THANK YOU for the excellent synopsis of the Finckbeiner ordeal (in the Dec. 22 edition).

I am a family friend, grew up in LaPlace and am totally appalled at the way this case has progressed.

The perpetrators have been allowed every possible opportunity in a case that should have been handled as a classic First Degree Murder trial. The judge has bent over backwards to assure that the rights of the defendants are protected! The victims, on the other hand, have had absolutely no rights. They have been totally abandoned. And each day that passes worsens the pain, deepens the loss and leaves unseen wounds as deep and painful as the day the shots were fired into the heads of Connie and Steve.

Their families and their many friends still grieve. The wounds are still raw — all made worse by continual delays and total abandonment of the rights of victims.

What does justice mean in St. John Parish?!

I would like to again feel proud of where I came from and where my parents lived for 75 years. But, after sitting through five years of motions and hearings and rulings allowing perpetual delays and now potentially allowing a murderer to claim insanity as a means of avoiding justice, I just feel empty and hopeless.

This speaks so poorly of citizen protection in St. John Parish. How safe can residents feel when they can clearly see — if they paid attention — that justice is NOT being served.

Crime pays in St. John. People are getting away with murder!!

— Rosemary M. Correia