An author's 12-year dedication to the "sweetheart murders" case

(CBS) SACRAMENTO - I got the title right.

"Justice Waits: The UC Davis Sweetheart Murders," my book on the shocking 1980 murders of beloved Davis, Calif., couple John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves, turned out to have a prophetic moniker.

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Some 32 years after the murders stunned Davis, justice was served - sort of - with the death-penalty conviction of Richard J. Hirschfield. I say "sort of" because even after the failed prosecution of a separate set of suspects, there was a conclusive DNA match on Hirschfield in ... 2002.

He was not arrested until ... 2004. His preliminary hearing binding him over to trial was in ... 2007.

The trial itself, which led to a swift conviction by a no-nonsense jury, did not take place until ... 2012, mostly because of defense delay tactics, and a lack of public funds. There were more than a 100 continuances.

Was justice served? Well, Hirschfield is on Death Row, in a single cell, which he prefers. Despite Death Row's spartan conditions, he still gets "three hots and a cot." He will die of natural causes before his death sentence is carried out.

EXTRA: 1980 police video of "sweetheart murders" crime scene

And scores of people who closely followed the case - including Sabrina's father - are either too ill (or, with increasing frequency, deceased) to witness what ended up being the slam-dunk conviction of a man who robbed a town's innocence.

At trial, the prosecution was focused. It lasered through the clutter and defense posturing for a swift conviction. The DNA match and Joe Hirschfield's suicide, both in 2002, were really the clinchers needed for a guilty verdict, jurors told me.

I try not to be bitter - this story and my book that played a role in it - put me on the map as a writer. I've made some wonderful friends - lifetime friends - while raising Parkinson's awareness. But the Sweethearts case is a perfect storm of blunders, delays, and, well, legal B.S. Hopefully, it has some teachable moments:

-The lack of cooperation among law enforcement agencies here was appalling. In short, Yolo County was myopic in its dogged but futile prosecution of the Hunt group - four suspects charged in a convoluted theory of a copycat killing. Throw in Sacramento County's sloppy handling of the evidence pre-DNA match, and you have the recipe of how not to handle a murder case. Fail.

-It's one thing to take on a high-profile murder case in Podunk - then plead poverty. But if you are the capital city in the nation's biggest state, and you vow to the victims' families post-DNA match to have a relatively quick resolution, then walk the talk. This case always seemed to fall to the bottom of the deck amid fresher crimes. Fail.

-I was too timid. I knew about the DNA match weeks after it happened. And I should have broken the story then (2002). But not wanting any fingers pointed at me if the case went south again, I hung back. For two years. In hindsight, with Hirschfield locked away in Washington state, breaking the news when I had it could only have helped. Fail.

-Regardless of how one feels, the death penalty is a joke in California. A colossal mess. Example: "Trailside Killer" David Carpenter, convicted for the 1981 murder of Davis resident Ellen Hanson (among others) in 1988, is still on California's Death Row. Carpenter was convicted 26 years before Hirschfield. Fail.

-The death penalty's legal wiggle room allowed Hirschfield's defense team to exploit every legal loophole, taking a defense-by-delay tactic that imploded at trial. Fail.

After the trial, I had to look up Webster's definition of "prosecution" to get a handle on the finality of it all: "Prosecution": to follow to the end: pursue until finished."

That, at the least, happened.

I wasn't always sure it would.