The “Monster Walks Free” headline is a little hysterical, probably, but the case is one that I remember dominating headlines for months as a kid — Joel Steinberg, Tawana Brawley, Richard Chambers (already out, I believe, as of last year), and Bernie Goetz — as filtered through the beige voice of Channel 7’s Bill Beutel.
I’m not a betting woman, but I’ll wager that this will not be an uneventful return to civilian life — provided he survives it, which I’m not confident he will. I don’t love that he got out at all, but it’s sort of a satisfying Russian-novel twist that he’s required to live and work in this area.