On October 22, 1989, 11 year-old Jacob Erwin Wetterling of St. Joseph Minnesota was abducted by a masked man. The case remains unsolved and neither he nor his abductor have been found.

With each newly reported horrific crime there will always be those who are poised to exploit the victims for this cause or that as they play the inflation game while engaging in argumentum absurdem. These same individuals unabashedly (and unashamedly, I might add) seem to have not a problem providing gruesome details of a child victim while displaying same said visage thus evincing a very public and very powerful emotional sense of righteous outrage.

In his book, "The Sacred Executioner," Hyam Maccoby notes:

"A figure in mythology that has received little attention is that of the Sacred Executioner. [...] By taking the blame for the slaying, he is performing a great service to society, for not only does he perform the deed, but he takes upon himself the blame for it, and thus absolves society as a whole completely from the guilt of a slaying for which they, in fact, are responsible and by which, in theory at least, they benefit." (Maccoby, 1982, p 7-8)