I waited long for this day. One and one-half years.

Yet it's a day nobody would want.Here I am standing close to him, nearly within arm's reach.But a district attorney is positioned between us and five sheriff deputies just a step away.Convicted killer Anthony Heath is tall and lanky, round-shouldered with poor posture.I'm surprised to see he's wearing a purple shirt, street clothes. His hands are shackled to his belt.I glare at him. He looks back at me with vacuous eyes.There's nothing there.All evil murderers are missing something inside the heart, or maybe the soul, or both. As a result, their eyes are blank.Today is the formal sentencing and it's my one, singular opportunity to speak my mind.I'm confronting the demon who savagely murdered my niece Angela, then tried to cover it up and blame somebody else."How dare you! How dare you," I yelled."How could you do that to a woman who only knew love in her heart? What gave you the right?"He didn't answer. He just stared. Expressionless. A look of stupor. But I expected it. This is the same diabolical, twisted mind that told five different stories as to why he killed her.We'll never know the truth, except for what's been recorded on video and determined by autopsy.He strangled her. He swiped her credit cards and stole her car, went on a shopping spree, dumped and burned her body, and fled to North Carolina."You are an evil poison," I say. "You're a psychopath who needs permanent confinement."You can't fool any other person sitting in this courtroom. You certainly didn't fool a jury of your peers. You're a disgrace to humanity and a plague on society."I make a few additional comments. But it doesn't really matter.None of it sinks in.Heath is incapable of accepting blame. Or shame. He's a narcissist with a Teflon ego that sheds fault.I begin to pivot, to walk back to my seat. But Judge Kelly Banach says I must remain at the stand. Heath, she says, is legally allowed to question me.Oh, that's fine. Go for it. I'm ready.But he declines. Definitely a good idea.Angela's mother, Jean, and my other niece, Sherri, also offer comments. Their words are cries of heartache, describing wounds few can possibly imagine. It rips me apart to see them in that position and hear their anguish.Sitting back in my seat, I pause and reflect. I'm nearing the end of my career. I've been writing about people and events for 40 years.Along the way, I've come to recognize behavioral patterns.Criminals have a character flaw; most lack empathy. A genetic deficiency, I believe, allows them to do the horrendous and then rationalize it.Dr. Daniel Amen, brain specialist, says a killer's brain actually looks different from that of a normal person. No need to convince me, doc.What I see in Heath is the potential to become a serial killer.The judge apparently agrees. She tells Heath he has a peculiar mental condition. It's not something that rises to the level of a mental defense or insanity, she says, but rather a confused mind that refuses to take blame.Next comes Heath's response. True to form, he continues to deflect guilt."I pray that the truth will one day prevail and the healing process will begin for everybody affected by this incident," he tells the judge and courtroom.What did I just hear?"This incident?" You've got to be kidding. A bee sting is an incident. A flat tire is an incident. But not this.He sneaked up behind a loving, defenseless woman and violently strangled her. It's many things: a tragedy, a horror, a life-changing event. It's cold-blooded murder to most people of the world.But in the poisonous mind of Anthony Heath, it's a minor mishap, an incident.The judge calls his statement "absolute blasphemy. It is bizarre," she tells Heath. "You do not deserve to walk among us or see the light of day as a free man."She sentences him to life in prison without parole, along with up to 18 years on other charges. She also reveals that a search of his cell turned up his written plans to escape county jail.He won't get a chance.There's a van waiting outside of the courthouse. It takes Heath directly to Pennsylvania's largest maximum-security prison, a hellish place called Graterford.Today, at age 26, he begins a lifetime behind bars, joining hard-core thugs just like him."The only way he'll come out is in a body bag," says a court worker.In fact, his sentence could turn out to be one of the longest jail terms of 3,500 prisoners lodged there.But it's really only an incident.And the end of a nightmare.