"Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you. "

For all of the reasons above, yours, Secoh's, Fitchwitch's and the unmovable belief that all life is sacred - no child, no person, no dog, no thing, is BORN evil, that we, collectively as a society, bear some of the burden of what this person has become - it is easy to judge the end result; not so easy to judge how did it come to this.

And the moral conundrums you touch on. How can we as a a collective whole say as an absolute "killing is wrong" ... and then say "oh accept when we say killing is right"? He to whom God, the Universe, the Force, or the Life Spirit - or what ever you chose to call it - gives life, who are we to take it away? Yes, every life is sacred. Life has an inherent value all its own, that it exists is sufficient.

Yeah - I could go on for a long time, about Social Role Valorization Theory and a mulititude of other thoughts, but I tend to get a bit preachy so I won't :)

Highly recommended reading: Dead Man Walking

PS No Bad Dogs, is also an interesting read - it might seem a bit far removed from the subject, but ... not so far as one might think.