On Wednesday at 7:27 p.m., Melbert Ray Ford. breathed his last breath in a world where he created unbelievable pain and tears.
Ford, who 24 years ago brutally and in a drunken rage killed a local woman, Martha Chapman Matrich, and her 11-year-old daughter, Lisa Renee Chapman.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in October of 1986. Finally, after 32 appeals for his life, and ironically after he had given his victims no mercy, he was executed by the state of Georgia.

We believe in the need for a death penalty, we also believe that it should be administered in a swift manner.
Allowing a man like Ford who showed no remorse after his conviction, and none while he was laying on his death gurney, to live another 24 years after the atrocity he committed, which included snuffing out the hope and dreams of an innocent young girl, is inexcusable.

The justice system needs to be fixed so that monsters like Ford and his state-paid lawyers can not play the system like a well-tuned fiddle.

The cost to the taxpayers of Georgia to house and feed this man was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars - certainly another travesty.

Yes, Melbert Ray Ford received his due justice on Wednesday. Unfortunately for the Chapman family and the rest of us, it was 24 years too late.