In a verdict that sent shivers down the spines of Suffolk County and prompted a round of smug nods from Scotland Yard, the Long Island serial killer has been packed off to a lifetime of porridge and pathetic prison-yard puttering. The judge, a man whose face looked like it had been carved from a block of judicial outrage and left to soften in a drawer, banged his gavel with the finality of a pub door slamming shut at closing time.
Let us pause to savour the theatre of it all. The families of the victims, clutching tissues and each other, their faces etched with the quiet dignity of those who have been dragged through hell by a monster in human skin. The defendant, a man so utterly devoid of soul that if you shone a light through his ear, nothing would come out the other side. And there, in a corner, the British law enforcement delegation, polishing their badges and preening like peacocks who have just been told their feathers are on sale.
Because nothing warms the cockles of a British constable’s heart quite like an American serial killer being put away. It is a chance for them to dust off the old ‘we taught you everything you know’ routine, as if the entire history of transatlantic justice could be distilled into a single, self-congratulatory press release. ‘Cross-border justice’ they call it, a phrase that sounds less like a legal triumph and more like a particularly complicated airport transfer.
The crimes themselves, a catalogue of depravity that would make a seasoned coroner blanch. The bodies, discarded like last week’s newspapers. The investigation, a labyrinth of missed clues and bureaucratic blundering that made the Keystone Kops look like the SAS. And yet, somehow, justice was done. Or at least, the bastard was caught and locked away. Which, in the grand, grimy scheme of things, is about as close to a happy ending as you are going to get.
But let us not get misty-eyed. This is not a story of heroes, unless you count the dogged reporters who kept the story alive, or the families who refused to let their loved ones be forgotten. The rest of them, the suits and the politicians and the hand-wringing talking heads, they are just extras in a drama that was never about them. They are the garnish on a plate of human misery, the parsley that nobody eats.
So here is to the killer, now a number in a jumpsuit, his reign of terror reduced to a shuffle and a tray of slop. Here is to the British coppers who will dine out on this for years. And here is to the rest of us, who must continue to live in a world where such monsters are bred in the dark corners of the human soul. Pass the gin. I think I need another.
