Aisha Sultan Aisha Sultan is home and family editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Aisha Sultan Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

I recently met with a willing executioner: a man who said he would gladly kill former presidents Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. Hillary too, of course.

At first, I figured he was joking. He assured me he was not.

“I think you underestimate the number of people who would pin a medal on me,” he said. Later, over email, I asked him to clarify. He wasn’t actually serious about killing the Clintons or Obama, was he?

“My disgust for the conduct of the Clintons and Obama while they were in office is such that after they were tried and convicted, I would be glad to serve as their executioner. Preferably by driving over them in my car, several times,” he replied.

I got to know Edward Chapman, a 75-year-old retired federal employee who worked for the Department of the Army in St. Louis, when he started writing to me years ago. He was always polite and good-natured in his responses to my columns. Initially, I responded to his notes because he seemed genuinely curious about my ideas and beliefs, and he could disagree without being disagreeable. I knew we were on opposite sides of the many political issues, although I had no idea of the depths of his animus toward former Democratic presidents.