89 Responses to:
THANK GOD, SHAWCROSS IS DEAD

# 1. 1/27/10 12:05 AM by Jolene - Sandy
AMEN and thank God.

# 2. 1/27/10 12:15 AM by j
It is also a perfect example of how not doing the right thing is exacerbated as time goes on. This thing should have been locked up or fried after he killed those two children. Instead, he was released to cause more misery. He was scum, a killer and a predator. He also was a liar which is probably why the nurses didn't believe him.

# 3. 1/27/10 12:17 AM by DaWiz - San Antonio< Texas
Amen, Bob! I think you missed one of the reason they were so upset. They had to have someone to blame. So, now that they have identified the miscreants, the bleeding hearts brigade and their parasites (lawyers)can now swing into action and take the state tax payers for a ride in the name of justice. Maybe we need a variation on the Castle Doctrine whereby no convicted criminal or their families may sue for any damages arising from a crime or it's assigned punishment.

# 4. 1/27/10 12:29 AM by Bruce H - Ogden, Utah
Hi Bob, Well written, thoroughly done. Although I was not personally familiar with Shawcross, your descriptions fit this monster perfectly. (Or should I say, now "dead" monster!) Unfortunately, Utah has had its share of monsters too! Some of them are still on death-row. However, Utah is starting to trend along the lines of New York and New Jersey. (New Jersey has eliminated the death penalty-New York will probably follow suite) If we are not going to put murderer's to death in Utah, why do we the still have a death penalty?

# 5. 1/27/10 12:34 AM by Paul Martin - Rochester NY
I don't see what the problem was. I diffently don't see where the nurses were in any way responsible for his death. He was taken to the hospital and they found a blood clot in the lung. I don't know of any way they (doctors) can say the clot moved from his leg (he alledgedly had leg pain?)to his lung. The bottom line is he is dead and should have been a long time ago, like about two minutes after the verdict was in. I hope he was in alot of pain before he died. Maybe it might have reminded him of the pain he caused his victims and their families.

# 6. 1/27/10 12:37 AM by DaWiz - San Antonio, Texas
Maybe it's time to take a page (or 2) out of one of Larry Niven's books and institute the "Organ Banks" as the official method of Capital Punishment. The accused would be put on death row for one year in solitary confinement while his/her appeal is heard. If the appeal is denied, they would be remanded to the state hospital for punishment. On the day of execution, the condemned would be taken to an operating room where he/she would be administered a drug to cause his/her heart to stop. At this point the medical personnel would proceed to "harvest" all the useable organs and the remainder of the body would be cremated and returned to the next of kin for funereal proceedings. This process would forever put to an end the claim that Capital Punishment served no useful purpose. Think of how many people each year could benefit from this process.

# 7. 1/27/10 1:03 AM
I totally agree that the guy was a turd. Furthermore, I consider that these nurses unwittingly did all of us a favor.

My only bone of contention with you has to do with your odd and oft-repeated notion that prison life is easy, comfortable, or any of the other favorable descriptives you are wont to use.

I would FAR RATHER be given a lethal injection or banished to Siberia for life than spend even five years in the best prison in the USA.

Editor's Note: your nonsensical position is proven wrong by every death-row puke filing appeal after appeal.

# 8. 1/27/10 1:17 AM by SGM - Utah
Somewhere, somehow, we forgot who we are. Society makes the perpetrator of the crime the victim. The Underwear Bomber must have his rights protected. The taxpayers are going to spend multiple millions of dollars to give the 9/11 planners their day in court and what a circus that will be. Navy SEALS go on trial for giving some guy a fat lip. Someone forgot that the guy with the fat lip also killed several US citizens and mutilated their bodies.

In Utah we allow the "person of interest" to move out of state and his wife is still missing.

Something has gone terribly wrong when the victims rights get trampled over and over again and the bad guys get all the protection. I'm guessing that most state correctional institutions and programs are all screwed up, almost as bad as New York's.

# 9. 1/27/10 1:51 AM by joe - canandaigua ny
I work in a hospital. Unforunatly its not ubcommon for you know what to run down hill.

# 10. 1/27/10 1:54 AM by Rob Staples - Henrico, VA
He should have swung by his neck! More proof our system does not work. What is the cost to keep a animal in prison for a year? It makes me sick, 250 years. Give it a shovel and let the monster dig his own hole!

# 11. 1/27/10 2:47 AM by Rational Rod - CANADA
I heard a man on the radio yesterday say this man should have been "put down". You do that to a dog, not a man. (Remember the column about the dog a few days ago - a dog is not a man.) No matter how much you demonize him, it wouldn't have made killing him right, except in your rationalization. He died. Nature took its course. If you want to blame "God" for taking him that's OK. No man or state had that right if you truly believe in the "right to life". This is the test of whether you really believe in that and you unfortunately failed. And don't kid yourself that capital punishment would have helped his victims in any way - nothing can bring them back.

Editor's Note: he was a pretty argument for execution by firing squad.

# 12. 1/27/10 3:35 AM by Al - Hornell, NY
Your so right Bob. Why any nurse would work for the clowns at the Dept of corrections is beyond me. Listening all day long to inmates complaining about sniffles and other nonsense. Every day they have to see 100 or more inmates and decide who is sick and who is full of crap. These scumbags get better care than most people that are working! This I know first hand. The higher ups sometime use crap like this to move up in rank or they may not like the people that work for them. So if anybody out there is considering a "carrear in corrections" my advise is go find work else where. If you still want to work for them remember this, "YOUR GUILTY UNTIL YOU PROVE YOUR INNOCENT"! Oh one other thing, if you get HIV, multi drug resistance tb and so on while working for them, they will fight against you to get workers comp! So think people before you join

# 13. 1/27/10 5:07 AM by Fred Calcagno - Honeoye Falls NY
Dear Bob, In a truly fair world Shawcross would have received his dose of justice dangling at the business end of a gallows. A swifter death than he afforded his victims. Instead we allowed him to slowly kill himself by overeating. Maybe 20 years of a healthier diet would have kept him alive a little longer. Perhaps his best contribution to society is being made right now, to quote Josey Wales "the buzzards gotta eat just like the worms".

# 14. 1/27/10 5:31 AM by Bill - Rochester
Bob:Instead of getting their butts in a sling,they deserve a reward for helping the taxpayers of NYS defer the cost of his medical treatment and stay in prison,which would most likely run into millions because of appeals and so forth

# 15. 1/27/10 5:34 AM by A Patriot - Lockport, People's Republic of New York
....and a hundred lawyers should accompany him, for starters.

# 16. 1/27/10 6:02 AM by lucky wife - Mount Morris, N.Y.
Gods justice prevails and trumps all- shawcross is burning in hell forever.

# 17. 1/27/10 6:19 AM by Kevin - Roch.
In todays society where shame is non-existent, you'll see the family go after the cash. Hideous crimes and his family will want to capitalize on it. I pray that any 'blood money' they receive, is 'haunted' by all his victims

# 18. 1/27/10 6:46 AM by Cindy K - Penfield, NY
And didn't Artie sell his "artwork" and make money while in prison? (People actually buying this scribble and putting it on their walls because it came from the mind of a mass-murderer?) He didn't have it rough in prison. Why are they accusing the prison system of abuse?

# 19. 1/27/10 6:56 AM by Dawn - NY
I'm currently in nursing school. This story made me think I should work at Attica and save tax dollars for New Yorkers! :)

# 20. 1/27/10 6:59 AM by m.l.c.
AMEN!

# 21. 1/27/10 7:06 AM
Shawcross got caught by a civilian, not a police officer that didn't belong in the SP helicopter. Thank God he is dead.

Editor's Note: the troopers brought along an extra set of eyes. seems like a smart move to me.

# 22. 1/27/10 7:07 AM by Rick G. - Spencerport NY
The smartest thing he ever did was not to commit his crimes in Texas. As far as I’m concerned, he should have been beaten to death with one of his stupid clown paintings. He got what his victims never had a chance to get – to die a natural death. I hope that it was painful and scary for him.

New York embarrasses me more every day. The only reprieve I could see from that would be if somebody from the governor’s office sent a memo to the corrections office saying, “Forget it. Looks good to me.”

# 23. 1/27/10 7:16 AM by david - rochester
He was a monster.

We are better off with him dead.

And we should remember who's the victim and who's the murderer.

HOO-RAH !!

# 24. 1/27/10 7:24 AM by Joe
While I too recall Arthur Shawcross just as you described, as well as a Rochesterarian, a New Yorker, a shinning example of what is wrong with both Rochester and New York; and a precursor of the political temperature of both. I believe you missed several key points.

"To create some grand controversy because he didn't receive Mayo Clinic-level care is nuts. To resolve to take this matter -- as the state has done -- and make it a training episode for the entire state prison system, is completely bass-ackwards."

Surely, just as the US is willing (and does) to throw away Trillions of Dollars w/o regard, annually; play politics with human lives (Haiti, homeless of NY, etc.), as well as several other horrible acts...one can and should agree whether in america one is in prison, on welfare, or using an HMO...medical care should be cutting edge as well as used to extend the patient' life.

My previous statement goes without saying, the courts of New York sentenced Shawcross to 250yrs in prison. Why is it okay to permit this man to get out of doing his time w/o receiving basic medical care? Some trash failed prison nurses? NOPE! I say fire them, and if found criminal negligent...prosecute them.

The victems of & the family of Shawcross and the citizens of New York deserve justice. Simply put, the nurses stole justice from the aforementioned and should be held accountable.

Editor's Note: tard

# 25. 1/27/10 7:37 AM by ex-pansy
Doesn't this make you want to rethink that whole "I'm going to hell" mantra?

Dude.. you do NOT want to be this guys bunk mate....

Editor's Note: but such is justice ...

# 26. 1/27/10 7:59 AM by rochester escapee
Libs often use the excuse that a certain percentage of convicted killers are actually innocent. This is true, though exceedingly rare. Many overturned verdicts have been on technicalities. Sowell wrote about this and demonstrated that for every innocent prisoner mistakenly executed, hundreds of innocent civilians out there lose there lives when real murderers are released. Shawcross should have been executed after killing those kids in Watertown.

It amazes me how liberals vigorously uphold the value of the life of a convicted murderer, yet have disdain for the truly innocent in the womb

# 27. 1/27/10 8:01 AM by Rick
I remember all the action leading up to his capture, and subsequent trial. What a creep. This guy got a whole lot more compassion and care in prison, than he deserved. It was his time to be taken and he went, simple as that.

This action against the nurses by the New York State Department of Corrections is quite similar to the US govenment hanging soldiers doing their duty out to dry (or sticking them in Leavenworth), while at the same time giving aid, comfort and constitutional rights to terrorists. But that's another story for another column.

FUNYSDoC

# 28. 1/27/10 8:03 AM by Dave - Buffalo
Amen, Bob. Amen.

How much money did spend keeping this filth alive?

I knew the only negative response would be from a limp-wristed canadian. Stupid is, as stupid does.

# 29. 1/27/10 8:05 AM by Joe L - Rochester Ny
Cheers to hell fire burning his a$$ as we sit here discussing this!

# 30. 1/27/10 8:11 AM
Oh God, this is one time where I hate to disagree with you, as I often do.

It does not matter who the person is, be it Shawcross or another prisoner or even an employee at the prison. The medical personnel are there to do a professional job and if they are not doing a professional job then they should be called on it.

It is not about Shawcross. It is about demanding that people in important jobs such as these keep their standards of care at the highest level.

If they relaxed their standard of care to Shawcross, as has been determined, what's to stop them from relaxing their care to others? The other could be a secretary at the prison that never so much as stole a pencil from work or farted in her car.

Shawcross was definitely an evil man. But Shawcrosses evil is not bigger than God's love. God's love says we should do our best for all, including the evil Shawcross.

# 31. 1/27/10 8:18 AM by Snake P
Hey Bob-

100% correct.

And to 'rational' Rod who states- "And don't kid yourself that capital punishment would have helped his victims in any way"

Well.........my delusional friend it certainly would have HELPED his next 11 victims had he been executed after his FIRST two murders.

Mike Savage is right....liberalism IS a mental disorder.

Snake

# 32. 1/27/10 8:18 AM by glenn - canadice
Dead man walking...FUAS

# 33. 1/27/10 8:20 AM by GEORGE ( THE OTHER ONE) - GANANOQUE ONTARIO CANADA
*

What my friend Rod Grouch in Toronto and all his liberal friends forget is that the Government has the responsibility to protect society ( and that would be people like Rod and me) from those who kill us. Housing them for 250 years is not protecting us. It is forcing us to house, feed, protect, educate and otherwise support the very monsters who attacked us in the first place.

Society does not need to be punished twice or would Rod have thrown uncle Adolf into the penal system for the rest of his life ( the only difference between him and your average murderer being magnitude)?

# 34. 1/27/10 8:22 AM by Tom Dey - Springwater, NY
I wish the nurses had water-boarded him daily "just because." They certainly should not have been disciplined. And more seriously - Shawcross should have been executed ages ago. To the extent that he lived all these extra years...he DID get away with murder.

# 35. 1/27/10 8:29 AM
By chance, I got to ride by Attica Prison this past Monday. I hadn't been by it in 20 years.

I was stunned to see how it now looks after all the work done to the outside walls and guard towers.

It was very impressive but for heavens sakes the guard towers at every corner of the prison looks like something from Disneylands Magical Kingdom.

It looks like children would want to go there.

# 36. 1/27/10 8:35 AM by Mark - Greece
You are absolutely correct that someone in the background is drooling over a disproportionate lawsuit, along with their team of Shapiro and Shapiros. And what's worse, our state will spend millions of taxpayer dollars fighting it. Simple solution: Figure out what the cost was to catch, convict, and house this moron, make that the award, and make the 'wife' pay it back to us for supporting the guy all these years.

# 37. 1/27/10 8:36 AM
Too bad it took so long.

Hell isn't hot enough for some people.

# 38. 1/27/10 8:38 AM by ex-pansy
Now, see....If Cindy McCain would have only let him have some of her duct tape, he wouldn't have eaten so much...

(I was trying to figure out a way to blame this all on Bush, but, well this was as close as I could get...)

:P

# 39. 1/27/10 8:44 AM by James - Bliss, NY
Maybe instead of the nurses, they should sue the food service personnel at the prison.

The fact that a person could gain weight at a prison tells me that the food there should be looked at, to reduce the risk to other prisoners of course.

I'm thinking a mandatory diet of bread and water may have saved his life, and could potentially save the lives of many more prisoners as well.

# 40. 1/27/10 8:56 AM by alexander - upstate ny usa
I think he was married 4 times too, some of them might be still alive. Maybe we should tone down the negative comments.

Nah... burn in HELL Shawcross, I'd only wish it happened after you raped and murdered the young children in 1972.

and what the hell is this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arthur_Shawcross_et_al.jpeg

prison looks tough. bring back the death penalty. this guy had it too good.

# 41. 1/27/10 8:58 AM by Rich - Rochester, NY
They should have fried him. But in any event, he got better than he deserved in prison. For those tards who say capital punishment makes the state a murderer, how come you don't mind that life in prison makes the state a gay dungeon master?

# 42. 1/27/10 9:02 AM by Mark - ER
Our tax dollars at work.

# 43. 1/27/10 9:05 AM by Dave B - Fairport, NY
Just another example of how our priorities in NYS are so screwed up!! We can't make ends meet in our state budget, but we can find the time and the funds to investigate the death of a monster that should have been exterminated many years prior. Hey Gov. Dave...maybe you can start looking at things like this to make your budget work a little better.

# 44. 1/27/10 9:11 AM by Rational Rod - CANADA
This just in - food for thought. If you recognize that your judicial system is so flawed that it let a convicted murderer out (tragically, to kill again) why the hell would you trust it with a life and death decision such as capital punishment? This possibility of human error also implies the danger of wrongful conviction. And aren't even U.S. citizens protected by law against "cruel and unusual punishment"? You do know that killing is the height of cruelty, don't you? Peace. More death solves nothing.

# 45. 1/27/10 9:20 AM by deep water - Lake Oneipeein
'God took him'. Are you sure? I think someone else did the honors.

# 46. 1/27/10 9:21 AM by Hoss - Rochester
" When a Sheriff or a Marshall takes a man from a courthouse in a prison van and transports him to confinement for two or three or ten years, this is our act. We have tolled the bell for him. And whether we like it or not, we have made him our collective responsibility. We are free to do something about him; he is not. Chief Justice Warren Burger And if you really think GOD kills people, why wouldnt he have killed this monster before he killed those little kids ? Its a shame that you would glorify some incompetent state worker over his death. And its a bigger shame that you would render GOD an incompetent buffoon.

# 47. 1/27/10 9:31 AM by Lance - Huntsville, AL
Say what you will about the death penalty, but it is the ONLY guarantee that the person will not kill again (civilian, fellow inmate or correctional officer). The preservation of life makes it worthwhile.

# 48. 1/27/10 9:39 AM by John - Rochester War Zone
He had one of the best and brightest lawyers for his defence in the Rochester trial A trial for murders that NEVER would have happened if NYS kept a child killer locked up or better yet executed

Editor's Note: no he didn't. nice guys, but not the best and brightest.

# 49. 1/27/10 9:43 AM by Matt T - Greece, NY
We should all be outraged from this if Shawcross's family receives one dime for this. I am not a lawyer, but don't they use earning power as a way to calculate how much to pay a "victims" family. and isn't it illegal for shawcross to make an earning from being in prison?

# 50. 1/27/10 9:47 AM by Bermdunes - Webster
... and we are supposed to feel sorry for Artie... bring back public execution !

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