Ronnie Lee Gardner's story is a sad one: not just because of the deaths of his innocent victims, or of his own life, precious like all life, which he wasted in robbery, drugs and crime from the days of his youth. But his story is a sad one because his life, so fraught with physical and sexual abuse, poverty and institutionalization could have been so much different. While his crimes overshadow any sympathy that his awful life could possibly garner, it is nonetheless instructive to look at how things went so wrong for him, and perhaps to understand how criminals become what they are.