AND SO THE haunting siege of the Center City Rapist came to an end yesterday.

Troy Graves, the man whose rampage of rape and murder convulsed this city with fear, the man who eluded a manhunt for years - and then confessed to everything when caught - was sent to jail for the rest of his life.

And this embodiment of every woman's primal fear trembled and wept and choked with emotion while apologizing to the parents and brother of slain graduate student Shannon Schieber.

"I wish I could offer more than an apology," he said, promising that his future actions, including cooperating with profilers to help solve cases like his, would prove his sincerity.

Then he sat down and, for long minutes afterward, shuddered with emotion.

Vicki Schieber quietly wept, sitting between her husband, Sylvester, and their son, Sean.

That should have been the end of it: a happy day for diligent detectives and prosecutors, a melancholy but satisfying day for the family.

Instead, there was a bitter aftermath stemming from the Schiebers' civil suit, eliciting anger and accusations rather than the consolation of closure.

And that is sorry and sad.

The Schiebers have sued the city and the Police Department because the officers who responded to a neighbor's 911 call didn't break down Shannon's door. They contend Graves was still in her apartment, Shannon was still alive and she could have been saved.

I don't fault them for filing the lawsuit. And I don't blame them for being shaken yesterday when prosecutor Arlene Fisk made comments in court that seemed more designed to undermine their suit than to illuminate Graves' actions that night.

In outlining the facts of the case, Fisk remarked that Shannon's neighbor told police he'd be "embarrassed" if cops broke down Shannon's door and nothing was wrong.

The Schiebers were so visibly disturbed at the gratuitous comment that Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner - believing they were reacting to the graphic details of the murder - called a sidebar conference to discuss limiting inflammatory details.

Although DA Lynne Abraham brushed aside questions about the relevance of Fisk's comment at a subsequent press conference, Fisk acknowledged to me that it was indeed directed at police whose actions have been questioned by the Schiebers.

The Schiebers have spent years claiming police were responsible for their daughter's death, Fisk said. "The officers had the right to hear that they weren't."

But Fisk's remark in court only further fueled the mistrust between the family who lost a daughter and the police who caught the killer.

"This is a clear signal we're right to be skeptical," Vicki Schieber said at a press conference after the hearing, questioning the parts of Graves' statement that suggested Shannon was dead before police arrived.

In the confession, Graves said he and Shannon were struggling - she bit him hard on the finger, and he clamped his arm around her neck - when he heard a knock on the door.

He squeezed harder, and said she'd stopped moving when he heard a second knock - the neighbor said he'd knocked twice on the door that night. "To my knowledge, she never moved again," he said, adding that he saw no police when he left the apartment.

The Schiebers' implied that Graves' statement was elicited in a way that would help police defend the civil suit. That outraged a veteran detective.

"I'm the father of two daughters, the same age as their daughter," railed angry homicide Detective Chuck Boyle, who flew to Colorado with Detective Jeff Piree to take Graves confession.

"I'll never forgive them for questioning my personal integrity and the integrity of the Police Department and the DA's office.

"To think we'd slant an investigation! I'm really upset," railed Boyle, 48, a 24-year veteran.

Deputy DA Charles Gallagher, who said Graves gave a full statement to his defense attorneys before any Philadelphia police questioned him, also was irate at the implication that the civil suit influenced the criminal case.

"Sure they're skeptical - they lost a daughter," he said of the Schiebers. "But I don't agree with them questioning my integrity."

So it went, yesterday: the murder solved, the killer jailed for life, a city liberated from the paralyzing terror of the siege of the Center City Rapist.

And yet there was bitterness instead of bittersweet.

Isn't that a sad and sorry way for this case to end.