If you're afraid of going to jail, why do the crime?

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time"---line from "Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow", the theme from Baretta, as sung by Sammy Davis, Jr..

We've seen this happen with these mass murders here, there, and everywhere in this country the last few years. A guy opens fire for no reason,  but when he realizes he's going to go to jail, he kills himself to avoid prosecution. Oh, sure, that might save the taxpayers a few thousand dollars in court costs to go through with a trial, but the fact remains that the perpetrator, in essence, took the ultimate escape route.

And, then, there is the case of Adam Mayes, 35, of Guntown, Mississippi, who decided to take his own life rather than be captured by local and federal authorities on kidnapping & murder charges.

Mayes, based on news accounts, had to have been mentally disturbed when he killed JoAnn Bain and her oldest daughter, Adrienne, 2 weeks ago, and abducted Mrs. Bain's other two daughters, Alexandria & Kyliyah, taking them and the dead bodies across state lines from Tennessee to Mississippi, where he tried to pass the two girls off as his own.  Mayes' ex-wife and mother were arrested earlier this week for their roles in the case. The ex-mother-in-law, Josie Tate, told an ABC news affiliate that her daughter, Teresa, and Mayes argued over whether or not Mayes was in fact the father of the two girls. In order to prove his claims, then, Mayes decided he had to have them, regardless of the consequences.

Now, if Mayes was of sound mind, and clearly, he wasn't, he could've challenged the paternity of the children. He didn't take that step, probably because he didn't have the funds to try. He became obsessed with the two children, convinced that they were his. Sadly, he opted to take the coward's escape by taking his own life, rather than let the truth come out through a psychological examination. We can only speculate, but it seems there's more to this story, and it'll trickle out in due course. The worst part of it all is, some huckster will sell the story to a certain cable network for a quickie TV-movie that'll get played into the ground within a year of its premiere..............