Burying children without knowing who killed them is a fate worse than death

Today’s news got us thinking about the nature of criminal investigation and the questions it can and can’t answer.

A shooting in April became news after friends and family of two people left dead chose to publicly ask Alaska State Troopers to more thoroughly investigate the case, and as a double homicide.

We sympathize deeply with the loved ones of Tobias Siegel and Chelsi Cox-Baun. We can’t imagine how excruciating those six months of wondering, waiting and grieving have been.

And while it has become cliché to point out that criminal cases on television wrap up in an hour, it’s worth restating that in real life the legal process can drag on for months and years.

Two weeks ago we received an email from the district attorney after we asked why a completely unrelated case languished for 10 months before someone was charged.

“We indict people on new felony charges every week. In most of those cases, arrests were made,” Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak wrote. “There are cases, however, where police and prosecutors agree that more investigation is required before going to grand jury. This was such a case.”

That minority of cases, he said, contain circumstances that are simply not as clear-cut. There is more work to do. Police need to take their time and figure out whether, and to what degree, the person who allegedly pulled the trigger was culpable.

And while some investigations do take longer, the majority of criminal cases reach a courtroom very quickly, usually in a matter of hours.

We got the impression talking to the loved ones of Cox-Boun and Siegel Wednesday that, at least to some degree, they are looking for answers. Yes, of course, they are concerned about justice and putting someone behind bars if the person needs to be there.

But to a larger degree they want to know what happened, to know how their loved ones were taken from them, who pulled the trigger, and why. Without knowing what’s contained in that final fatal chapter in their loved ones’ lives, families of murder victims struggle to move on, to find closure.

And here’s the most painful truth: though a criminal court case and eventual trial may answer questions like “who” and “how,” trials rarely, in our experience, satisfactorily answer the question “why.”

We’ve sat through numerous criminal trials waiting for the defendant or someone who knew him — anybody — to tell us why the crime occurred; why Chelsi and Tobias were shot and killed.

Dealing with the loss of a loved one is a nightmare. Burying your children is something no parent should have to do. But burying your children without knowing who killed them, or why, is a fate worse than death for friends and family who remain behind.

We trust law enforcement is working carefully and with all possible speed to solve this case and give these families the closure they need.