All in a day's work

I sat in the courtroom this morning listening to the chilling testimony of a nice guy, a cross-country skiing guitar player who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and lived to tell about it.
While enjoying his snowy solitude on skis near Dougan Falls the morning of Feb. 9, 2009, Kevin Tracy met up with the father and son duo from hell. They had been camping out in the snow, basically homeless. Dad was on the lam, a seldom-seen father with his punk kid in tow, hiding because he had failed to register as a sex offender. They were likely hungry and tired of camping in the woods, carless, in the winter, but there is absolutely no excuse for what they did. First they asked him for directions, then demanded his truck and told him they'd have to kill him because he could identify them. He tried to ski away, then kicked off his skis and tried to run, but he couldn't get away. Sixteen-year-old, Teven Collins bashed him on the head repeatedly with a club, knocking a hole in his skull. Then dad, Michael Collins, tried to garotte him. They stashed him under a bush in the snow and left him for dead.
Three Clark County students out for their twice-a-week hike, this time trying a new area, found Tracy clinging to a tree, bloody from head to toe and barely hanging on.
The Collins fled in Tracy's truck, first to California, then to Mexico, merrily posting photos on Facebook of their adventures on drugs and among the palm trees. An airing of 'America's Most Wanted' finally got them captured.
Now the kid is testifying against his father in exchange for an eight-year sentence. Dad is not quite 'three strikes, you're out' because his first sex offense occurred as a juvenile.
Listening to the testimony today, I kept glancing at Michael Collins as he sat next to his attorney, slumping in his seat. He looked young, and a little remorseful. How did he and his devil spawn think that whole deadly escapade was going to play out? Did they care?
Meanwhile, Kevin Tracy faces more plastic surgery --- an angry red line runs jaggedly from the top of his head down his face., and while the hole in his skull is healing, he will never be the same. His speech is a little halting, but his testimony was deliberate and damning. He survived. They are going to jail. The only better justice would be to take them to a tree in the middle of the woods in the winter snow, tie them up, and leave them there to die, just as they left Kevin Tracy.