I have only just picked up this thread and I have to say how much I admire Jim for sticking to the point in the face of such vitriol. The fact still remains these horrific crimes were carried out by 10 year old children.

Saying that is not to take away from the horror of the events, or to minimise the pain of Jamie's parents but to ask the question " How have we managed to bring up two little boys so badly and what are we going to do about it?"

Several people have made the point that these two were already well down the road to their criminality by the time they carried out this outrage, so they were even younger than ten when their fate was sealed?

I am sure that like all children they knew right from wrong, what they did not have was a normal sense of proportion, of the scale of the wrong, of the importance of human life, of the difference between this and all of the other things that they did wrong. These are things which normally develop as children grow to be adults.

We should be looking to put every effort into making sure such a crime
never happens again. The quick and easy answer of labelling these two as aberrant, evil monsters just born evil saves us the effort of trying to avoid raising two more like them.