Missouri legislators asked the wrong guy the wrong questions during Tuesday's 47-minute hearing before the Joint Committee on Corrections, so it should be no surprise that they learned nothing.

The hearing was scheduled after this newspaper published a well-documented story by reporters Jeremy Kohler and Joe Mahr about Brian Walters.

Ten days after Walters was released from prison in January, Nancy Miller was raped and murdered in her home in Chesterfield. Walters was arrested and confessed.

The story by Kohler and Mahr revealed that in 2003, Walters told a counselor that he had "consistent thoughts of hurting and/or killing sexual partners." He told his counselor that he had raped a girl and that "rape felt wonderful. I loved it." He told his parole officer that he had a problem and needed help.

The parole officer recommended that Walters be required to successfully complete a treatment program designed for sex offenders.

He was not put in such a program. The legislators decided to have a hearing. The man on the hot seat, so to speak, was Larry Crawford, the director of the Department of Corrections. Except to say that the department was overworked and underfunded, he didn't have any answers.

That is not surprising. Crawford is a political appointee, a former legislator, which explains why the hot seat wasn't very hot. Gov. Matt Blunt appointed him to head Corrections in 2005 when Crawford was term-limited out of office and needed a job. He has no experience in corrections. But that's fine. The director gets the title, but it is the corrections professionals who run the department. They are the ones to whom the legislators should talk.

In this instance, the professionals are Steve Long, the chair of the Board of Probation and Parole, and Scott Johnston, the chief state supervisor for the Board of Probation and Parole. They are smart, savvy and experienced. I would be willing to bet they know exactly what happened in this case. It is just a matter of connecting the dots, and all of the dots belong to employees of the Board of Probation and Parole.

It starts with Christopher Sarchett. He wrote the report detailing Walters' sadistic fantasies, and he recommended that Walters be put in a program. The report was written in 2003, while Walters was at the St. Louis Community Release Center about to be released into the community after serving 2˝ years for burglary, stealing and assaulting a police officer.

Several weeks later, while Walters was still at the SLCRC, he was arrested again. He pleaded guilty to burglary and was sent back to prison.

At that point, his file, which would contain Sarchett's report, would go to a unit in the central office that deals with parole and probation violators who are returning to prison. Did somebody drop the ball there? It's possible.

Sarchett's report would be in the case summary, and insiders say that workers sometimes just read the report of the violations. In this case, a burglar was being returned for burglary. Ho-hum.

Or, somebody could have read the whole report and recommended action, and a superior could have denied it, perhaps arguing that the sexual treatment programs were filled, and Walters wouldn't be in prison long enough to get into a program.

Who else should have seen the report? A parole officer at the diagnostic center in Bonne Terre, and his supervisor. A parole analyst in the central office. A parole officer and his supervisor at the various prisons where Walters was incarcerated. And, as Walters' release date approached, a member of the Parole Board should have reviewed the file.

I imagine Long and Johnston have already connected the dots. I asked Johnston about this weeks ago. Who saw the report? Who recommended what? He said he could not discuss the report — or even confirm its existence — because of Walters' privacy rights.

I suppose Johnston has the law on his side, but privacy rights in prison are not absolute. Staff can search a guy's cell without his consent. That's for the safety of the people working at and living in the institution. Maybe the rest of us deserve the same consideration.

Finally, there is a chance that treatment would not have "cured" Walters. In fact, he told his counselor that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the lowest, his desire to change was a 7. But even if treatment wouldn't have helped, it would be nice to know why he didn't get it.

Crawford is not the guy to ask. Long and Johnston are.