I guess it'll have to do. The Argus Leader announces the jury has sentenced Daphne Wright to life in prison for the kidnapping and murdering Darlene VanderGiesen.
The jury of 11 women and one man agreed with Nelson that the killing and chain saw dismemberment revealed Wright had a depraved mind. But they said life in prison without parole is a more appropriate punishment than death by injection.
Wright would have been the first woman on South Dakota's death row. She is also black, deaf and homosexual, which had her lawyers and mother raising questions about a fair trial.
VanderGiesen, who died at 42, was also deaf.
Prosecutors said it was VanderGiesen's platonic friendship with Wright's ex-girlfriend, Sallie Collins, that drove the woman to murder on Feb. 1, 2006.
Testimony revealed Wright bought a chain saw two days later and chopped the body into four pieces. When the last of the remains were recovered six weeks later, VanderGiesen's family held a second funeral in their hometown of Rock Valley, Iowa.
All the whining and caterwauling I heard throughout this trial was truly disgusting. The murderer couldn't get a fair trial--or sentencing--because she was (1) a woman, (2) deaf, (3) a minority, (4) a homosexual, (5) she lacked "problem solving skills," (6) her mama fed her biscuits with a slingshot, (7) they used to tie a steak around her neck to get the dog to play with her, (8) any other excuse you can possibly dream up to alleviate her culpability.
A society that can't give a murderer what they deserve--the death penalty--in a case as egregious as this one, where she chopped up a woman with a chain saw, is a society that has lost its commitment to justice.
That's a society in real trouble, and in an advanced state of rot.
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