I did watch this sentencing hearing because I have never worked a DP case and wanted to hear sentence pronounced.
The voyeuristic quality has always been there. The public hysteria about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping was far, far worse than this. Screaming headlines and constant radio reports, interviews with all and sundry and pages of photographs.
It's not so much knowing in a general way that evil's there -- it's learning how evil operates and how it disguises itself. That way you can avoid it if it passes through your neighborhood.
We live in a very upscale Atlanta neighborhood (hey we got a bargain on our house - it's a long story). Anyhow, I discovered that less than a block from us lived a man who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death (he killed his cousin for the insurance money) but escaped when the GA DP was ruled unconstitutional.
He was involved in a local zoning case and went door to door trying to persuade people to back his side. He went from persuasion to outright threats . . . he threatened me at my own front door and I gave him 30 seconds to get off my property (he didn't know I had a loaded .45 in the back of my belt, but I did.) I found out he sicced his Dobermanns on a neighbor and threatened several other people. We all got together and told our story to the local police precinct captain, and he and several detectives paid a call on the man. Three weeks later he put his house up for sale and disappeared from the county. We have not seen or heard from him since.
But you wouldn't think you would run into people like that in a nice suburb, would you?