Jorge Avila-Torrez gives even the most devout death penalty abolitionist pause.
Avila-Torrez is a monster.
A judge described the killer as “cruel, cold-blooded and devoid of mercy.”
On Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden commuted the serial killer’s death sentence to life in prison without parole. He gave this early Christmas present to 37 of 40 killers on federal death row in Terre Haute, Ind.
Avila-Torrez is special in the annals of evil. No excuse could ever justify his heinous crimes. No root causes, no amount of drugs or booze. Nothing.
On Mother’s Day 2005, he raped and stabbed to death Krystal Tobias, 9, and Laura Hobbs, 8, in a park in Zion, Ill.. Father Jerry Hobbs found the two girls’ bodies and was later charged with the crime.
The heartbroken dad was in prison for five years while awaiting trial until he was finally cleared. Only DNA cleared Jerry Hobbs and pointed the finger squarely at former U.S. Marine Avila-Torrez and he pleaded guilty.
By that time, Avila-Torrez was on federal death row in the Hoosier state. He had been convicted of raping and murdering U.S. Navy intelligence specialist Amanda Snell.
And there were other rapes and abductions in Virginia. He kidnapped three women and one of the victims was raped several times before he tried to kill her by choking her to death and covering her face with packing tape.
Avila-Torrez left his victim to die in the snow.
Also receiving a Christmas miracle was Louisiana’s Thomas Sanders. In 2010, he kidnapped and then shot Lexis Roberts, 12, four times before cutting her throat. Days earlier the terrified child watched Sanders murder her mother on a family trip to the Grand Canyon.
Only three killers were snubbed by the outgoing commander-in-chief’s largesse:
They are: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who with his brother killed three people in 2013; Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, and Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015.
Also landing on Biden’s “nice” list were dope kingpins Kaboni Savage (fitting) of Philadelphia and Richmond, Va. overlord James Roane Jr.
Savage landed on death row for committing or giving the green light for the executions of 12 people — including four children. Roane Jr. participated in the murders of 11 people.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement, adding he believes it’s time for the federal death penalty to be kicked to the curb.
Sleepy Joe has been on a pardon frenzy in the dying days of his administration. In addition to letting wayward son Hunter skate, Biden also commuted the sentences of almost 1,500 criminals temporarily sprung from prison during the pandemic.
Among them? Black Widow Josephine Gray murdered two husbands and a lover for boffo insurance payouts and crooked comptroller Rita Crundwell who stole a whopping $54 million from the small town of Dixon, Ill.
At least Biden paid lip service to the victims and denounced the killers’ heinous crimes.
In Canada, those same victims would be left in a vacuum with the Supreme Court’s august guardians reminding smugly us of root causes, racism, cruel and unusual punishment and the rights of killers.