Catching Up

Michael Kruse: The most important witness in Mark Lunsford's pending wrongful death lawsuit against the Citrus County Sheriff's Office is the man who killed his daughter.

Lunsford and his attorneys say Jessica Lunsford could have been saved if the Sheriff's Office had done its job. To accept that, we have to believe that the 9-year-old girl from Homosassa was alive for at least a few days after she disappeared in February 2005 - and to believe that, we have to believe John Couey, who had a loveless, unsettled childhood and a drifting, drug-doing adulthood. Now 49, he is the archetype of the prowling, pedophilic bogeyman.

He was found guilty, he was sentenced to death, and we didn't want to think about him anymore, or what he did.

But here he is, again - thanks to, of all people, Mark Lunsford.

Jeff Klinkenberg: Quiet is an endangered species in our society, disappearing, at this point, not in a whisper but in a roar.

And check out Lane DeGregory's multimedia and story.