A couple of weeks ago, when John Albert Gardner III, a 31-year-old registered sex offender, was sent to prison for life after pleading guilty to murdering two teenage girls in San Diego County, I felt some sense of relief that we had gotten another monster off the streets.

But in all candor, I still felt a raw, unbridled anger that such gruesome murders had happened in the first place.

Before Gardner murdered 17-year-old honor student Chelsea King, who went out for a run and was found in a shallow grave, and before he murdered 14-year-old Amber Dubois, who was last seen in front of her school in Escondido, carrying a check to buy a lamb for her Future Farmers of America project, he previously had served five years in prison for beating and molesting a 13-year-old girl. A psychologist who evaluated him said he was a continuing threat. (more…)