Insane Killer Recaptured

The title of this blog was a small headline in our local paper today. The small story that accompanied the headline raised several questions in my mind.

The killer was in a mental institution in Washington state after being declared insane. "He was committed after he was diagnosed as schizophrenic and acquitted by reason of insanity in the slaying of an elderly woman in Sunnyside in 1987. He soaked her body in gasoline to throw off search dogs." Click here for the story.

I question the sanity of anyone who murders another person. I think it is obvious that if you decide to end another persons life, you are mentally unstable. So how then do we decide that some people should be sent to prison and some should be sent to mental institutions?

The larger question however is why are we taking people in mental institutions on field trips? Especially if they are there for committing any crime. This makes no sense to me at all. And why would the chosen field trip be to a county fair where there are many children, often not watched very closely by their parents? The tax dollars of Washington state citizens are being used to pay for field trips for murderers. In this economy, I can't believe that tax dollars would be spent so frivously, expecially for those who have committed crimes.