The offer on the table

At the same time, Finkelstein hopes the families will start a conversation about the best path forward, not for Cruz, but for themselves.

“What we’re trying to do is walk up to a table backwards, gently, and so quietly put an idea on the table, that if it’s acceptable to those who are hurting, here’s the idea.”

The idea is to have Cruz, 19, plead guilty, in return for life in prison without parole. The families would get their day in court at the sentencing hearing. They’d get to tell him what he’s done to them and what they think of him. After that, he’d be sent to a maximum security prison in north Florida, where he would live out his life in a concrete snake pit filled with rapists, robbers and murderers.

“It will be a miserable experience,” Finkelstein says. “There’s a pecking order in jail society and those on the lower end of the pecking order get beaten and raped. And killing children is on the low end of the pecking order. This will be very hard time. Some would say that it would be more merciful to kill him.”

The other path would have Satz take the case to court and let the jury decide about death. In that event, the defense would start hiring experts, taking depositions and detailing the multi-system failure of government to respond to the red flags about Cruz being a danger to himself and others.