Making sense of senseless act

The reports about the vicious attack on the Reed sisters in Yorkshire on Jan. 29 were almost too grim to be believed. A 16-year-old girl, Stacie Reed, was left dead in her home after an assault that lasted for hours, and her sister, 14-year-old Kristie, was brutalized and suffered serious injuries.
The community has rallied around the girls' family, offering flowers, food, new carpeting and even new bedroom furniture for Kristie. The girls' mother, Lorraine Reed, somehow found the strength within herself to meet with the girls' grieving and confused classmates. She said the family would come through this tragedy "better and stronger" than it's ever been.
"But the one thing that gets me through this the most is knowing that no matter what happens here on Earth, when he goes, he's got to face God, " Lorraine Reed said on Friday.
"He" is Paul Warner Powell, 20, the suspect in the attack. He faces charges of murder, malicious wounding, rape, abduction, grand larceny and three counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He may face the death penalty.
Monday morning, Powell responded to a routine request from a Potomac News reporter for an interview and phoned the newspaper office. During the half-hour interview, Powell, who has not been convicted, seemed filled with jailhouse bravado.
He said he won't have to answer to God, because he is God. He said, contrary to court documents, that the girls were not bound during the attacks. He disagreed with a theory that the attack was racially motivated. And he said he would rather get the death penalty than life in prison, a wish the prosecution says it will try to accomodate.
Powell's remarks, which come off as flippant and designed to provoke a response, are likely to ignite even more public outrage about the attack and murder. Powell's attorney probably isn't very happy with what his client told the reporter, either.
Publishing newspaper stories that quote suspected criminals incites a strong response in readers. Some believe such stories give suspects too much attention, or glamorize them.
The interview with Powell followed more than a week of reporting on the attack, its aftermath and the impact on the family and community. In all of that reporting, we learned very little about the suspect, his voice had not been heard. The interview gave some insight into his personality, and into who he is.
And now that we've heard from him, we can draw our own conclusions.