Playing golf on Tuesday was like spending four hours strapped to the hood of a semi heading west on I-90 at 75 miles an hour. The mighty wind made for horrific playing conditions in which shots lucky enough to find the greens had to be marked quickly before they blew OFF the greens. But, that’s just par for the course in South Dakota again this spring which has been mostly rainy, windy or cold or a combination of all three. But, as one of my fellow duffers said, “Any day on the golf course is still better than a day at work.”
I’m not complaining, though, especially after watching reports out of the Pierre and Dakota Dunes areas where volunteers from all over the Midwest are scrambling to build levees high enough to hold back the ever rising waters of the Missouri River. Home and property owners are bearing the brunt of the Corps of Engineers’ decision to release huge torrents of water backed up behind Oahe Dam from mega rains and a big snow melt in the mountains. I don’t pretend to understand all the details but isn’t it ironic that dams built in part to CONTROL floods are now causing them. South Dakota has a long running feud with the Corps over water releases from Oahe and other main stem dams and usually gets the short end of the stick. When, during the drought years, downstream states complained they needed more water to float the few barges still operating on the river, South Dakota had to bite the bullet and watch as reservoirs were drained down low putting the kibosh on economically important river recreation industries like boating, camping and fishing. As I say, I don’t know all the details but it sure seems like we’re getting snookered by the Corps once again.
On another matter, there’s this disgusting low life who keeps finding his way into the headlines making a mockery of the U.S. Justice system. Observe the many faces of a cold blooded killer, Donald Eugene Moeller, who has played more courts in the last 20 years than Billie Jean King.
On June 16th, a federal appeals court will hear arguments that Donald Moeller’s constitutional rights were violated at his 1997 trial where he was convicted for a second time in the brutal 1990 rape and murder of a 9 year old Sioux Falls girl, Becky O’Connell, and sentenced to death. He’s been the poster boy for frivolous appeals ever since. Now, the 58 year old Moeller has filed yet another; this time questioning the quality of the three drug cocktail to be used in his execution…if he ever IS executed. It would seem there are lawyers more than willing to represent this creature through countless appeals even though two separate juries found evidence of his guilt, including DNA, to be indisputable. It’s time all appeals were exhausted and Moeller keeps his date with the devil.
Don’t believe in the death penalty? Do you think Moeller has every right to tie up the courts in order to save his hideous hide? Let’s review, shall we?
Little Becky O’Connell was last seen on the evening of May 8, 1990. She was headed to a nearby convenience store when she was abducted by Moeller at a busy intersection. The next day, two men found her naked body in a wooded area in Lincoln County. An autopsy revealed that she had been vaginally and anally raped, and had sustained knife wounds to her neck, back, shoulder, chest, hip, arms and hands. A pathologist concluded that she died as a result of a cut to her jugular vein. Ken Albers who was the first police officer on the scene said it was terribly vicious and violent.
Donald Moeller, who had a long history of criminal sexual abuse involving the use of a knife against both women and even a 13 year old boy, was arrested a few months later and charged with rape and murder in connection with Becky’s death. He’s been moaning about HIS constitutional rights being violated ever since.
Forgiveness is up to God, of course, but it’s high time this appeal business be brought to a halt and justice for Moeller finally be carried out.