SUSPECT KILLS HIMSELF (person of interest in shootings of sex offenders)

A spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney says 20-year-old Stephen Marshall shot himself in the head when Boston authorities, acting on a tip from Maine police, climbed on the bus he was riding at about 7:25 PM Sunday night. A spokeswoman at Boston Medical Center says Marshall died at 11:24 PM No passengers were hurt.

Five were taken to hospitals to be examined. Maine authorities say Marshall was a person of interest in the deaths of 57-year-old Joseph Gray of Milo and 24-year-old William Elliott of Corinth. Both men are registered sex offenders in Maine. Police say they do not know how the men are connected. Maine police say Marshall, who lived in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, was in Houlton Maine for the first time to meet his father.

You hate to prejudge somebody by their picture but when I looked at his face I had the feeling he had been molested - he was a delicate, kind feminine, vulnerable looking teenager...

This is very sad what's happened to him. I know its my Christian duty to feel for the dead child molesters too but sometimes I am not as good a person as I should be.

I think you are correct. His reaction (killing himself) fits the crime which is implicit in the story.

I once listened to a man discuss the molesting of children by men. He was a psychologist. He always looked as if he was ready to cry, even though he was a man close to retirement. That is one of the saddest things, to see a man haunted by what was done to him. I wish people would think of the damage done forever to these vulnerable children. Healing is not easy.

When government and the so-called justice system refuse to protect innocent citizens, people like Mr. Marshall deputize and sacrifice themselves.

If we continue to see weak sentences given out by liberal judges, we can only expect more cases like this one in the future. I'm actually surprised this kind of thing isn't done more often by terminally ill people who are going to die soon anyway.

"If we continue to see weak sentences given out by liberal judges, we can only expect more cases like this one in the future."

And every time we see one of these cases, we see another chance for the registries themselves to be challenged. Enough cases like this happen and the names and addresses of sex offenders will become close to classified information.

Great job protecting people: stop two forever and potentially enable millions to return to the shadows.

And every time we see one of these cases, we see another chance for the registries themselves to be challenged.

The more I think about it, Megan's Law really is a stupid left-wing idea, at least when it comes to the most serious of child-abduction and assault cases. I mean we catch some guy doing the worst imaginable things to the most vulnerable people out there - children - and what do we do? Throw away the key? Uh, NO. Instead, we lock the perv up for a few years (IF we're lucky enough to draw a conservative judge), then we release the pig back into society and tell the public to look after him cuz the shrinks tell us he's sure to strike again... and again... and again. Real smart, eh?

And who's gonna hire one of these guys after they're released? What kind of life are they gonna have on the outside? Society would be better off paying the money up front to keep them in prison for life or execute them. The price we're playing now with what has turned out to be an ineffective Megan's Law is too costly both in human suffering, death and in the dollars we spend to try to chase down repeat offenders or guard against repeat offenses. Lock'em up or strap'em down. It's time to give innocent children a first chance at survival instead of giving convicted predators a second chance to obey the law.

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