Nicholas T. Sheley killed a 93 year old man, a 2 year old child and 6 more victims whose age fell somewhere in the middle. Sheley's family blames it on Crack, it makes him crazy they say. Way to avoid accountability, I say. Crack didn't make this waste of oxygen bash in the skull of an old man, addiction didn't kill a small child, Nicholas Sheley did it, because that's how he is wired.
Maybe you remember Clyde the handball playing killer, who I wrote about. Clyde was a cold guy, but not in the same vein as Sheley. Clyde killed people who were involved to some degree or another, in the drug trade. Now that doesn't make it okay, but it gives you something to get your head around. Sheley killed because he enjoyed it. He was a bad seed from the git go. Some shit you just cant blame on your childhood, or your addiction, or due to mommy not breast feeding you, or no father around , or because uncle Earl blew you when you were 7. But you can rest assured that excuses similar to these will be offered up when this case goes to trial.
We often find ourselves trying to make sense of incomprehensible acts. We like to analyze things, find the root cause, the motivating factors, the answer to the age old question,...... Why? Psychologists will tell you that childhood factors in to a criminals makeup. Victims of abuse become perps, environment breeds criminals, poverty, single parent homes, the list goes on. While this holds true up to a point, it doesn't really explain guys like Nicholas Sheley. Shrinks and criminologists cant really give you a sound explanation why guys like Sheley exist, but I can, so I will.
Sheley and animals like him exist because we have allowed them to flourish in this country. They exist because we let them. Sheley is a classic example of why sociopaths go on these random killing sprees. You see, the problem here is that the guy is still breathing. The first cop on the scene of his capture, should have ventilated his head like a wheel of Swiss cheese. No stop or Ill shot, no Miranda rights, no trial, just a barrage of lead until he stopped living. This isn't a case of maybe he did it, or justice will be served through a long arduous trial. This freak left a trail of bodies, he left witnesses, there is no doubt. He preyed upon the weakest most frail of victims, the very old and the very young. In a perfect world Nicholas Sheley would no longer exist, he would have been put down in the street, like a rabid dog. In a perfect world guys like him would never exist in the first place.
In a couple of years, at great expense Nicholas Sheley will be sentenced to death. He will hang out on death row for another 5, 10 or 20 years, in the end he may actually be executed. During that time the families of his prey will relive the incomprehensible pain and memory of his actions. For a guy like Sheley, that's a winner, even if he ultimately loses his own life , he still wins. Welcome to our imperfect world.
