There is an expectation that the criminal justice system is there to protect society and to punish offenders for the crimes they have committed. But what about when their crimes are so horrendous, so damaging and so perverse that you can barely stand to hear about them.

“I remember when they were younger, they would always say they were scared of monsters, and I would say there’s ‘no such thing’. How wrong I was.”

These are the haunting words of Angela Smith, the grandmother of Lacey and John Paul Bennet and mother of Terri Harris, three of the victims in today’s harrowing case.