Why, they're just misunderstood!

Missouri apparently has these periodic meetings between assorted state prison inmates and various surviving victims and their families. The most recent one permitted access to the media and they showed it a week or so ago.

My overall impression was that it was phonier than a $3 bill. The prisoners spoke in counselor-speak, and generally didn't come off as representative of the prison population at large.

It's too bad John Gacy wasn't there:

It is no surprise that John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was admired and liked by most who had known him. He was a sharp businessman who had spent his time, when not building up his contracting company, hosting elaborate street parties for friends and neighbors, dressing as a clown and entertaining children at local hospitals and immersing himself in organizations such as the Jaycees, working to make his community a better place to live. People who knew Gacy thought of him as a generous, friendly and hard-working man, devoted to his family and community....During a three-year-period, Gacy went on to viciously torture, rape and murder more than thirty other young men, who would later be discovered under the floorboards of his home and in the local river.

Or how about Ted Bundy?

Some thirty-six women may have fallen prey to Bundy, but only he knew for sure.

But then

Ted was a man with a mission. He re-enrolled at the University of Washington and studied psychology, a subject in which he excelled. Bundy became an honors student and was well liked by his professors at the university.

What a fine citizen - anybody can make a mistake, right?

IMO Missouri is making a mistake. People might get the wrong message, concluding that "these guys don't seem so bad".

When the right message is "I can't trust my judgment - juries found these fiends guilty of horrible crimes".