"ghouls seem to take some perverse thrill out of Terry dying?"
There is something very disturbing about the almost glee you sense in the ones who hope she will die . . .
It is more than mere Schadenfreude. It is more than mere desire to win and the Schindlers to lose.
These people believe in "the law" over everything. By that, I mean man's law. There is no room for God's law, for His law that supersedes man's. That's why they keep saying, "we are a nation of laws, etc." They want all of us to follow the law, which is ok in and of itself, but God's law trumps. They have no room in their world-view for the concept that there is a higher law than what our courts decree.
Vindication for their p.o.v?