The arrests of six people in connection with the torture and death of a mentally challenged Westmoreland County woman provide some solace to a shocked community. Public comfort is another matter.
For 33 hours in a Greensburg apartment, police said, sadistic captors subjected Jennifer Lee Daugherty, 30, to vicious cruelty, shaving her head and forcing her to ingest sickening substances. She was severely beaten and repeatedly stabbed.
And when her misfit tormentors were done, police said, they dumped her body in a trash can outside a public school in the heart of the city -- an act one psychologist described as "thumbing their noses" at society.
The question isn't so much why people would do something so horrible, as a mind-set capable of such malevolence is beyond reasonable understanding. It's how such a horrible thing could happen -- to anyone -- in a city where people are reasonably secure in their safety.
Authorities say Ms. Daugherty knew some of those accused of these heinous acts. Her friendly, trusting nature was absent of any suspicion of other people or presumed "friends," which makes the wretched crime all the more appalling.
Such acts of depraved indifference demand the full measure of justice. But even at that, sadly, the worst punishment Jennifer's tormentors will face will be far more merciful than the unimaginable hell she endured.
