Why doubly so, it is literally rewarding the bad behavior? A person that does not abuse people should be rewarded as much as those who do abuse them. And it seem to me that current culture or at least culture last twenty years was rewarding abusers more then non-abusers or their victims. And it just leads to more abuse.
But you rise an interesting point about victims. A criminal shall pay damage to the victims, and a successful author can do it. A worthless thug or someone perceived by society as such can't, not just that but he will continue to be supported by society for as long as he lives.
The reason I think society today is more "lax" towards criminals is that we focus on rehabilitation. That's the only way for criminals to repay their debt to society. We used to have them do slave labor, but modern society doesn't need slaves, it needs skilled workers. We can also kill them all, but that's extreme and carries a whole lot of other issues.
It doesn't excuse the murder, but I think talent should be rewarded, doubly so if the person is a villain. The problem with most criminals is that we can't think of them as other than criminals, and it is a vicious circle because it drags people deeper in the world of crime.
We should give a message such as: you have been sentenced to 10 years, if you have a talent, use that time to develop it, and you can use it to have a good life after you get out. Just look at the other guy who won the literary contest while serving a life sentence, just because you did bad things doesn't make you can't get recognized for all the good thing you can do.
I've seen work mentioned as the magic bullet for rehabilitating criminals. Not as a punishment but actually useful work. And if the criminal in question has a particular talent, that should be taken advantage of.