Killing spree

This is revolting:

The neighborhood where Bryan and Kathryn Harvey were raising their two young daughters is an oasis of suburban serenity in the middle of a city that ranks high on lists of dangerous places.

Many of the gracious, century-old homes in Woodland Heights have backyard sandboxes and swing sets. Many residents don't lock their doors. Only last summer, a rash of toolshed break-ins was considered a crime wave.

Then, on New Year's Day, neighbors noticed smoke curling from the Harveys' two-story, red-brick house with a lime green door and called 911.

What was discovered inside was so gruesome that homicide detectives cried. All four Harveys -- Bryan, 49; Kathryn, 39; Stella, 9; and Ruby, 4 -- had been bound with tape and beaten. Their throats were slit.

It was only the beginning.

Five days later, police acting on a tip went to a working-class neighborhood a mile from the Harveys' home and found three more bodies. Like the Harveys, Ashley Baskerville, 21, her mother, Mary, 47, and stepfather, Percyell Tucker, 55, had been tied up before being slain in their home.

Police believe all seven victims were killed by two ex-convicts from Arlington County who are uncle and nephew. Ricky J. Gray and Ray J. Dandridge, both 28, were charged in the slayings. Since Gray and Dandridge were arrested Jan. 7 in Philadelphia, police have linked them to other crimes in a trail of death and violence stretching from Virginia to Pennsylvania, like a page torn from "In Cold Blood."

The men have told police they slashed the throat of an Arlington man on New Year's Eve, and police suspect they robbed a Chesterfield County couple in their home three days later. In addition, Gray is a suspect in the death of his wife of barely six months, Treva Terrell Gray, whose body was found in November in a weedy lot south of Pittsburgh.

To the extent that there's any good news here it's that Virginia is an active practitioner of the death penalty. These two goes will go on trial and -- barring any momumental screw-ups from the prosecutor -- they will die.

And there's the rub about the death penalty. In theory, I'm against it. As I said before, it's not that I have a problem with executing people per se, it's that I don't think I have sufficient trust in the government to carry it out in a fair and equitable manner. The thought of an innocent person being executed makes my stomach turn.

But at the same time here we have a case where two scumbags engaged in a killing spree and we know they did it. They confessed to the crime. I'd bet money they find a DNA link. There is no doubt they are guilty. And they should die.

So let me ask this of others who are either ambivalent or actively opposed to the death penalty: are there reforms that could be passed that would enable you to embrace capital punishment? If so, what are they?

This is also an interesting read from someone against the death penalty in theory but not practise -- at least in one instance.