While I admit that I am conflicted when it come to the death penalty, there are times when I feel it is completely appropriate.

When three college students were gunned down in cold blood in Newark, New Jersey, my hope was that their killers would be apprehended and brought to justice. It seems as though law enforcement has completed the first step of that process.

A 24-year-old man believed to be the ringleader in the startling, execution-style killings of three college students in Newark will be arraigned today in Prince George’s County District Court.

Rodolfo Godinez was arrested early Saturday in Oxon Hill after a fervent and extensive search by Newark and federal authorities that led to the arrest of his 16-year-old half brother later that day in Woodbridge. Early yesterday, Newark police arrested an 18-year-old man in Elizabeth, N.J.

Here is just a glimpse of this horrendous crime.

On Aug. 4, siblings Natasha Aeriel, 19, and Terrance Aeriel, 18, and friends Dashon Harvey and Iofemi Hightower, both 20, were forced to kneel against a wall behind an elementary school and shot in the head. Natasha Aeriel survived. She, her brother and Harvey were students at Delaware State University, and Hightower planned to enroll there this fall.

For any person who shows such disregard for the life of another or the life of agony facing the families of these young individuals, I have absolutely no compassion.

Hopefully justice will be swift and if proven guilty I pray the punishment will fit the crime.

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