First of two parts: Choosing the telling details from a familiar, and tragic, story

Related story: Day sentenced to 4 life terms in double murder

By Edward Fitzpatrick
Journal Staff Writer

The sentencing of Kenneth Day condensed a night of horror, weeks of testimony and years of grief into a few hours of courtroom drama. So the key in reporting this story was capturing every word precisely.

Thankfully, Judge Joseph Rodgers allowed me to use a tape recorder. But that didn't help when Day spoke -- far from the recorder -- in a rapid, barely audible voice. The lawyers later told me the gist of what he'd said. But I wanted quotes. So I called the judge, and he put me in touch with the stenographer, who read me every word.

I sat down to write with tons of information and quotes in my notebook. So the key in writing this story was finding the string that tied things together.

In skimming through my notes, it was obvious: Both the judge and the prosecutor had talked about how hard it was to find words to describe the crime (the execution-style murder of two college students who were on their knees begging for their lives). But each had then offered a torrent of adjectives. So that's what I put in the lead: ``Barbaric. Nauseating. Senseless.''

The defense lawyer picked up the string, saying he agreed with every adjective used for the crime -- but that, likewise, every adjective applied to Day's background. ``He was not dropped from the sky one day, the personification of evil,'' the lawyer said of Day.

That gave me the opening to unravel a conversation about big concepts like good and evil, free will and justice, rehabilitation and deterrence. ``We would be in an awful pickle in society,'' Rodgers said, ``if we were to hold as a matter of policy ... if you had a tough break in life, that excuses criminal conduct.''

But aside from the policy debate, I tried to capture the gut-wrenching reality of the murders, and the emotion of judgment day.

Outside the courthouse, the father of one of the victims slipped me a letter that his wife had sent the judge. As a relatively new father, I felt the emotion in Nadine Burgeson's letter: ``The loss of a child is the worst heartache that a parent can have to endure. ... When you lay down to sleep and the thoughts creep into your mind of what he went through in his final moments, you don't sleep. When you sit down to eat and see his chair is empty, you have no appetite. You long so much to see him. If you could only hug him, maybe you might just feel a little better.''