When a murder investigation hits a wall, when it goes cold, it leaves the families of the victims, and it's wake, a drift.

They are left tortured by the crushing loss of their loved one, and are now faced with the distinct reality that whoever may have been responsible may in fact never be brought to justice.

The void that is created in the hearts and minds of families as a result of the most violent of acts is one which can never be filled, ever.

With me being one of the fortunate souls who has never experienced that type of loss in my life, I am left only to surmise what the arrest of a perpetrator gives the families mentally and emotionally, beyond the knowledge of what happened to their loved one,

and that the person responsible will answer for their crimes. The only thing that they truly long for, the only thing is to have their spouse, their son, their daughter, their brother, or sister back with them, as if none of the nightmare that enshrouds them ever took place.

But alas, that cannot be.

Yes, the offenders must pay for their crimes, and the victims and their families deserve the satisfaction of witnessing this happen.

It has been said that the arrest and conviction in a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole, and in some cases the execution of the offender that this provides the victims' families with some form of closure.

But I just don't know if this is true, because it seems to me that there can never be closure, not truly.

That life was stolen, and can never, ever be given back. In terms of actual relief, I'm not sure that has ever felt by the families of those who have lost someone to the hands of a murderer.

Justice, that is what can and must be delivered. It is the best that our society has come up with, in terms of attempting to make victims' family whole.

But justice, even in its most extreme form, and execution, brings only so much satisfaction and relief to the victims' families.

And that's because it's fleeting. The execution takes place, the killer's light, flickers, and then is extinguished permanently.

And the loved ones in that moment feel that justice has been served. But that void that I spoke of earlier, it's still there, and always will be.

I have long believed that justice may provide society at large, with more than it provides those, no matter most, which is, of course, the victims and their loved ones.

What justice does in a case-by-case basis is that it ensures that the victim did not die in vain. That at the end of the day, the killer has been removed from society, never to walk among us again.

That individual threat has been contained, but someone had to lose their life to achieve it. And for that, all of us owe a massive debt of gratitude.

Now, there is a reason that cold cases continue to be worked by law enforcement and private citizens for that matter, oftentimes for decades after the crime was committed.

And that is because the victims matter. They matter then, and they matter now. These cases certainly haunt the respective families, and they also haunt the cops that investigate them, and just couldn't crack it at the time.

As a society we never stop seeking justice, no matter how long ago, the crime may have been committed.

Frankly, to me, the advent of the internet has served no greater sociological purpose than to disseminate information about these cases to the masses.

This free flow of information has changed everything, and it seems that almost on a daily basis cold cases are being solved.

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