Keller @ Large: Remembering A Hard Working Man

BOSTON (CBS) - On the day after the vicious murderers of Richel Nova were convicted of first-degree murder, let's pause for a moment to remember his life, and ponder the evil of his killers.

According to an excellent 2010 Globe profile of Mr. Nova, he was the only son of a Santo Domingo police officer, who fled the poverty of his homeland for opportunity in the US, where he became a legal resident. He raised a son and two daughters, and became a pillar of his neighborhood.

From the Globe article: "He urged every child he met to study hard and go to college, friends said. He valued industry of all kinds, and would save discarded mayonnaise jars for neighborhood children to paint, a means, he believed, of keeping them occupied and off the street."

In his 50s he was working two jobs delivering food. And while he was cautious about night work in tough neighborhoods, he trusted the teenage girl – his daughter's age – who asked him to come upstairs with her so she could pay for the pizzas he had brought.

Once inside, he was beaten, stabbed 16 times, slaughtered by teenage animals apparently for the sheer sport of it.

When he learned of this atrocity, then-Boston Mayor Tom Menino, who had employed both of Mr. Nova's daughters, said it made him want to abandon his longstanding opposition to the death penalty, and part of me also would prefer to see an eye for an eye in this case.

But on second thought, let these two killers – and their vile female accomplice, who may get parole one day – spend their remaining years reflecting on all the lives they've destroyed.

And let's also take note of the gauntlet of evil so many poor and immigrant Americans have to navigate every working day.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

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