The traditional national news media covered the story. Every day authorities provided updates. Yet this never rose to the level one might expect for an unfolding tragedy with all the elements of “if it bleeds, it leads.”

Why didn’t this one reel us in? Was it simply Super Bowl week? Did we write it off as “The South?” If this were Long Island or Southern California, would we have cared more? Did we just feel too helpless, like there was nothing that we could possibly do? Were we scared we’d tune in at the exact second they told us the boy was dead, or sexually abused, or beaten, or eaten? Was it simply boring, all the “action” having taken place before most of us were aware of it?

Or, and this may be it, was Jimmy Lee Dykes just too crazy for a real-life villain, two steps over the acceptable level of derangement we require?