One of the saddest news reports I've ever read

I don't know why it's affected me so deeply, but this report has made me really sad, in a bone-deep, profoundly hopeless sort of way.

Janet Strickland, of the 400 block of East 95th Street, was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of armed robbery with a firearm in connection to the March 2 homicide of her husband William Strickland.

Bail was set at $500,000 for Janet Strickland today.

Prosecutors alleged Janet Strickland and her grandson, also named William Strickland, discussed killing her husband on multiple occasions.

. . .

Initially the two had discussed having someone else kill him, but Strickland later told his grandmother he would do the shooting himself, Kwilos alleged.

According to prosecutors, Strickland admitted that when she unlocked the door to let her husband leave for his dialysis appointment early in the morning of March 2 she knew he would be killed by her grandson.

She also admitted to knowing her grandson had his grandfather's gun, and to letting him use her car during the shooting, Kwilos said.

Janet Strickland was a beneficiary of her husband's accounts, including his bank account. After the shooting, the two went on a shopping spree with the victim's money, according to Kwilos.

There's more at the link.

So an old man's wife, and her grandson, decide they've had enough of him . . . and she gives him access to his grandfather's gun, and tells him to kill him . . . and he does, in front of her, as his grandfather walks out of the house.  He didn't just shoot him, he riddled him - police found no less than 25 spent cartridge cases at the scene.  As another report states, his grandmother "watched as he did so before stealing a casino bag with money in it as her husband lied (sic) shot on the street".

Yes, murder is a crime that happens daily;  but it's the completely soul-less, utterly amoral nature of this crime that bugs the hell out of me.  She didn't care at all that she was plotting to kill her the man with whom she'd spent her adult life, or corrupting her grandson in the process (he had no prior criminal record).  He'll probably spend the next few decades in prison - perhaps the rest of his life.  He'll be surrounded by equally soul-less, amoral criminals who'll warp and twist him even further.  The only benefits he received for his crime were "tattoos, new shoes, a cell phone and other items".  I hope he thinks they were worth what he's got coming . . .  As for his grandmother, she's pretty sick anyway.  She'll probably spend the last years of her life rotting behind bars, gasping for breath on taxpayer oxygen.

Similar crimes, similar amorality, have become a feature of far too many American cities and families.  That's the fruit of the so-called 'Great Society'.

Pointless . . . and so very, very sad for William Strickland Sr.  May he rest in peace.

Peter