Here’s a weird connection to contemporary news: Serial killer Bobby Joe Long was executed in Florida by lethal injection in 2019. The governor who signed his death warrant? Ron DeSantis. I applaud Mr. DeSantis’s decision in this, if not in much else. Bobby Joe Long was a nasty piece of work: He used to deliver appliances for a living, and if he happened upon a house with a woman along, he would just go ahead and rape her.
Eventually, he moved on to murder.
Readers of I Hunt Killers may recall Long’s name from Jazz’s mantra: “People matter. People are real. Remember Bobby Joe Long.” That’s because Long’s compulsion to rape and murder eventually, somehow, became a compulsion to let a victim go. Even though he knew doing so would lead to his capture. He was just as helpless in the throes of that that need to release her as he claimed to be in the throes of the urge to harm.
The world is vastly better off without him. You can read more about him here.