Guilty, Murder in the First Degree

Another instance of evil roaming the world, unchallenged. Another monstrous personality unleashed on the world, to do irreparable damage, until finally brought to justice. The destroyer of many lives will now sit in a penitentiary cell for a quarter-century at the very least, perhaps more, although the man does aspire and plan how he will continue his life eventually, after parole. He will still, presumably have enough of his life left to live out as he will.

And society, having extracted its disciplinary penalty on another of its psychopaths who succumbed to yet another psychotic rage, can brace itself for that future time when a murderer with little in the way of conscience is released. His children shudder at the very thought of coming in contact once again with the brute that is their father. His former wives, all three of them, can relish twenty-five years free of him.

His three wives, and his three children will never, irrespective of the outcome of this trial, live normal lives, however. The memory of their victimization is seared deeply within their souls. Life with that inhumane creature similar in effect to living through the horrors of a vicious war; the effects life-lasting, deeply entrenched, completely debilitating. Although they still have their lives to get on with, however they may manage to.

For the man he murdered, although claiming he did not; merely did he kill him, instead, life is no more. For that man's wife and that man's children, their father is a loving memory, one that will never leave their consciousness though they far prefer that he be still with them, to return their feelings of cherished intimate and trusting relations. The burden of absence is theirs, he cannot be restored to life.

The brutal attack that Kevin Gregson submitted police officer Eric Czapnik to was the considered action of a man whose temperament was a trial and a tribulation, causing anguish and fear, to all who knew him intimately. His parents, his siblings, his wives, his children. From his teen years the man was symptomatic of an inner fury and hatred that nothing could depress.

He used intimidation and brute force to obtain whatever it was he desired. And this was the technique he utilized when he confronted Eric Czapnik seated in his police cruiser in front of the Ottawa Civic Hospital on December 29, 2009, and mortally slashed his throat for resisting the order to hand over his police-issued gun to the psychopath.

It is a pity, in so many ways, that society has no way of culling from its midst such distinctly cruel and threatening life-forces for evil. But we cannot prognosticate, cannot truly know how such abusive and dreadful people will act out their lives, leaving broken souls in their wake. Until they commit that final act of depravity, of taking someone's life, only then are we able to remove that creature from actively pursuing mayhem and murder.

What a profound dilemma.