I am sure that we all want to see justice done to sex offenders. I have focused several storylines in my novels about those who commit such crimes and the wonderful efforts of law enforcement to get them off the streets.
As many of you know, Emily Stone is a featured character through a series of my books who operates as a vigilante in tracking these predators and collecting the evidence she knows the authorities will need to get a conviction. Unless called upon to defend herself, though, Emily was not one to exact violence on these men who had caused such pain to others. This is not the case with a man in Washington who recently took the law into his hands and left two dead.
Patrick Drum shot both his new roommate and another local acquaintance over the weekend because they were registered sex offenders, one following a conviction of third-degree rape as a teenager and the other for the first-degree rape of a child. Drum has admitted to the murders and, upon his capture following a manhunt in the forest of the Olympic Peninsula, he shared that he already had a third target in mind and intended to continue the killing until he was stopped. His only explanation for his acts was that these men were sex offenders.
Some are uncomfortably applauding what Drum did, stating that sex offenders deserve nothing better. Others point out that the two who were killed had served their time and were continuing to fulfill their punishment through placement on the national sex registry. Justice already had been done. And, what does yet another act of violence accomplish?
What do you think?
What possibly drove Drum to target sex offenders for death?
Perhaps he was a victim of such a crime himself. Perhaps he felt a calling to exact greater justice than the court system allowed. So goes the continued fascination with forensic psychology and the probe into why we do what we do.
* * *
Author Jennifer Chase 
If I were on the jury, I wouldn’t convict him.
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My guess is he’s been a victim himself, but then again, it’s hard to say. Like you said, it would be a fascinating study. As for what he did, it’s one of those things, for me, when the law has to be upheld. I personally believe sex offenders, especially those who molest children, will not change and I don’t believe they should get a second chance within the system. However, we have laws, and if we don’t uphold them, we’ll have anarchy. I’d hate to be on his jury.
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Hmm. This makes one wonder if the published list is really in the best interest of preventing vigilante justice. Wow. The intricacies of what is right and wrong are really headache-inducing, no?
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This is a tricky area to be in for me. On the one hand I applaud what Mr. Drum has done, but on the other the courts had their say and justice was meted out. What his victims did was heinous, but what he did is still murder. At the end of the day what are we without the rule of law?
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I’m wondering if he were a victim himself, or someone he loved was a victim. He seems pretty passionate about what he’s doing, since he has a third offender in mind to go after. It’s sad when you think about all the people’s lives that are affected from the original sex offender’s victims, these offender’s murders and now this guy.
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They say that sex offenders are very hard to rehabilitate. They are of the percentage of the population that have an imbalance in the brain, and do not have the capability to change their behaviou. Drugs become the means of their control, and if they go off their meds then the chance of a reoffence is dramatically increased. I believe that they should be indefinitately incarcerated. If someone does murder them out of hand then I disagree with their actions. If they catch someone reoffending, then it would be justified, and legal. A person has to follow the laws of the land or they are no better than the sex offender. I hope that murder out of hand is not going to become common. I hope that restraint will continue to rule people’s hearts, and keep anarchy from ruling the land.
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all sex offenders, should be castrated,without anesthetic.they should feel the pain that they inflicted,on others.these perverts get off to easy,a few years in prison is not enough,thier inocent victims will relive the horrer for the rest of thier lives.i applaud this man for doing what a lot more people would like to do,including me.they are the lowest of the low.
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