"Aunt Angie was one of the few rare people who are beautiful inside and out," Heather wrote Reuters.

"We miss her sweet smile and beautiful voice."

Cagle was 25 when she was killed.

"She had a 4.0 grade-point average at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she was studying foreign languages," her mother said. "She wanted to be a Spanish language interpreter at the United Nations."

A traffic accident injured Cagle so severely that she had to drop out of college. She took a job at a convenience store.

That was where, one night, Derrick O'Neal Mason came into her life and ended it.

Alone with her in the store, he pulled a gun, forced her to strip, and shot and killed her.

"The bullet holes were where her dimples had been," her mother said. "To think of the fear and terror she felt."

A passerby later called 911, and her brother took the call.

He later said he knew it was his sister when police officers refused to tell him the name of the victim.

Her mother had to identify her body.

Last week, after 17 years of appeals, the state of Alabama executed Derrick O'Neal Mason.

***

There is no entry in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for Officer Mark Allen MacPhail Sr. of the Savannah Police Department.

There is one for the man convicted of his murder, Troy Davis. Some people swear that the system somehow railroaded Troy Davis. They had T-shirts that proclaim, "I Am Troy Davis."

On Aug. 19, 1989, Davis was pistol-whipping a homeless man, Larry Young, in the parking lot of a Burger King when MacPhail confronted Davis.

He shot and killed MacPhail.

A jury of seven black people and five white people convicted Davis.

After 22 years of appeals that went as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, the state of Georgia executed him last week.

MacPhail was 27 when he died, leaving behind his wife, an infant son and a year-old daughter.

Had he lived, MacPhail would be nearing retirement. He would have taught his kids to ride a bike and to drive. He would have been there at their graduations.

I like to think he was there for those occasions - and with them every minute of their lives.

***

James Byrd Jr. has an entry in Wikipedia. He was one of nine children born to Stella and James Byrd Sr.

Mrs. Byrd died last year, but his father survives at age 87.

On June 7, 1998, Byrd accepted a ride from Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer and John King. Instead of taking him home, the men took him to a remote area, beat him, chained him to a pickup truck and dragged his body for three miles.

Byrd's murder sparked national outrage. Basketball star Dennis Rodman contributed $25,000 toward his funeral, and promoter Don King gave $100,000 toward the education of his children.

Some good did come out of the tragedy in the end.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a state hate crimes bill into law, and President Obama later signed a law expanding the national hate crime law in the name of Byrd and Matthew Sheppard.

The NAACP condemned the execution of King last week, as did Byrd's son and other family members.

***

Same arguments can be made against executions, but emotional pleas of a capricious criminal justice system are easily refuted.

The Troy Davis case shows that this nation is very careful in making sure a man is guilty before that lethal injection.

The same liberals who insist on the infallibility of the government on all other matters want citizens to believe that the government is all fumbles when it comes to criminal justice.

Executions are rare, and occur only after exhaustive review by appeals courts.

Far from being evidence of a barbaric society, this shows a very civilized society that reveres justice even if it means guilty men sometimes get away with murder.

Surber may be reached by email at donsur...@dailymail.com. His blog is at http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber.