Read about the evil bastard who raped and killed his own 9 month old daughter. People like this should be made to suffer a slow tortuous public death. Get a head start on his punishment in hell.
And I’ll admit it bothers me to think God would forgive someone like this.
I have trouble with that, too.
God's forgiveness is not an automatic doorprize when one dies. The Bible is clear that repentance is the key to receiving forgiveness from God and avoiding eternal damnation. Those who sincerely repent and ask God for forgiveness (being sorry he got caught is not the same thing) are the ones who get forgiven.
God knows all the circumstances of our lives, down to every hair on our heads. UK's working-class youth are raised in an environment that openly mocks God, trashes any trace of pride in their heritage, advertises immorality and pushes drugs on them through sociolegal corruption. If this stupid clod commited this drastic crime while on drugs—and most probably against a background of negligence, poverty and ignorance by his and the birthmother's parents—God will take all of it into account.
In prison, he may have been forced into sobriety from drugs and alcohol for the first time in his life since childhood (or even before, if his mother drank or drugged during pregnancy), during which time he may have been able to see his horrible sin clearly, because God gives each of us an inborn conscience. We don't know if this miserable sinner repented after his arrest and conviction and before his death; but God knows.
Parable of the Vineyard Workers. Matthew 20:1-16
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
'Someone like this'. Before God we are all 'someone like this'. Without saving faith we are no different.