 per new employee as an officer then $60,000/yr for the jail time not to mention council ling and court costs…..
Jamie, I can’t argue with that. I’d like to see those guys dead too. However, once we reinstate the death penalty, mistakes will be made. That’s the reason we got rid of it.
The preacher just wants to have people killed because of his asinine religion.
Furtz has it right: reinstate capital punishment, mistakes will be made, and innocent people will go to the gallows as before. As for the preacher, his thinking belongs to the Stone Age along with the Taliban.
Here’s an all too familiar story I picked up on this morning. It’s an email from the Government of Ontario information service.
McGuinty Government Compensates William Mullins-Johnson
The government will be providing William Mullins-Johnson with $4.25 million in compensation for his wrongful conviction.
This payment is being provided under the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Guidelines for Compensation of the Wrongfully Convicted.
In overturning Mr. Mullins-Johnson’s conviction, the Court of Appeal found that there was no evidence that he was guilty of any crime.
QUOTES
“On behalf of the Government of Ontario, I offer my deepest and most sincere apologies to Mr. Mullins-Johnson and his family for the miscarriage of justice that occurred and the pain they had to endure. Mr. Mullins-Johnson has been working hard to rebuild his life and we wish him well as he continues that process.”
– Chris Bentley
Attorney General
QUICK FACTS
* On July 17, 2007, the federal Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada announced his decision on the application by Mr. Mullins-Johnson for ministerial review of his conviction. The Minister referred the matter back to the Court of Appeal for a hearing based on fresh evidence.
* On October 15, 2007, the Court of Appeal heard the appeal and reversed the conviction by granting Mr. Mullins-Johnson a full acquittal.
PJR
we got rid of the death penalty for the same reason Ruby Dhalla is tying to pass the reduction to pension plan contribution. There is more money in keeping people poor then making a just society
See, Richard Komorowski does find this genuine point. In this case another executive has gone rogue. Dr. Charles Smith was the pathologist who went bad and turned in false work. This habit we’ve gotten into of setting up squeeky clean, super square, hyper moralistic, evangelical, overly ritualistic executives to run our offices is problematic. As a point of fact I must say that since 1990 over 100 Members of Parliament have been found guilty of indictable offences ranging from bribery, fraud to breech of trust and theft also including a Senator sent to jail. That is a far higher rate then exists in the rest of society. These people in turn are capable of creating unsuitable laws for the rest of us.
How noble and caring Furtz and PJR are! Or are they? As if they really cared for the few that are wrongly convicted and actually ends up being executed. I don’t see them crying out against how the system has failed the victims of these tragic crimes. What would happen if the death penalty was reinstated is that the average Joe juror would have to be a man or woman of conviction and morally competent. They would have to be serious about serving their fellow man in love, rather living just for themselves! It is easy to blame the system, especial when we fail in our civil duties! Don’t get involved – not on my time!
Hey, pastor tom, I think in cases that are without any doubt where the person is convicted, everyone knows what they did, they have pictures of themselves running around in victim women’s underwear, have been caught with boxes of meticulously collected samples from victims, with their names and addresses on them, and also have admitted their red handed guilt in it all, then quite frankly, they deserve the death penalty, especially ex-Col Williams.. what a fraud, that bastard should just be sealed in a room with you to suffer for eternity..
lol, and the ex-Colonel would have another victim and we’d have peace in the valley….
William Mullins-Johnson was found guilty of raping and killing his niece. Sure seemed like a good candidate for the death penalty. Remember that to be found guilty, there must be “no reasonable doubt” as to the guilt. Twelve years later we’re saying “Oops, we sure screwed up on that one.” We have quite a history in Canada of convicting innocent people.
James Driskell, Anthony Hanemaayer, Donald Marshall Jr., Simon Marshall, David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin, William Mullins-Johnson, Romeo Phillion, Thomas Sophonow, Steven Truscott, Kyle Unger, and Erin Walsh were all wrongfully convicted of murder. Thankfully for them, we stopped hanging “murderers”.
Correction. Anthony Hanemaayer and Simon Marshall were not convicted for murder. They were wrongfully convicted for a knife attack, and multiple sexual assaults respectively.
I agree with you Furtz, that in these kind of cases, thank god we didn’t have the death penalty. But these are people that maintained their innocence during those trials and consistently maintained their innocence after. A system can be put in place where only those 100% guilty, such as ex-Col. Williams, who admitted guilt, who was caught with all the evidence, who has sent his petty letters of condolences to their families, who was dancing around in his victims underwear while snapping pics, I think thats a pretty open and shut case for the death penalty. Does our military still have the death sentence? I believe they do, Ill have to research that. But if they do, why was this tried in civilian court? I think someone wanted the Col to remain alive personally.. and now we the taxpayer, who not only paid for his @$$ in the military, but now we get to pay for it yearly for as long as he lives.. well, we can feel safe that the “cons” will use one of those shnazzy new jails to jail him up.. personally, they should make him part of the supporting structure and encase him in the walls.. Hoffa style if you know what I mean.. 😉
Jamie said, “First conviction of Murder you get a chance to rehab.” So would this have included Picton, Bernardo, and Olsen. As far as I know they have never been released. So are you advocating a second and third chance to murders. No thanks I like them fine right where they are, behind bars.
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Murder is murder and Williams is a sociopath and Bernardo, Picton etc etc perpetuated some real heinous crimes but ask a Mother of son stabbed by a gang banger or shot innocently in a drive by or killed by a drunk driver if somehow her loss is less poignant because her child didn’t die by the hands of some famous sociopath.
Just ask MADD because this group believes that if you drink and then drive and kill some innocent this too should be called murder. So we hang these people too?
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You also said “I certainly would want to limit that, but I can tell you today that innocent people die each and every day because of a lack of justice.” And I agree with this statement, but it is certainly not a compelling reason to use the justice system to execute more innocents.
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I see people including you somehow begrudge the fact that these criminals are getting three meals a day a bed to sleep in and a dry roof over their heads…..so they got it good but consider Bernardo housed at Kingston Pen. in a cell three paces long and only an arms-length in width, confined for 23 hours a day
He is serving an indefinite life sentence and will never be released. I would sooner let him suffer everyday in this confined cage than end his suffering by putting him to death. A life with no future or freedom is worse than death.
One last thing, does anyone remember 8 year old Christine Jessop? Guy Paul Morin was wrongly convicted for her rape and murder and then thrown into the Prisons general population instead of being segregated like other child murderers, that’s how convinced the prison authorities were of his guilt. They didn’t even want to give him the protection given to child molesters.
He was exonerated by DNA evidence but surely would have been executed if there was a death penalty and his only crime was being the weird guy next door that smoked cigarettes.
Her real murderer still walks the streets today.
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Prison terms and capital punishment are not deterrents to murder or crime. No one plans to murder someone and then thinks, “Wait then I will be hung so maybe I shouldn’t kill him” no when people commit murder the punishment is never considered.
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So until the justice system is perfect and innocent people are no longer housed behind bars I say no to Capital punishment. We can’t let passion get in the way of common sense.
Grimalot what you are purposing is levels of murders? Some one that murders someone is a murderer no matter what the evidence, what you are propsong is only putting to death the sloppy ones that leave evidence, where as the smart killer would get life?
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Here is another case you should look at, that of Ron Williamson baseball player. He confessed to he rape and murder he was accused of but 5 days before he was gassed DNA evidence exonerated him.
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He spent 11 years on death row, a confession a slam dunk, glad the state didn’t kill him as the real killer was convicted on the same DNA evidence.
Bring back the death penalty!!!!! I’m so disgusted with Canada.
Actually I more or less wish he was tried in the military, with the highest form of punishment in the end.. but alas, they didn’t do it that way for some reason.. I think Bernardo should rot, I think Homolka should have as well, and now here we have Williams (who also happened to go to the same university about the same time as Bernardo though possibly unrelated to all this) who was terrorizing who knows how many women, this could be just the tip of the iceberg, we don’t even know what he may have been doing internationally..
I’m not all for a death penalty, but I mean come on, how far will things go, how far will people go with no form of deterrence? Seems to me like these psycho killers aren’t all that afraid of prison or what they do to their victims/families, etc.. Here, we spend all sorts of resources trying to stop things that are so easily stopped with some simple logic, we spend all sorts of money prosecuting simple pot smokers and putting them in jails, when this is the serious stuff that resources should be spent on and hunted down at all costs!
Lets for once use our resources, for the better good, for properly screening lunatics like this in upper military levels and such like that, in hunting down abductors, killers, major bilkers like Earl Jones and such, instead of wasting so much on menial things..
As for my viewpoint about a killer getting taken out, if ex-col Williams were to tragically get run over by a train during transport, or any of those other sicko killers, I would not shed a tear otherwise, lets put it that way..
Williams ,,is going to die in Jail thats what i call a real slow death, just think 23hrs a day in a 6×10 cell ,, hes going to go out of his mind Karma knows what its doing ”Karma is the best thing we have,,,now look at him ”’he use to ”see over the biggest air base in Canada,, he went from the top to the vary bottom ,,thats also part of the Karma” the worst is yet to come for Williams ,, lost all his friends & freedom hes done now its ,,time to start healing,,,this will take alot of time for all the familys he affected,
Grimalot you say “I’m not all for the death penalty” and I say to you that there is really no waffling on this subject. Either you are for the death penalty or you are not!
“the Karma” – what foolishness!
Pastor Tom just for you:
kar·ma
[kahr-muh] -noun
1. Hinduism, Buddhism . action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation: in Hinduism one of the means of reaching Brahman. Compare bhakti ( def. 1 ) , jnana.
2. Theosophy . the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person’s deeds in the previous incarnation.
3. fate; destiny.
4. the good or bad emanations felt to be generated by someone or something.
“How noble and caring Furtz and PJR are!” exclaims the pastor, mockingly. What happened to the connection between pastoring and caring?
We don’t pay attention to the habits of Military Power Elite even if that makes us insecure. We don’t pay attention to the Medical Elite regardless of the security. We don’t pay attention to Integrity Commissions. And while our Security Minister was chasing pot heads Google admits their Foreign Intelligence Google Van was driving around Cornwall inhaling passwords, URLs and e-mails using an undescribed stealth technology. Will the Security Minister provide the good citizens of Cornwall with properly shielded computer devices? Will the Security Minister confirm or deny that foreign agents are roaming the streets of Canada night and day stealing Canadian data in a systematic, routine and sustained manner? I understand that there is no justice I just hate to feel insecure on top of it. I kid you not.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/google-admits-street-view-cars-collected-e-mails-passwords/7538