How the heck were the murderers listed as “homicide victims when they were put to death by the state [for having committed murder]”? This is truly bizarre.
Another interesting thing they could be examining would be any common genetic markers among these people (I’m sure somebody has already thought of this). I would suspect that some of them had damaged chromosomes.
This doesn’t negate the effect of sheer evil, because I honestly believe that, as we used to sing in the Catholic Church at Compline (from the First Letter of Peter, I believe), “the Devil like a roaring lion goes about seeking whom he may devour.”
But people with a damaged mind will be much more susceptible to this, especially in a society that has rejected all of the moral counsels of Christianity and even the Ten Commandments.
"Homicide" is always the cause of death in state executions. They were killed, justifiably, by another individual. Homicide does not always equal "murder."
It's being used as a technicality.
While the state does send to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System the profiles of homicide victims no matter when they were killed, it will only send the profiles of known felons if they were convicted since a new state law was enacted about a decade ago that allowed them to be included, Moran said.
That meant the profile of Gacy, who received a lethal injection in 1994, and the profiles of other executed inmates could not qualify for the database under the felon provision. They could, however, qualify as people who died by homicide.
"They're homicides because the state intended to take the inmate's life," O'Neil said