I agree with you bednobs, if stevie1time was to do what he said then he would in my eyes been even worse than those two young boys, because he is an adult, and then someone would want to do the same to him and so on.
I know what they did was horrific but they were children, do any of us actually know what their lives were like before they did it? i doubt very much they had a loving, warm, happy secure home and i suspect they had either experienced violence or other form of abuse against them or witnessed extreme violence from adults in their short lives before doing it. Children who experience severe neglect or abuse in their early years, their brains do not actually develop normally, the first 3 years is the most important.
They served their time, and it was long enough in my eyes. If they came out of prison changed and better human beings then that is a good thing. they maybe just like most of us, loving, caring people maybe even dads themselves. If they are then the life sentence is in their heads forever, it will never leave them and that is punishment enough.
We will never know what it feels like to be the parents, i think if it were my son whom this happened to i would not have survived the pain of loosing him in that way.