ADMISSION: Joshua Wade was sentenced to 99 years in prison in state court. Later in the day, he received a life sentence in federal court. (MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News)

It wasn't until Wednesday that I realized I had sympathy for Joshua Wade. He was a murderer. A brutal, sloppy one. But as he told his story in an early morning hearing at the state courthouse, I was drawn in.

Maybe it was because I spent years covering his case. Familiarity breeds compassion even between hostages and captors. I knew the grayish circles around his eyes and the range of expressions -- disdain, indignation, boredom, and red-eyed self pity -- that might cross his scrubbed, sallow face. I knew there was a tattoo between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. I knew he walked on the heels of his shoes and that he had a habit of tensing his jaw, making the muscles around his temples bulge. I knew he cried a lot.

So Wednesday, he wept. He told the families of the people he killed how he was raped as a boy. He said he had been broke, addicted and scorned by women. He couldn't control the dark and violent parts of himself. That was why he killed Della Brown and Mindy Schloss. I thought he was expressing something close to remorse.

He kept saying the right things. He said he made bad choices and refused help when it was offered. He said he chose not to overcome his past and that it wasn't an excuse. He said he wanted forgiveness but didn't deserve it. He turned toward the family members with an expression both serious and sincere, asking their permission to speak.

"I think you guys have been way too kind to me with your statements. I deserve much worse," he said. "I'm sorry."

I wanted him to be sorry. Everyone did. If Wade was remorseful, if he explained what led him to commit his crimes, maybe it would be easier for the families of his victims to make some kind of peace with it. Maybe it would be easier for them to move on without the burden of hatred. There was no question Wade was broken. But I wanted to believe in his humanness, in his ability to feel empathy, in his ability to change.

Judge Philip Volland told Wade that he had wounded the community. Volland said it was time to heal. He gave Wade 99 years. Everyone filed out of the courtroom.

Then came Wade's afternoon hearing before a federal judge for a charge related to Schloss' killing. I watched tears drip off his nose while the federal prosecutor read the facts of her case and Brown's. He admitted that he bound and gagged Schloss, took her ATM number, drove her to a wooded lot in Wasilla and executed her. He admitted that he smashed Della Brown's head with a rock.

Families read statements about what Wade had taken from them, and then Wade's lawyer talked about his troubled past, about sexual abuse, self-mutilation, mental imbalance, drug use and neglect. Then it was Wade's turn to talk. He gave the same speech he'd given that morning. But the second time around, the contrition wore thin.

He disappointed his family, he said. He was bright but weak. He became a slave to his pot habit and his "co-dependency issues." And somewhere in all that, he couldn't stop himself from killing two women. Today was the first day of the rest of his life, he said. And even though he was going to prison, he said, in his heart, he was free. He started to cry.

My mind flashed on a day more than a year ago, in the same courtroom, when I accidentally looked Wade right in the eye. He was just across a wooden barrier, maybe 15 feet from me. Reflexively, I gave a half-smile. He lifted his chin and let it fall, holding my gaze. And then a chill ran through me like an electric current.

In the courtroom Wednesday, I watched Wade pull Kleenex from a box on the defense table. I wanted him to feel empathy, but his tears weren't for his victims or their families. He was crying for himself. For his own pain, not for the pain he caused. A lot of criminals are narcissists, but there was something else going on. Wade was saying some of the right things, but he was missing an important human component. He couldn't empathize. He couldn't feel other people's pain.

That's what allowed him to kill.

Soon it was Judge Ralph Beistline's turn to speak. He called Wade a coward. At the defense table, something changed. As if Wade were taking off a mask.

"Don't push it, man," Wade seethed at the judge.

Beistline went on about the violence Wade had done to women.

"What about the men?" Wade said, the defiant question rolling out of his mouth as if it were a given he had other victims.

Beistline was breathless. He said Wade was vile and evil and degenerate. He said in jail he would die a hundred deaths. I watched the anger fade from Wade's face. By the time the judge was done, Wade had a flat expression I'd seen in court many times before. He'd just been sentenced to die in prison. But it was as if he didn't feel a thing.