Living Victims, Stolen Lives : Parents of Murdered Children Speak to America 9780895035882, 9780895032300

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LIVING VICTIMS, STOLEN LIVES

Parents of Murdered Children Speak to America

Brad Stetson

Death, Value and Meaning Series Series Editor: John D. Morgan

Baywood Publishing Company, Inc. AMITYVILLE, NEW YORK

Copyright 0 2003 .by the Baywood Publishing Company, Inc., Amityville, New York. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free recycled paper. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2002071057 ISBN: 0-89503-229-5 (cloth) ISBN: 0-89503-230-9(paper) ISBN 978-0-89503-587-5 (epub) ISBN 978-0-89503-588-2 (epdf) http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/LVS

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData Stetson, Brad. Living victims, stolen lives : parents of murdered children speak to America I Brad Stetson. p. cm. - - (Death, value, and meaning series) Includes bibliographical references and inddx. ISBN 0-89503-229-5(cloth : alk. paper) - - ISBN 0-89503-230-9 (pbk : alk. paper) 1. Parents of murder victims- -California- -Interviews. 2. Murder- -California- -Case studies. 3. Children- -Death- -Psychological aspects- -Case studies. 4. Bereavement- -Case studies. I. Title. 11. Series. HV6533.C2 S73 2002 362.88’085- -dc21 2002071057

A Note of Dedication

There is no difference in the faces of bereaved mothers. -1tzhak Rabin

This book is dedicated to Yolanda M o d e s , and other parents of murdered children across America. I will never forget the chilly November Sunday afternoon that Yolanda, her husband Jack, and one of their sons met me at the cemetery in Montebello, California, where their late son Steven is buried. We lay on the grass beside her son’s grave, on a windswept hillside. She spoke with all the tenderness of every good mother’s heart as she showed me Seven’s schoolwork from kindergarten through grade school. The Mother’s Day cards, the handprints in paint, the pictures of the Superman suit Steven wore one Halloween, they were all delicately handled by her as the precious and priceless memories they were. She bore upon her face and within her body all the life-freezing pain and anguish of soul that only parents of murdered children can know. The profound look in her gentle brown eyes as she gazed at Seven’s photos was an almost transcendent record of the indescribable sorrow, hurt, confusion, frustration, rage, love, and longing that mingle in the hearts and minds of human beings enduring murdered-child grief. Three aspects of that day will always ring in my mind. First, Yolanda and her husband Jack were in one way typical of the parents of murdered children in southern California: they were poor and Hispanic. After our conversation that day, she stood up and looked down at her son’s grave, and said with a sad, ironic chuckle, “This is probably the only property we’ll ever own.” I will also remember the powerful surge of overwhelming sorrow and empathy> felt when, during our interview, Yolanda stopped midsentence, choking back tears, as she spoke of her own pain at seeing a tear run down the cheek of her dying son, moments after he had been shot and she helplessly held his head, telling him that she loved him. iii

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Lastly, I recall the righteous anger with which she said that she told one police detective, “Wlhen you catch this guy who killed Steven, I want him charged with my death as well!” A little over one year after Steven’s 1998 murder, Yolanda had been diagnosed with cancer. She seemed to sense her time was running out, and, on May 27, 2001, she died. For her husband Jack and their three remaining children, it meant sorrow upon sorrow. For Yolanda it meant, without any doubt, a reunion with the sweet 12-year-old boy whose life had been unfairly stolen from her nearly three years before. Her death is, of course, a tragedy further compounding the incomprehensible suffering of her family. To me, and perhaps to the readers of this book, Yolanda’s death is also a symbol of the loss of a life all parents of murdered children experience on that horrible day they learn their son or daughter has been murdered. With their child’s murder, the life they had known up to that moment passes away, and they are changed forever. Parents of murdered children lose not only their child, but also, quite literally, their own previous life. They do live on, but now as living victims, faced with the struggle to find a new normal, a new way of being.

Brad Stetson

Table of Contents

................... Foreword A Word About Method . . . . . . . . . . . . Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction: Murder in America . . . . . . . . . . . . A

Note of Dedication

iii

vii

ix

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1

PART I

Voices of Parents of Murdered Children CHAPTER 1

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25

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33

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45

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53

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57

Juanita Lopez

CHAPTER 2

Jack and Yolanda Morales.

CHAPTER 3

Lupe Thexton

CHAPTER 4

Gil Matinelli

CHAPTER 5

Elly Rossi.

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PART I1 Toward Understanding and Healing CHAPTER 6

Nancy Ruhe-Munch

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CHAPTER 7

Pastor Ken Wilson and Mark Mogensen

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73 85

PART I11 Reaching for Resolution CHAPTER 8

Steps Toward Healing for Parents of Murdered Children and Other Survivors of Homicide. . . . . . . . . . . . .

APPENDIX I

A Reflection on Teen Suicide

APPENDIX I1

....

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Groups Supporting Parents and Loved Ones of Murder Victims and Others Who Grieve . . . .

......... Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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111

113

115 117

Foreword:

A Word About Method

Those interviewed in this book were mainly contacted through my attending chapter meetings around southern California of the nationally active group, “Parents of Murdered Children.” I announced at those gatherings my development of this book, and waited for loved ones of murder victims to approach me. Usually one parent would approach me at each meeting. Many parents did not respond to my invitation to be interviewed. Occasionally a parent or other relative of a murder victim would approach me and say they did not wish to talk about their experience, but they knew someone who they thought would want to talk with me. I then gave my phone number to be forwarded to the possible interviewee. I was passive in this way about seeking interviews because I wanted the parents to feel completely at ease in speaking with me, a stranger, and I did not want anyone to feel at all pressured or intimidated. The interviews were all conducted informally at a location of the interviewee’s choosing, and the conversations were extemporaneous and unplanned. I desired spontaneity in the interviews believing that the resulting transcript would best reflect the true thoughts and emotions of the grieving parents. The transcripts in this book are verbatim records of the conversations, with very minor editorial corrections to ensure clarity. Still, at times, the conversations meander and stall. But this feature of the discussions was important to preserve, as it in itself communicates important features of the psychological, emotional, and intellectual trauma these parents are experiencing. This book is divided into an introduction and three parts. The introduction, Murder in America, is intended to orient the reader to some of the current features of homicide in this country. Part I, Voices of Parents of Murdered Children, is a direct expression, in the voices of parents themselves, of the anguish and horror they have vii

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experienced and continue to endure as a consequence of their child’s murder. Part 11,Toward Understanding and Healing, gives the insights of three people who work closely with parents of murdered children, as both their advisors and counselors. Part 111, Reaching for Resolution, offers some understandings and strategies that friends of people enduring murdered-child grief can use to help them, and that parents of murdered children can use to help themselves. Throughout these parts, the reader will find many assertions about the sociology and psychology of murder and bereavement, and many expressions of deep human grief. Some of these ideas are expressed briefly, some comprehensively, and others only vaguely. Nonetheless, the diversity of sources and personal journeys exhibited here creates a compelling mosaic of thought and feeling that powerfully communicates a remarkable depth of human sentiment.

Preface

“Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?”’ “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?’’ The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.’’ -Genesis 4:9-10

Historically, murder has been regarded as the worst act a human being could commit. From Cain, t o Othello, to Jack the Ripper, to John Gacy, the murderer has been regarded as the ultimate transgressor, the clearest and most direct threat t o civilization itself. All the more so for the murderer of children. While this disdain has-through the strange, dark penchants of the human psyche-at times been mixed with misplaced admiration or fascination, it has still been overwhelmingly present, and effective as the most basic moral judgment that is the foundation of human communities. But distressingly, in our time, in our country, this foundation of human society has corroded. Through the rise of the information culture at the end of the twentieth century, and through the increasing prevalence of the ever more sophisticated and varied entertainment industry, American society has been drenched with the news and imagery of murder. Homicide-whether the context be fact or fictionis a part of our daily lives. From periodicals to television to film or our own neighborhoods, the killing of innocent human life is now commonplace. Indeed, this is the heart of our problem. Murder has become such a regular aspect of our social and personal experience that we no longer recognize its grisly face, we don’t see it for the ultimate horror it is. Its familiarity to us has numbed us to its true terrible nature. Although we retain the natural knowledge we have always had that murder is a great wrong, we no longer exercise that knowledge in actual, practical ways. ix

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We don’t act as though we really believe it is as bad as we say it is. We have opened up the living room of our culture to this vilest of pests, and so have become accustomed to the degradation of our social environment that infestation with murder brings. The consequence: we have a low and degraded view of human life, rarely consciously and publicly acknowledging the epic evil and injustice that murder is. The purpose of this book is to remind people of the profound unfairness of murder and give to the American public a renewed sense of the incredible suffering and personal agony experienced by the loved ones of murder victims, specifically parents of murdered children. The murder of children, is, as I suggested, perhaps the worst form of murder, that worst of crimes, and it is my contention that sensitive and respectful focus on murdered-child grief stands the best chance of piercing the shell of complacency and indifference that surrounds the general American public’s attitude toward homicide and its aftermath. This book is not intended to be a comprehensive or definitive treatment of murdered-child grief or the sociology of crime and murder. Rather, its limited intent is to contribute to a more sober and resistant public outlook toward murder. This study is an introduction to a topic which is-relative to its moral importance and the probably unmatched human suffering it causes-shockingly under-discussed. Indeed, the experience of losing a child to murder is probably the strongest and most primal feature of human emotional life. After all, even Adam and Eve, traditionally regarded as the very first human couple, were parents of a murdered child. Though these pages contain painful and disturbing snapshots of the soul-trauma endured by parents of murdered children, they should not be understood as either voyeuristic or exploitative. For only by gaining some understanding of the torment the scourge of murder is bringing to families throughout the nation can we begin culturally to move in a healing direction.

Acknowledgments Many people provided valuable assistance in the production of this book. I would especially like to thank all of the interviewees who willingly shared their deeply personal pain. Elsie Purnell put me in touch with potential interviewees, and provided valuable advice. Juanita Lopez and Lupe Thexton also provided valuable help and encouragement. Dan Bauer gave me very meaningful assistance, as did Rita Morales. Stuart Cohen and’his staff at Baywood were always genial and professional, and Dr. Jack Morgan also provided helpful direction. While most of the interviewees are in some way affiliated with the organization “Parents of Murdered Children,” this book is not a project of that organization, and should not be construed as such. Any errors or omissions in this work are the sole responsibility of the author.

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Introduction: Murder in America Crime, like virtue, has its degrees. J e a n Baptiste Racine Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out. J o h n Webster

From breast cancer, to AIDS,to smoking and global warming, when Americans are facing what they believe to be a crisis, it is common for them to “declare war” on the scourge. Activists will organize, donations will be raised, .and catchy ads will be produced. Soon, a national movement will be underway comprehensively to resist the progress of the disease or danger. Yet, in what must be regarded as a massive and ghoulish irony, today we not only ignore one of the most painful and destructive phenomena of our society, we actually glorify its horrifying and fatal work. I’m speaking of murder, and its consequences to the victims it kills-and to the victims it leaves behind. Although one regularly hears rote denunciations of violence in American media, graphic depictions of murder continue to be churned out by the hydra of the entertainment industry: movies, television, comic books, video games, Internet Web sites, and sensationalized “true crime” paperbacks. A prurient and eager public stands ready to behold these murderous depictions, as homicide and its portrayal has become a staple of our entertainment and media cultures. This familiarity has bred an indifference and ignorance about what murder actually is, and what it actually does to people and society. While the atrocity of the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have given us a glimpse of the personal and cultural devastation murder brings, the fact remains that, as a culture, we have surrounded ourselves with a largely fictional picture of the 1

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most atrocious action any human being can commit or experience. By immersing ourselves in this artificial reality, as a society we have become callously detached from the real truth about murder. In an effort, then, to recover a clearer vision of just what an ultimate moral and personal violation murder is, we will examine murder in America today, considering some of its causes and trends. Following this overview, we will reflect upon the social consequences of murder, and some steps we as a country can take to combat what has become nothing less than an American culture of murder.

MURDER IN AMERICA TODAY Given its ubiquity in American life today, one might think murder’s prevalence in our culture has been a constant. But in fact, only in recent decades has it surged to the epidemic levels it maintains today. Over the last 20 years almost half a million Americans have been murdered, and another 2.5 million have been wounded by gunfire. Were it not for good fortune and advancing medical technology, these wounded people too would have been counted among the murdered. At any rate, there were 3 million attempts at murder just since 1980. This combined total represents more casualties than the U.S.military has suffered in all of the nations’ wars of the past 200 years [ll. That is a substantial amount of human devastation. And of course for every murdered or nearly murdered person, there are other victims-parents, spouses, siblings, children, friends-who suffer profoundly as well. Some scholars have estimated that perhaps 10 million Americans have endured the murder of a loved one or very close friend [ll. Today, another person is murdered in America every 25 minutes or so [ll. Currently, there are about 100,000 convicted murderers imprisoned in the United States, and 8 times that amount800,000-free on the streets [l]. These numbers can be mind-numbing, but we can put them in perspective by realizing that now the United States has more murderers than it has doctors, more murderers than college professors, and more murderers than police officers [ll. Not only are there more murders today than in past generations in America, there has also been an increase in types of murder that were once unheard of: school shootings, stranger murder, mass murder, and serial murder. Between 1950 and 1960 in this country, there were fewer than 20 mass murders, an event in which someone murders a number of victims at once. Today, three or four mass-murder events are committed every month, often in venues never before considered potentially fatal

INTRODUCTION / 3

environments, such as school and work [ll.Similarly, there were 19 serial killers in the United States during the decade of the 1950s. In the 1980s, there were 114. Today, it is estimated there are as many as 200 serial murderers at large in the United States [ll. What’s going on?

Sources and Causes This ugly, nauseating picture implicates deeply ingrained aspects of contemporary American life. All is not well in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Nonetheless, it is fashionable in American intellectual culture to pretend that the causes of high assault rates, murder rates, and the increasing prevalence of homicidal children are a great puzzle. We can’t really know what “sets some kids off,” the official story goes, but at the very least, we are assured, the solution involves massive amounts of federal dollars and assorted special programs heaped upon inner cities and schools. But murderers, including adolescent murderers, don’t murder because of a poor education or too much free time on their hands. The sources and causes of the proliferation of homicide are at least five in number: the culture of anger, the culture of death, the glamorization of homicide and murderers, the information industry, and fatherlessness [21. The Culture of Anger

If there is one word that captures the spirit of contemporary American life, it is “angry.” From our politics to our literature to our entertainment t o our car-driving habits, anger and rage define the feeling. Rap and hip-hop, the two most popular forms of music with a great many urban and suburban youth, major in rage and hate. Typical victims of the hostility in rap and hip-hop lyrics include women, police, parents, teachers, and anyone of an ethnicity other than the “artist’s.” The profusion of anger in all aspects of our lives has consequences for the way we think and act. As University of Southern California philosophy professor Dallas Willard notes, A leading social commentator now teaches that despair and rage are an essential element in the struggle for justice. He and others who teach this are sowing the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind, the tornado. Indeed, we are reaping it now in a nation increasingly sick with rage and resentment of citizen toward citizen [3, pp. 150-1511.

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In fact, Professor Willard explicitly links anger to murder, writing

.

In the United States [currently] there are around 25,000 murders each year. There are 1,000 murders in the workplace, and a million people are injured in the workplace by violent attacks from co-workers. Most of the workplace murders occur after long periods of open rage and threats, and many involve multiple murders of innocent bystanders. It is a simple fact that none of the 25,000 murders, or only a negligible number of them, would have occurred but for an anger that the killer chose to embrace and indulge [ 3 , p. 1503.

The Culture of Death

Closely related to the pervasive American culture of anger is the culture of death. Fascination and concern about death has of course always been present in human societies, but in twenty-first-century America it seems death has come to be regarded as a regular, innocuous “part” of life. Of course death is a part of life in the sense that it cannot be avoided, but the contemporary demystification of death has, I believe, misled us into undervaluing its significance. Today we live with the complete integration of death into our daily consciousness. This has been accomplished by everything from film and television to the aggressive political advocacy of abortion. Though the latter is obviously a matter of great controversy, even proponents of legal abortion have acknowledged that American abortion rates of more than one million per year, year after year, insinuate a lowered view of human life within society [41. The insouciance toward death we live with today not only denigrates the awesome, unmatched value of human life, it also vastly misapprehends the nature of death itself. Death is generally not a desirable part of human life, and it is not a friend to be embraced. It causes immense pain and difficulty in people’s lives. It divides families and loved ones, and separates individuals from the communities in which they express their humanity. Historically, the Judeo-Christian tradition which has formed Western culture regarded death as an enemy and an indignity which entered the world as the result of sin. The casual integration of death into our culture, and the sanctioning of its selling through entertainment and other mediums, inclines us away from rightly regarding its significance. Death is nothing less than the doorway through which we cannot return, the end to our activity here and now. By treating death as just another common experience, we

INTRODUCTION / 5

inadvertently diminish the ethical seriousness of murder, of the moral manner with which we live our lives now, and our pricelessness to those who love us and need us. The Glamorization of Homicide

Perhaps the most obvious cultural cause of our murder problem is the social inundation and glamorization of murder and murderers by the entertainment industry. Both the prevalence and exaltation of murder in our culture are centered in youth culture. Indeed, as Chuck Colson points out, an entire “parallel culture” of violence saturates teen consciousness, constantly assuring them that anger, violence, and even killing are cool 151. American youth are, both in fact and fiction, essentially surrounded by murder. Clearly American children are permitted by their parents to spend far too much of their time being “entertained.” The average American child grows up in a home containing three television sets, three cassette tape players, three radios, two VCRs, two CD players, one video game player, and one computer 161. The messages being conveyed by these media are often brutal. The average American teenager, after all, by the time of graduation from high school, has seen 40,000 murders depicted on television [71. That’s 5,000 per yearor 416 per month, 14 per day every day-from ages 10 to 18. But even if parents more responsibly monitored their children’s visual consumption, minors would still be exposed to graphic imagery, for they are the primary market for much of film and television development, and these industries deliberately seek out and target the teen crowd. A recent inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission discovered that the film industry routinely markets violent R-rated movies, music, and video games to children, and even solicits their input in creating sequels to homicide-filled slasher movies like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” 181. This is established practice in the entertainment culture. Entertainment Weekly magazine recently noted that the summer of 2000’s movie crop included explicit depiction of no less than 532 dead bodies 191. It’s common sense, but for those in need of studies, a recent report by the United States Surgeon General’s Office confirmed that this kind of exposure to brutality “plays an important causal role in this societal problem” of youth violence [lo]. As David Grossman, a former Army Ranger who has studied the psychology of killing in combat, notes, “Children don’t naturally kill; they learn it from violence in the home and most pervasively, from violence as entertainment in television, movies, and interactive video games” ill].

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Besides inducing actual violence, these realistic representations engender admiration of murderers. At every level, American culture perversely exalts the violent. For example, at the popular level, two recent compact disk recordings by rapper Eminem admiringly describe his commission of a series of felonies, including murder, that would net him 44 years in prison plus three death sentences. Instead of being socially shunned, he was nominated for a Grammy and was the winner of MTV’s Video of the Year award [9]. On a more “sophisticated” level, Stanley “Tookie” Williams, a death-row inmate who murdered four innocent people-including one teenager-in 1979, was nominated for a 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for his “gritty” and “extraordinary” children’s stories [121. School children everywhere proudly sport T-shirts and caps emblazoned with the heroically sinister specter of serial murderers Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, or Jason, and everything from video-games, CD-roms, the Internet, and comic books exalt the crazed killer, with no sense of the humanity or worth of their hapless victims. We have a particular fascination with serial killers. Charles Manson, David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, Angelo Buono, and Jeffrey Dahmer have all been repeated subjects of books, films, and made-forTV movies. Even the idle dabblings of these incarcerated sociopaths fetch public interest. For example, one author, promoting her book about serial killers’ paintings and artwork on her Web site, offered a print by child-murderer John Wayne Gacy as a coveted prize for answering questions about the author’s book [131. Why this macabre obsession? In a society with so many frustrated and emotionally impoverished people, the killer’s boldness and callous disregard of moral convention is strangely admired. In a technology driven culture such as ours, feelings of powerlessness and individual anonymity thrive. Many people derive a vicarious sense of power, recognition, and prestige from the self-assertion of the killer. He becomes, in the mind of the contemporary repressed soul, an impressive master of his environment, someone it would be nice to be like. Describing the dark attraction of the murderer’s power, Eric Schlosser observes, The murderer is a powerful figure who dares to violate the central tenet of almost every human society: Thou shalt not kill. “There’s no greater feeling of power on earth,” a former gang member once confided, “than what it feels like to take another person’s life.” Most serial killers are impelled by a craving for power, by a desire for the sort of control over life and death that is usually attributed to God. When the murderer is the protagonist of a story, we can vicariously experience that power. The victim

INTRODUCTION / 7

is a defeated soul, a loser in this contest of strength. Perhaps it is easier to identify with the murderer. To do otherwise means choosing the side of the powerless-and confronting some unsettling truths ill. The Information Industry

It is not only entertainment media that traffic in gore. So too does the “news” industry, both print and electronic. Television news is the primary offender here. Accounts of murders on television news bear more the character of bizarre entertainment than colossal tragedies. A well-coifed anchor will fill the screen and breathlessly tell us of a “tragedy” or “shocking” discovery, the manufactured sincerity of his or her voice preparing us for a shot of the blood stained walkway, or the body under the yellow tarp. Soon to follow will be vulgar tape of an anguished family member, shrieking a horrible cry upon reaching the scene where their loved one has been murdered. All too often, an intrepid-and well-tailored-reporter will elbow her way alongside the stunned father or daughter, and mindlessly blurt “How are you feeling right now?” The prurient has become an irresistible attraction to us, whether fiction or non-fiction. The moral squalor television news now inhabits is largely the product of ratings wars. “If it bleeds, it leads” is the mantra of news producers all over our largest cities, because the need to snag and rivet viewers is paramount, given the advertising dollars to be won or lost depending on ratings. But there is also another factor at work: periodicity. In some major news markets like Los Angeles, stations have literally hours of “news” to fill every night, night after night. News shows at 4 P.M., 5 P.M., 6 P.M., and 11 P.M. require acres of footage and verbiage, and murder-dramatically presented-is always a handy standby to fill air time 1141. But the theatrical barrage of homicide to which the public mind is subjected renders it slow to see and comprehend what has really happened to an innocent person and his or her loving family.

Fatherlessness Often unrecognized as a source of the violent coarsening of our culture is fatherlessness. It is epidemic in American life today, as fully 40 percent of children go to sleep each night in homes where their fathers do not live [El. These children, particularly boys-who are at greater risk for violent conduct- are literally at the mercy of the bloody images in the custody of which they are so often placed. Fully 60 percent of men on TV are involved in violence, and 11percent are killers [ll].

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This perverse rendition of manhood easily influences the minds of boys who are often growing up without their father in their life. As Robert Bork comments, [Bloys . . . are heavy consumers of the images of violence and sex in television, movies and rap music, [they] live in neighborhoods where violence and sexual predation are regarded as signs of manhood, and gangs fill the void created by a father’s absence. The wonder is that any of these youths avoid underclass behavior. The correlation of illegitimate births and crime has been well documented. The birth rate for unmarried women aged 15 to 19 increased threefold between 1960 and 1992, while the percentage of all babies born to unmarried teenagers went from 15 to 70 percent. It is not surprising then that between 1985 and 1993, murders committed by 18- to 24-year-oldsincreased by 65 percent, and those committed by 14- to 17-year-olds increased by a staggering 165 percent. . . . Young [often fatherless] boys . . . witness so many gory depictions of killing that they are bound to become desensitized to it. We now have teenagers and even subteenagers who shoot if they feel they have been “dissed” (shown disrespect). Indeed, the newspapers bring us stories of murders done for simple pleasure, the killing of a stranger simply because the youth felt like killing someone, anyone. That is why, for the first time in American history, you are more likely to be murdered by a complete stranger than by someone you know. That is why our prisons contain convicted killers who show absolutely no remorse and frequently cannot even remember the names of the persons they have killed [16, pp. 143, 1571.

Trends Much has been made of late about recent decreases in crime and murder rates. But unfortunately, the sighs of relief are premature. High rates of out-of wedlock births (well over 70 percent in some inner cities) and increasing parole rates assure that serious crime will continue to thrive. Already, front-page headlines are warning that felonies are on the rise again [171. At any rate, though, it seems a bit odd to hail transient declines in murders, when thousands per year are still being committed. Surely ink is better spent seriously and thoughtfully decrying the stunning carnage that is persisting. So then, what are the numbers? The national murder rate declined about 20 percent during the 199Os, but there are nonetheless approximately 20,000 murders ayear in the United States [18,p. 171. Homicide rates for teenage boys between the ages of 14 and 17 tripled during the 16-year period between 1977 and 1993. Since then, the rate has

INTRODUCTION / 9

declined by 45 percent, unfortunately still a substantial aggregate increase [18, p. 241. Although the overall national murder rate declined during the 90s (falling to its lowest point in the last 35 years), in 2000, in Los Angeles, the murder rate spiked 28 percent [191. Increases were seen in other large urban areas as well, including New York City, Dallas, and Philadelphia. Long-term, the picture is even more disturbing. Overall, the per capita murder rate doubled in the U.S.between 1957 and 1992. And the rate of aggravated assault-people attempting to kill one anotherwhich is really a better index to the severity of the virus of violence in our culture, went from 60 per 100,000 people in 1957 to 440 per 100,000 in the mid-l990s, an increase of more than seven-fold [ll].And of course, were it not for recent increases in the rate of imprisonment and advances in life-saving emergency and trauma medicine, these rates of murder and assault would be much higher. Two chilling cultural realities, even beyond the numbers, give cause for great concern about homicide in the future. First, the advent of stranger murder. Most murders are between strangers today, unlike in the past, and clearance rates for murders have dropped from 91 percent in 1965 to an all time low of 65 percent in 1992 120, p. 311. The phenomenon of stranger murder speaks to a pervasive dehumanization that has taken root in our society, and to the psychological reality that the natural, ancient taboo against murder is losing its hold over our citizens, particularly young ones. Such an erosion in the basic mass psychology of a culture is difficult to reverse. Secondly, because of many of the reasons we’ve discussed, a new and savage breed of criminal type is becoming more numerous and active: the super-predator. These are the full-time thugs responsible for the most serious crimes, and they are fully desensitized to legal, cultural, or moral prohibitions against murder. As William J. Bennett, John J. DiIulio, Jr., and John P. Walters describe them, The super-predators place no value on the lives of their victims, whom they reflexively dehumanize as just so much worthless “white trash” if white, or by the usual racial or ethnic epithets if black or Latino. They are perfectly capable of committing the most heinous acts of physical violence for the most trivial reasons (for example, a perception of slight disrespect or the accident of being in their path). They live by the meanest code of the meanest streets, a code that reinforces rather than restrains their violent, hair-trigger mentality. In prison or out, the things that super-predators get by their criminal behavior-sex, drugs, money-are their own

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immediate rewards. Nothing else matters to them. So for as long as their youthful energies hold out, they will do what comes “naturally”: murder, rape, rob, assault, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, and get high [20,pp. 27-28].

It is seared, lost souls such as these who will wreak great havoc in the lives of so many innocent people, irrespective of modest fluctuations in homicide rates.

SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF MURDER There are social consequences to homicide, both on a micro and macro level. Blaming the Victim An ironic personal consequence of the random murder infecting our social experience today-even beyond the obvious dehumanization and continuing devaluation of human life frequent murder causes-is a strange kind of hostility and lack of sympathy toward murder victims and their families. This lack of sympathy is certainly not a reality prominent in the consciousness of most of us. Certainly, most people would-and often do-express great sympathy for murder victims and their family. But as the quantity and inexplicability of murder rises, I think we seek to protect ourselves from the horror of it all by, in our minds, finding a way to blame the victim for what happened to them. “Why were they in that part of town?” “Why was she dating him?” “He shouldn’t have been out at that hour.” “He was probably a gang member.” “Those parents should have been standing in the front yard watching their child play, their negligence is why their child was abducted and murdered.” These responses are frequently made by many of us to news that some woman or man, boy or girl, has been murdered. These kinds of responses are a form of self-protection. We tell ourselves these things to reassure ourselves that the horror that befell the victim could not happen to us or our children. The victim must, we think-simply must-have done something to bring such a terrible thing upon them. The incredible suffering and fear the murder victim experiences, and the evil of what has been done to them, are experiences we desperately do not want to believe could happen to us or those we love, and so we produce a reason for why it did befall the actual victim. We intensely want to preserve a sense of order, meaning, and rationality to our lives and society in general, so we place ourselves

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outside the possibility of being a victim of random torture and murder, thereby allowing ourselves to continue living our lives as we presently do, undisturbed or distracted by the dark, terrible, and unexplainable horrors that in truth could happen to us. This delusional mechanism of self-protectionhas the consequence of anesthetizing us to the suffering of murder victims and their families. We blind ourselves to their experience because it is just too awful for us to look at. We don’t reflect upon their crushing grief and suffocating anguish of soul because to do so is t o join in their suffering, and we don’t want to do that. What we win is a hollow inner peace which is false t o social reality. In the end, it only protects the flourishing of the personal and social pathologies that have given us the plague of murder. And, of course, in our selfish auto-deception we betray our own humanity, and deprive murder victims’ families of the mercy, compassion, and human solidarity in suffering that alone can minister to them, and contribute to their return t o life indeed.

Social Stress On the macro level, a terrible tide of fear, despair, and nihilism threatens to wash over our national consciousness as the cumulative social trauma from murder relentlessly increases. Every childhood is filled with the same primal panic: there is a monster hiding in the closet; there is something under the bed; a stranger is looking at you through the window. But with the comforting word of mommy or daddy, the flick of a light switch, and a deep breath, the terror recedes, and we are lulled back t o sleep by the calming assurance “Everything’s O.K., everything is going t o be O.K.” With the maturity of adulthood we learn rationally to understand our fears and uncertainties, and we realize that we can exercise a measure of psychological control over our lives. We can turn the light on, open the closet and look under the bed, and see for ourselves that our awful imaginations are not reality. We can trust that there is a certain order to the world and a reliability to our experience, and that some things-the terrible things lurking in the darkest corners of our minds-just don’t happen. It is our ultimate nightmare, of course, that this trust be disproved, that the darkness overpower the light, and that a genuine, evil monster burst into the tranquillity of our home, harming us and our family. This personal horror, writ large, has in fact happened in urban America. The new bogeyman is random, senselessmurder, and as daily news accounts

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of violent attacks attest, he could get any of us, or anyone we love, at any time, anywhere 1211. It is part of the bane of this beast that the reason for an attack is as prosaic as it is outrageous: a robbery, a car jacking, a gang initiation, some kids were just bored. If there were clear and consistent reasons for killings, we could rationally respond, and eliminate our risk of being victimized. But the tortuous reign of this monster of murder is such that his work can neither be anticipated nor prevented, neither expected nor thwarted. We follow rules which convince us that we have inoculated ourselves against his sudden and deadly bite: don’t go out at night, carry a weapon, don’t drive a nice-looking car, regard everyone suspiciously, stay out of the “bad” neighborhoods. But the fact is that each of these measures is no guarantee of safety, if any help at all. They are only placebos, convincing us we have temporarily outsmarted the beast and protected ourselves, something akin to pulling the bedcovers over our heads. As we frantically try to figure out some way to protect ourselves, we do not realize the ways in which our lives have been altered by the now routine assaults. Just as an individual who has been traumatized by a horrible event can experience stress and psychological problems long afterward, so a society can manifest similar reactions, writ large: anger, paranoia, desensitization to violence, indifference to human suffering, a sense of meaningless to life. In the same way the fiction of the bogeyman has a mesmerizing effect on a child, so the chilling reality of the social bogeyman of murder has a paralyzing consequence for communities. Liberties become constrained, suspicions and stereotypes about one another grow, and our corporate vision of life and its possibilities dims. It is apparent that our society today displays these pathologies, but the long-term ramifications are not as clear and are impossible to foresee. Eventually, a culture will fatigue of fear, and slip into an indifferent nihilism, where the taking of a human life goes essentially unnoticed, and the inherent dignity of the human person is obscured by the unnaturally strong psychological effort exerted, from day to day, to hold the true bogeyman at bay. How will our lives and the life of our community be different ten years hence, after the bogeyman has destroyed thousands more families? All we have is the cursed certainty that once the bogeyman is known to be real, the sanctity and security of our psychological bedroom has been violated, and it will never feel truly safe or restful again. Every murder, like a massive explosion, leaves destruction and disorientation all around it, and this devastation is both personal and social.

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A MODEST PROPOSAL

Problems as deeply embedded in our culture as our murder problem now is, can only be addressed if we, as individuals and as a society, deliberately and purposefully decide to try to solve them. In this section I would like to propose three simple, general steps we can take to begin the process of weakening our culture of murder.

Increase Sentences Most obviously, we can lengthen prison terms for murder in every degree. One of the only ways we as a society can communicate what we value and do not value is the manner in which we punish the denigration of what we think is important. As of the late 199Os,the average time served by a murderer was just over 8 years [18,p. 321. Yet, it is a proven fact that as the odds of going to prison for murder increase, the murder rate goes down [p. 331. Conversely, as expectations of punishments decrease, crime rates generally increase. This is common sense, and our laws ought to reflect it. Our current failure to punish more severely murderers does not publicly communicate a very high valuation of human life, and, of course, it painfully rubs salt into the already gaping emotional wounds of murder victims’ families. Well-thought out, Constitutional legislation that ensured murderers spent much more time in prison would demonstrate that we as a nation regard human life as extraordinarily valuable. The sad but true fact-often obscured by so much public rhetoric about various “rights”-is that currently we as a nation do not regard human life as extraordinarily valuable. D.A.M.

As I’ve argued, in many ways we celebrate murder and the murderer rather than condemn it and him. Indeed, acceptance and celebration of murder has been a fundamental characteristic of human social barbarity throughout history. This is perverse. Would it not humanize our public life to systematically reflect upon the unfairness of murder? To re-civilize our society, we must weave into our culture a vigorous condemnation of murder and murderers. One device which could do this is the Declaration Against Murder, or D.A.M. The D.A.M is a one sentence statement that explicitly affirms the unequaled unfairness and evil of murder, and decries its frequency and harmfulness in our society. Statements like the D.A.M are already a common feature of our culture. For example, we place statements on cigarette packages explicitly stating the harmfulness of cigarettes;

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we place labels on alcohol containers explicitly stating the dangers to pre-born human beings of their mother’s alcohol consumption; we require signs posted on the front passenger-side of cars warning occupants of the danger to children of the installed airbag; and we print messages on the labels of some medications warning people who take them not to drive or operate heavy machinery while under the influence of the medication. The Declaration Against Murder could easily become a part of our culture and social consciousness in the same way these other advisories have, and there is absolutely no reason why it should not. In fact, it seems strangely inconsistent that we warn about these other potential harms when the harm of murder-to both the victim and his familyis certain, substantial, and permanent. All movies and‘ television programs which portray the murder of an innocent person ought to be required to prominently present among their production credits a D.A.M, and so too should computer and video games, comic books, and any other written or visual representation of homicide. Depending on the medium, the D.A.M might read: “Theproducers of this presentation deplore the profound evil and destructiveness of murder to victims and their loves ones, and we call on every aspect of American society to continually recognize the unspeakably precious and irreplaceable value of every human life.” The D.A.M, then, is essentially a written red ribbon, a visible reminder that there is a horrible scourge among us consuming the lives of our friends and neighbors, causing great harm to physical and mental health. Such overt messages are critically important, since the moral attitudes of citizens, particularly youth, are substantially formed by the assertion and repetition of what their society declares to be important, valuable, or dangerous. Surely one simple, brief sentence such as the D.A.M cannot do any harm to anyone. And, quite possibly, as the public mind becomes saturated with the meaning of these words, a renascence of respect for life and a cultural condemnation of murder will begin.

Institutionally Remember Victims and Their Loved Ones Almost everyone reading this book knows who Jeffrey Dahmer is, and what he did. But can you name a single victim of Jeffrey Dahmer? Similarly, most of us know who Mohammed Atta and Osama bin Laden are, but can we cite the names of any victims of the September l l t h , 2001 attacks? In our culture of murder, innocent victims are quickly forgotten. If we are to resist the culture of murder, this social habit must

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be reversed, and we must remember the victims of murder and the ongoing suffering of their families. We are plagued by violent crime today in part because of our failure to focus on the victims of violent crime. Since the coronation of sociology and social-work as the royal couple of social criticism, we have progressively focused our attention on understanding the criminal, not on remembering and collectively mourning the victim. Our public energies are usually spent on figuring out why murderers do it, not who they have done it to. Thus the personhood of the victim is eclipsed and subjugated by talk of “ r o o t - ~ a u s e sand ~ ~ innumerable calls for more “programs” of every kind. In the wake of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, anguished media personnel asked “Why do they [the terrorists] hate us?,” as though there could be a reasonable or morally serious explanation for murdering 6,000 civilians going about their daily business. In the legal process, too, the unceasing focus is on killers, not the killed. In every homicide case, scrupulous care is certain to be devoted to the rights of the defendant, but the voice of the victim is not going to be heard, because he’s dead. And the victim’s family will be restrained and censored at every turn of an alleged assailant’s trial. Victim’s families may not be allowed to attend the trial, their testimony may be disallowed as too emotional, and they may not be allowed to speak until after the trial, if then. Our criminal justice system is structured in a manner to ensure civil protections and due process for defendants, even after they’re convicted, often at the emotional and psychological expense of victims’ families. This systemic tilt, even if conceded as necessary, undeniably contributes to the obscuring of homicide victims. A particularly galling example of this now common doting on criminals is the case of a murderer who invaded a grandmother’s home and took her life. Amerae Brown is currently serving time-31 yearsin a California prison for the crime. While incarcerated, he’s received nearly $100,000 from recordings he’s made in prison as rapper “X-raided.” William Harris, the widower of the murder victim Patricia Harris, said, “I don’t like it. Some people, they’ll buy anything gruesome.” Inez Bogan, the victims’ sister, anguished “I don’t want him to make one penny from anything he does. He doesn’t deserve it.” Over the course of five years, Brown has made two CDs, “Vengeance Is Mine” and “The Unforgiving” [221. His recordings have sold briskly because of his notoriety as a murderer, and he has successfully asserted his array of civil rights and First Amendment rights against claims from Mr. Harris and Ms. Bogan that he is profiting from the murder of their loved one. One wonders if any of Brown’s admiring fans

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even know who Patricia Harris was, how she died, or how her family has agonized. Partially, we do not remember murder victims as we should because we are so over-loaded with the sheer frequency of random and senseless murders. They are space in a newspaper one day, our troubled fleeting thoughts that night, and forgotten the next morning. We forget because it is too painful and troubling to remember. Too painful, because we imagine the agony of suffering through losing a loved one like that, too troubling, because it is so disconcerting and angstprovoking to know that in our urban universe there is no reason why such a thing cannot happen to us or ours. Any thoughtful person, reflecting on this country and its violent days, would conclude that something has gone very wrong in the way we think about murder. The brutality of daily life has become, almost literally, too much to understand. The monotonous reports of cold-blooded murders, distinguishable only for their venue-here an ATM, there a car jacking or a drive-by-have inured us to their reality, our minds numbed by their absurdity. Our shock and disgust passes quicker each time, becoming more like an inconvenient hurdle to get over in the course of the day, like a traffic-jam or a diet-Coke when you ordered regular. It’s become too much work to carefully contemplate the horror and the agony of each act and the network of lives changed forever by it. Instead the thoughts race by, stream of consciousness style, almost more out of a dimly remembered obligation and morbid curiosity than humane concern: did the victim know they were about to die, did they pray, was this the first person the killer killed, how long will the family intensely grieve, and how will they deal with their anger and the daily memories of their loss, not to mention the haunting and maddening knowledge that their loved one died an unjust death, in terrible fear and panic. It’s much easier to simply sneer the event off, curse, and change the channel. But this is a dangerous habit. When a society is under attack-and that’s just what out-of-control homicide is, an attack on civilization-it must respond with deliberateness, or in time it will be overwhelmed. Our failure to step back and acknowledge the profundity of the wasting of precious human lives that is daily fare, only ensures that the dehumanized and debased outlook on human life that has insinuated itself within our culture will continue. We need to begin the process of recovering an understanding of the priceless, irreplaceable nature of every human person. A simple yet effective way to do this is to institutionalize the memory of innocent people ripped ’ from this earth by cold murder.

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It is especially important that this systematic remembrance be taught to our young, both since murderers are often youth or young adults, and since the attitudes of the young will so decisively shape the future. How should we go about this? Because children learn to value what their culture holds before them as important, we should require in schools-the locus of socialization-the serious study of murder victims. I don’t mean just listening to the teacher read a newspaper clipping about the murder itself, as though it were just another true-crime drama, like the kind all over television. I mean actually study the whole life-and lost future-of the victim, as well as what the impact of the loss on the victim’s family has been. Students should come to know that each life was full and unique, and tightly connected to a set of other equally full and special lives. Murder victims will no longer be seen by children as objects-stories in the news-but as subjects, persons just like them, with feelings, fears, hopes, and a family who loved them deeply. By helping young people gain a sense of the personality of the victim and the enduring agony suffered by murder victims’ survivors, we humanize the victims, we return to them the individuality stolen by both the brevity of the news account and our numbness to the horror of it [23]. Our schools should regularly devote full school days or parts of school days to studying the life of a murder victim. It should be a part of the curricula. Let students learn where and when she was born, how old she was when she first walked, and what her first word was. Let’s see her first school picture, or a picture of her in the school play. How did she like to decorate her bedroom at home? What were her hobbies and what were her special talents? Did she like to play any sports? Who was her family, what did her parents do for a living? What kind of music did she like, who was her favorite singer? As schoolchildren learn these details, the personhood of the murder victim will be resurrected, and students will come to see something of the permanence of murder, its epic unfairness, and how we have cheapened human life. As well, they will gain a faint taste of the bitter agony and intense turmoil of soul endured for years and years by those whose child-or parent or spouse-has been murdered. And, quite possibly, with this new understanding, these students will begin to rebel against the depictions of murder for entertainment in film and television. The remembrance of victims need not be morose, or devolve into death-obsession. Indeed, the triumph over grief enjoyed by some

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victims’ survivors could be inspirational. “Victim remembrance studies,” as they might be called, pursued sensitively and carefully, can genuinely enrich students’ appreciation of life, and give them a sense of gratitude for all the good things in their lives. In addition to classroom studies, there are other steps we as a society can take to institutionalize the memory of innocent lives stolen. These might include, for example, public service ads on radio, television, in magazines and newspapers, presenting very brief biographies of murder victims who would otherwise remain anonymous to the public forever. Similarly, we could erect roadside signs, simply declaring the memory of a murder victim, or we could institute a regular moment of silence before the national anthem at sporting events, or instead, a reading of a small biography of a murder victim. Imagine if before the next Laker game, the public address announcer read a two minute biography of Davey Fortson, a Santa Monica College basketball player senselessly murdered several years ago. The impact this memoriam might have on the minds of those present could, in some way, contribute to our re-civilization. Certainly without it, Davey’s tragic death-to the public-will be just another anonymous component of a recent year’s murder statistics. His priceless life and glorious future will slip through our consciousness just as so many before him have. Who of us today contemplates, let alone remembers, the unspeakably precious stolen lives of Laura Bradbury, Robin Brandley, Virginia Hernandez, Amy Ho, Lynette Murray, Corinne Novis, Wendy Osbourne, Paul Youhanian, Linda Park, Sylvina Pellosi, Nicole Parker, Alfred Clark, Daniel Claes, Cathy Torres, Lenora Wong, Angela Southall, Lisa Frost, or the Ryen family? For the sake of our own social welfare, and for the dignity of the victims, we need to purposely and systematically remember murdered people. We need to hear the names of murder victims until they permeate our public consciousness. Their names and the humanizing facts of their lives ought to become our sad and desperate mantra, our cry for-and commitment to-a humane future. Mark Twain once wrote that experiencing the death of a loved one is like having your house burn down: it takes years to fully understand all you have lost. The longer we delay establishing explicitly social customs of valuing individual lives and acknowledging our corporate lessening when they are lost, the more coarse and indifferent we as a culture will become to murder, and the further we will be from appreciating the futures that rightfully belonged to the victims, their families, and their communities. ’

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ENDNOTES 1. Eric Schlosser, A Grief Like No Other, The Atlantic Monthly, September 1997. 2. Many commentators and researchers considering violence in America point to guns as a primary cause of violence and mayhem, and urge stricter gun-control laws as a solution. While I support calls for modest waiting periods for gun purchases, laws requiring careful gun sales and ownership, and an outright ban on civilian ownership of military weapons such as AK-47s, I do not see guns themselves, being inanimate objects, as sources of crime. Moral and cultural factors drive gun-related crime, not our current gun-control laws, which are already substantial. Since the vast majority of gun-related crimes are committed by people who do not obtain their firearms through legal means, the law is limited in the relief it can offer us from violence. For an example of the general argument that gun-control laws do not represent the best hope of combating crime and violence, see John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998. 3. Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco, pp. 150-151, 1998. 4. Notable in this regard is feminist writer Naomi Wolf. See her article, “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” in The New Republic, October 16, 1995 and the symposium with Wolf and others in the Human Life Review, Winter 1996. For a concise argument against current abortion practice, and for explanation of how it facilitates a degraded view of human life, see my op-ed in The Los Angeles Times of January 22, 2001, “A ‘Choice’ That Defines Our Inhumanity,” p. B11. See also Brad Stetson, Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism, Praeger Publishers, Westport, Connecticut, pp. 130-146, 1998. 5. Chuck Colson, Merchants of Cool, Christianity Today, June 11,2001, p. 112. Case in point: Columbine High School mass murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klybold are the subject of several adoring Web sites constructed by other teens. See Dan Elliot, “Columbine Killers Icons to Some,” Associated Press wire story,April 16,2001. 6. The Media Picture in Numbers, The Los Angeles Times, October 4, 2000, p. A28. 7. Cultural Warriors? The Wall Street Journal, June 20,2001, p. A20. 8. Slasher Movies the Family Can Enjoy, U.S. News & World Report, October 9,2000, p. 50. 9. Jeff Collins, Violence in Lyrics Fails to Acknowledge Real-Life Consequences, The Orange County Register, September 23,2000, p. Local News 1. LO. Surgeon General. Links TV,Real Violence, The Los Angeles Times, January 17, 2001, p. Al. Affirming this finding, a recent Stanford University study showed that by actively discouraging the viewing of television and videogame violence, hostile aggression in grade-school children can be reduced. See Lyndsey Tanner, Study: Cutting TV Reduces Aggression, Washington Post, January 14,2001.

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11. David Grossman, Trained to Kill, Christianity Today, August 10, 1998. 12. Michelle Malkin, A Blood-Soaked Nobel Laureate? The Orange County Register, November 24,2000, p. News 13. 13. Book Promotion Offers Serial Killer Art, June 8, 1999, www.apbnews.com. Similarly, Charles Manson’s songs are soon to be deliberately highlighted as the soundtrack to a 50-million-dollarmovie about his homicidal exploits. See John Harlow, Manson’s Songs of Hate to be Film Soundtrack, The Sunday Times, July 22, 2001. 14. For insightful discussion of the television news industry today, and the problem of “periodicity,”see C. John Sommerville, How the News Makes Us Dumb, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 1999. 15. David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, Basic Books, New York, 1995. 16. Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, HarperCollins, New York, 1996. 17. See, “Decline in Crime Ending,” FBI Says, The Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2001, p. A l , and “Declines in Crime Are Getting Smaller,” The Orange County Register, October 23, 2001, p. Local 1. See also “Homicide Rates Across the Country,” The Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2000, p. A34 18. William J. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators: American Society at the End of the Twentieth Century, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1999. 19. “Deadly Numbers: Cops Fear New Surge,” U.S. News and World Report, February 26,2001, p. 29. 20. William J. Bennett, John J. DiIulio, Jr., and John P. Walters, Body Count: Moral Poverty. . .and How to Win America’s War against Crime and Drugs, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996. 21. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, this constant sense of apprehension is all too realistic. Indeed, based on studies of survivors of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, researchers predict that within a year nearly half the people who were in the immediate vicinity of the World Trade Center during the attacks will experience a psychiatric disorder, and at least a third will have some level of post-traumatic stress disorder. And of course, whenever there is another terrorist attack or horrific event, the survivors of September l l t h will again feel the pain, panic, and awfulness of that day, just as most homicide survivors re-live the loss of their loved one when they learn of another murder, or see one depicted in film or television. For helpful discussion on these points, see Amanda Ripley, “Grief Lessons,” Time, October 29, 2001, p. 96. 22. Killer Enjoying Killer CD Career, www.Newsmax.com, November 23, 2000. 23. Some weeks after the atrocities of September llth, 2001, The New York Times began running “portraits of grief” focusing on the lives and loved ones of people murdered that day. This is a good example of what should

INTRODUCTION / 21

have been-and should become-a regular practice: publicly considering the staggering magnitude of personal loss which each homicide is. For an example of these remembrances, see “A Lighthouse’s Biggest Fan, and Small-Town Tastes for City Niceties,” The New York Times, October 17, 2001, p. B11. For powerful moral reflection on the depth of evil that murder constitutes, see Danial Henninger, “Now We See Why Killing a Person Forfeits One’s Life,” The Wall Street Journal, November 2,2001, p. A14.

PART I

Voices of Parents of Murdered Children

http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/LVSC1

CHAPTER 1

Juanita Lopez It was June 30,1997, when 18-year-old B. J. Lopez was murdered by a stranger as he stood in the front yard of his Stanton, California, home. I met his mother, Juanita, some three years later at a meeting of the Orange County, California chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. A few weeks after that, on an unusually gray and overcast morning in late July 2000, I met Juanita again at Good Shepherd Cemetery in Huntington Beach, California, where her son is buried. A small, quiet woman with long dark hair and a gentle, round face, she talked in a hushed, almost reverential voice about her precious son. As we sat down together on a cold stone bench next to the grave, I began by reading aloud the inscription on B. J.’s tablet: Our special boy, God put His arms around you, and whispered, “Come with me.” With tearful eyes we watched you leave, and saw you fade away. Although we loved you dearly, we could not make you stay. A golden heart stopped beating, hard working mind and hands at rest. God broke our hearts to teach to us, He only takes the best. We will love and miss you forever, ’ti1we meet again.

Brad: Well, those are beautiful words, Juanita. When we spoke on the phone the other day you told me that you and your husband would never be able to die in peace now that your son B. J. has been murdered. That really says a lot about how traumatic for parents this kind of a loss is. What happened to B. J.? Juanita: Someone came to our home and helped themselves to his life, his beautiful life, his future. In minutes it was all gone. He was shot and he died in my arms. Brad: How awful. Was the assailant caught? Juanita: No, he’s still out there, the investigation is still active. 25

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Brad: Was it a robbery, do you know what happened?

Juanita: We have no idea what happened. He was walking some visitors to our home out to their car, parked right in front of our house. He was standing there talking to his cousin and a friend after the visitors had left, and then all of a sudden someone ran up to them and shot at them. Brad It was a random killing. Juanita: It was. Still, three years later now, I know he didn’t do anything to warrant this, for anybody to be so angry with him as to want to take his life, or to hate him so much to murder him. This showed such a carelessness for life, such a disrespect for life. [a dog, frolicking in the cemetery, passes by us]

Brad: I see someone has brought their dog to the cemetery. Unbelievable. You wonder what that person is thinking, bringing their dog to a cemetery, let alone allowing it to run freely among the grave markers and tablets. But this is interesting. I think it underlines the fact that the huge majority of people just don’t understand, they simply do not have a sense of what intense grief is like, what it is to suffer something like the loss of a child. Do you think this comes from an unusual insensitivity, or is it more along the lines of something like this: I don’t speak Russian, because I’ve never lived in Russia and I don’t have any experience with Russian culture. In the same way, most other people don’t understand the language of grief, because they’ve never entered into this kind of suffering before? Juanita: That’s what it is. Until you lose a child, you can’t even imagine, you can’t even grasp what it does to you. I’ve had my son’s death compared to the loss of other family members, and, although I’ve experienced the loss of family members like my grandparents, uncle and nephew, the grief just doesn’t begin to compare. After we lost B. J., it felt like something came inside of me, and just ripped my heart out of my body. It amazes me that I’m still standing. Brad You told me before you felt like this was the ultimate act of theft. Juanita: It is. If B. J. would have had cancer, we could have tried all kinds of things to save his life, different treatments, therapies, all kinds of things that would have given us at least a glimmer of hope. But to lose him to murder, being shot right in the heart, left us no chance. I was told by the detective that the doctor who worked on B. J. the night he was shot said that even if he had been shot at the emergency room door, there

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was nothing he could have done to save my boy. It just hurts me so much to think about that! All this technology we have today, all the things we can do, and still there was no way to save my boy. I just don’t understand, I just, I just don’t understand anything.

Brad It’s shocking, what a shocking experience. Juanita: I don’t even remember much of the funeral. I remember bits and pieces, people’s faces, but it seemed like an out-of-bodyexperience to me, like I wasn’t really there. The day after the funeral I returned to the cemetery, and I remember wandering around looking for B. J.’s grave, I couldn’t find it. I felt so disoriented. I went for months and months with that feeling of being dazed and disoriented. I couldn’t drive a car for 5 months. I couldn’t stop shaking, I couldn’t make myself say out loud, “he’s gone.” In the days after he was killed, I would dial his pager number, expecting him to call me back like he always did. I couldn’t believe that he was not coming back. How can you see your child laughing and smiling one second, and then being told the next second that he’s not ever coming home again? It doesn’t make any sense, none at all. Brad Losing him brought your life to a halt. Juanita: The second he died. Brad Were you working at the time? Juanita: I take care of my daughter, I have an adult handicapped daughter who I care for. But it’s been three years now since B. J. was murdered, and the truth is we still can’t really function. Everything is different. Our lives, the way they were then, ended, everything stopped being the way we wanted it to be, the way we had planned and expected it to be. Brad: What has the grieving process been like for your husband? Juanita: He’s still at day one. He still has troubIe accepting that B. J. is gone. He won’t participate in anything, to try and go forward. He sees me try, he sees me take two steps forward but then go back 10, and I think it discourages him. He has no desire to participate in any activities. Brad What does he do for a living? Juanita: He’s a bus driver. Brad What does he do after work?

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Juanita: He comes here. He comes here in the morning on his breaks, he comes here in the afternoons sometimes, after work. We see more of each other here than we do at home, now. Brad: Have you been coming here every day for three years? Juanita: We both have, with the exception of two days, when my daughter was very sick. One day I came, but my husband drove me home when he met me here. I’d gotten wet, because it was raining, and he took me home. That was the first winter. But I felt that I had to be here, I had to be here. I couldn’t stand the thought that B. J. was getting wet. I couldn’t deal with him being here in the cold and the rain. He was always very thin, and getting cold, and I couldn’t stand that he was cold. I couldn’t reason, I couldn’t reason that he didn’t feel anymore. Brad As his mother you felt you had to come out here and take care of him. Juanita: I felt like I should be protecting him from the rain, keeping him from getting wet. Brad: Well, have you made any progress in grief in these three years, has anything changed, or is it just as it was in the days immediately after you lost your son? Juanita: I’ve made a little bit of progress, I think. The main improvement is that I’m able to take care of my daughter again, I’m able to c&e for her by myself again. And I’m able to take care of myself, now. At first, I couldn’t, I’d sit and stare, I’d forget to eat. My parents and my aunt were really taking care of me then. I know that I wouldn’t be here now if they had not taken care of me. If I would have had to be at home without my son,taking care of the household, myself, my daughter all by myself, I never would have been able to do it. Brad Who else has been a help to you? Juanita: The rest of my family, my brothers. They’ve been trying to teach me how to live without B. J., to take care of my daughter. They keep telling me that my work is not done, that I’m not finished. They tell me that something good will come of this. They want that to be the case, but I’m still searching. Every day I sit here, for three years, watching seasons come and go, and I ask God “What good have you done by taking my son? What good is this? I see no good.” Brad So you’ve not experienced any comfort or hope from God?

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Juanita: It doesn’t seem like it. B. J.’s sister is getting worse, still after three years. She has no will to live, to this day she still cries herself to sleep every night. It’s all confusing to us. Brad What has your experience been like with the police? Juanita: At first I was angry, bitter, feeling like not enough is being done, or like nothing at all is being done. But you have to realize what the police are dealing with. They have to try to work with people who have rw respect for life at all, and others who just don’t want to get involved. Even if they know something about your case, they don’t want to come forward and say anything. So, I can’t fault them for the fact my case isn’t solved, but at the same time, you want everything to be happening in your case, for all the loose ends to be coming together. How can it be that my beautiful child is gone, and no one is responsible? Someone has to be held accountable! Someone took his beautiful life, stole it, just stole it, and they had no right to do that! The first detective we had was very compassionate. He attended city council meetings with us, to try to get the city to post a reward for information that would help catch the murderer. The next detective to work on the case has also been very helpful, still working on leads, trying to develop new ones. He’s helped me publicize the case, to try to generate information. Brad You’ve done a lot of work on your own, haven’t you, Juanita, to try to publicize this case and gather information? Juanita: We’ve had fund-raises to try to raise reward money, we’ve put up fliers asking for information all over town, we’ve advertised on tip lines, had articles about the murder published in the newspapers around here, all kinds of other things. There has to be someone out there who knows who murdered my son. They can’t be quiet forever, they will say something to someone at sometime. People have information. Brad Why do you think people in the community are tightlipped? Juanita: It’s the fear of retaliation. The people who killed my son are heartless. These are heartless gangmembers. People in my neighborhood want to play them off as just having made an error that night, a mistake by shooting the wrong person, but these are not compassionate kids. They’ve continued to harass me after B. J.’s murder, they’re proud of their actions. Some people around here,seem to think they are really sorry, but we don’t see that at all, the family doesn’t see that.

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Brad How have these gangmembers, the general crowd responsible for the murder, harassed you? Juanita: Every time they see me, they find it very humorous. They ask me where he is buried, they ask me where he is right now. They know, but they think it’s funny. This is how they express pride in what they did, by instilling more pain in us. Brad: How old are they? Juanita: Old enough to know better, and to feel badly that a life wds lost. Most of them are as young as 16, on into their early 20s. Brad Where are their parents? Juanita: Well, these are people who do what those around them do. There is an attitude that says, “I have to live what I know, what else is there?” Brad That’s the attitude? Juanita: That’s what I’ve seen. I’ve lived in this community for 20 years, and that’s what I’ve seen. That’s why we tried so, so hard to keep B. J. in sports, to keep him in school, to keep him close to our family. B. J. was very oriented toward his religion, toward the family, he just loved his family, couldn’t get enough of us. He loved being with us, he loved being with his sister. We got him a car the latter part of his junior year of high school, but he would never drive it to school, so he could have me and his sister drive him there, and pick him up in the afternoon. He wanted me to take him to school. Brad Did he like school? Juanita: He loved it, he loved playing sports, especially baseball. He played baseball his whole life. Brad: What position did he play? Juanita: He pitched, and played second base and shortstop. Brad: What kinds of other things did he do? Juanita: He was a tutor, he tutored kids at school, and he always seemed to be talking to kids about their problems, and stuff. Counseling, I would call it. “You should charge them,” I would joke, “you’re always counseling.” On the phone late, or over at our house, he was always talking. He w& a just a very involved kid. He had a great senior year of high school, things went really well for him. He was involved in student

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government and other things that year, 1997. He was nominated “most friendly” by his senior class, and crowned prince at his Senior Prom.

Brad What were his plans for the future? Juanita: Go to the University of Notre Dame. That had been his goal for years. But just before the end of senior year, he was having second thoughts about going there-right away. He wanted to help some of his friends who were still struggling here, he saw so many of them wasting their potential, and it bothered him, it truly did. Brad So you think he was headed for a career in law enforcement? Juanita: We think so. His father and I really strongly feel that he was. Brad What was the reaction of his friends to his murder? Juanita: Shock, disbelief. “Why him?” they said, anybody else but him we could have understood, but not him. A little boy gave me a call the day B. J. was murdered, he was devastated. All the kids who knew B. J. started calling each other, and they all went over to my mom’s house. It was so crowded with kids. I went over there and kept asking them “Where’s B. J.? Why didn’t you bring him with you?” They were there, and he wasn’t, but he was always with them. I think I put those kids through so much more grief because I couldn’t deal with him being gone. Brad Earlier you mentioned the heartlessness of the people responsible for what happened, do you think that these kids are excused by society for the way they are, are we failing to hold them accountable for their behavior? Juanita: I really feel that we are. I don’t want to say that people don’t care, but unless it is coming into their family, unless it is taking one of their children, they really don’t grasp what is happening out there, what’s going on in our cities, and they’d just really rather look the other way. This is really like condoning it, in my opinion. This hurts me so much. I even have trouble with my neighbors, now. They have children on both sides of me, and, I know that they can’t grieve for my child like I do, and feel his loss forever like I will, but I do wish they would get more involved in their community, and try to make it a safer, better place for everyone, including their own children. I mean, no one can hurt my son anymore, he’s gone. But these killers, if they would kill my son for absolutely no reason, they’ll do it to someone else’s child too. I wish more people realized that.

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Brad: It is a strange understanding of manhood and masculinity, isn’t it, that sees violence and murder as macho, and as the way of showing one’s manhood. Where are the fathers in this community, are they active, are a lot of kids growing up without fathers here? Juanita: Well, many of these boys do have their fathers, but the problem is their fathers are into the same thing. The boys see their fathers doing it, gang activity, so they follow in their footsteps. And the fathers are proud of their legacy. A lot of the fathers are in jail, or divorced from the mothers. Brad: So often the fathers aren’t present, and when they are, there is the perverse pride in their kids’ gang activity. Juanita: B. J. once came home and told me that a friend of his who had just turned 18 said that for his birthday his father took him to a strip bar for a lap dance. B. J. thought it was a weird thing to do, and I told him it was, but that’s the mentality. This is the kind of thing some of these fathers are teaching their kids. Brad: It seems like a general culture of disrespect, a general disrespect for persons, for individual life. What about the future, Juanita. It’s been 3 years and 3 weeks, almost exactly, since you lost B. J. What do you see happening for you and your husband and your daughter? Juanita: I want to get stronger so I can do as much as I can. Right now, I feel inadequate, like I’m not doing enough, like I’m not doing enough with my life, and I’m not doing enough to help catch the killer. I have a lot of regrets. I’m his mother, and I should have been able to take care of him in his own home! The night he was killed, I saw him walk out the door to the front yard, and I remember I always used to tell him “I don’t like you hanging out in the front yard.” But that night, I stopped myself from saying it, because he was 18, and how could I stop him from being a man, from doing the things that other 18-year-olds do. It cost him his life, and I didn’t stop him from going out front! Brad: Of course you’re not responsible in any way, but you wish so much this hadn’t happened, you’re sorry you didn’t tell him that night not to go out to the front yard. But how were you to know, after all, it was just your own front yard. Thank you for talking with me.

http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/LVSC2

CHAPTER 2

Jack and Yolanda Morales It was a cold, windy Sunday afternoon in mid-November when I met Jack and Yolanda Morales at the cemetery where their son Steven is buried. I had read about his murder in the Los Angeles Times, and I knew that his 12 years on earth had touched many lives. His donated heart, liver, two kidneys, and pancreas had directly saved three terminally ill adults. Yolanda was in her late 30s,with a soft, sweet voice and a short covering of brown hair on her head, recently re-grown after her latest round of chemotherapy. Jack was tall and athletic, strongly built, and full of anxious energy. As we sat on a grassy hillside beside Steven’s grave-their youngest son Danny alternating between leaning against his father and lying in the back of their nearby van-they spoke to me animatedly about the devastation Steven’s murder had brought to their lives, and of their undiminished love for him. Brad That’s a beautiful picture of Steven on his tablet, here, wearing his Little League Baseball uniform. Yolanda: He loved playing baseball, but he wasn’t real serious about it. He loved having fun with it. Jack Steven played because his brothers played, he played because his friends played. He was like Bob Uecker. He could play, but he liked to joke around with it. During warm ups sometimes, he would go out in the outfield and drop a ball the coach hit to him on purpose, just to get the coach upset. Brad He was a playful kid. Yolanda: Yes, he was a joker, he loved to laugh. He had the most serious, intense coach in the whole baseball league, and it would be funny to hear him yell “Stee-ven!” whenever Steven would play around. 33

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One of our older sons, Rudy, had been on the same coach’s team, and Rudy has always been a very serious ballplayer, and this coach, I think, had expected Steven to be that way too, but he wasn’t.

Jack: But Steven was a good player. He was the kind of player though, if he had the game winning hit, which he once did, it would be an infield single he beat out, not some big line drive, or something. Brad Was Steven the youngest? Yolanda: No, the middle child. He had an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. Jack But now there’s a big gap, 5 years, between Rudy and Danny, our youngest boy. They don’t have that much in common. I think Rudy misses Steven being here, because they were only about 2 years apart, and shared so much. Losing Steven has affected Rudy a lot. Yolanda: Rudy is 16 now, and Steven would’ve been 14.

Jack I think Rudy would’ve made Steven grow up a little bit more, then again Steven might’ve made Rudy grow up a little more, too. It’s been so hard on the rest of our kids. Yolanda and I have had our own problems after losing Steven, and I wish we would have been able to focus more on the kids, and helping them through this. Brad I understand. That’s a cute picture you’re holding, Yolanda, of Steven in a Superman suit. Jack Look at that over there Yolanda! [Jack points at a boy-approximately the same age as Steven in the photo-sitting nearby with his family. The boy is dressed in an identical Superman suit.] Yolanda: Oh, Superman. What a coincidence. Things happen like that. I think Steven was a little taller in the photo here, than that boy is. Steven would have been pretty tall, we think. He was so big when he died, that when we donated his organs, they all went to adults. This photo book here, with all these pictures in it, I made it when he was in preschool. It was a mandatory class project. But I’m glad I did it. Brad: You mentioned your donations of Steven’s organs, Yolanda. How did that come about? Yolanda: Well, the idea was in my head because of what happened on Friday, August 28th, the day before Steven was shot. I was at home, getting ready for work. Usually, when doing that, I watch the morning news show on channel 5 here in L. A. But for some reason, that morning, I was watching channel 4. There was a story on the news about a family

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who had an adult daughter who was about to die from liver failure, and they were desperately hoping for a liver for her. The story really captured my attention, and I was moved by it. But, you know, the day went on, and I forgot about it. The next day, Steven was shot.

Brad Until the next day. Yolanda: Right. Steven was shot the next day, right on our street, a few houses down. A gang member had pulled into our street, a cul-de-sac, and fired two shots at some other gang members he apparently saw nearby. There were 10 kids, including Steven, playing in a front yard. After the first shot all the kids scattered, but Steven stayed to help some of the smaller, younger kids to run away. He looked up, and was struck in the head by the second bullet. Brad: Was there any chance for paramedics to work on him, or to get him to the hospital? Jack We were there with him very soon after it happened. He was breathing, I could tell. He wasn’t really conscious, but, you know, it was chaos. I was yelling “Where are the paramedics! Where are the paramedics!” All I can really clearly remember is us hugging him. I had been hunting before. I know what guns do. When I first saw the wound, I knew it wasn’t good. Yolanda: The paramedics did give Steven some medical treatment at the scene of the shooting, because he was breathing. But we really feel those were his last breaths. The one thing though, that will always, always stick in my head, is that after he was shot, as he lay there dying-and we were cradling him-a tear rolled down his cheek. Brad That’s very poignant. I remember you told me when we spoke on the phone earlier, Yolanda, is that one of the things you tell inmates when you speak at a jail or juvenile detention center is that they-the inmates-don’t see what their recklessness leaves behind. They don’t see the last breath, they don’t see a child’s last teardrop. Yolanda: So, anyway, when we got to the hospital, they told us they couldn’t detect any brain activity in Steven. But I didn’t want to accept that, so the doctor said he’d run another test. Finally though, after that test and some more waiting, to see if he would recover, they told me he was gone. And I realized then, that after we bury him, he’s gone, and it’ll be like he didn’t exist. I was afraid of that. Brad: So the organ donation was, in your mind, a way for Steven to live on.

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Yolanda: I remember being alone in the room with Steven, and thinking, “No, you can’t just wipe him off the face of the earth. A stranger just can’t come along, pull a trigger, and wipe my 12-year-old son off the face of this earth.” So I thought, if I donate Steven’s heart, he’ll still be here, and that guy, the killer, didn’t win. That was the first idea that came into my head. My only concern was convincing Jack. But when I mentioned it to him, he agreed. Jack I told Yolanda, “Yes, let’s do it now, let’s do it now.” But I only wanted vital organs donated, not skin grafts, or eyes, or anything like that. Yolanda: The lady from the hospital who helped us with the organ donation was very nice, very helpful. We said only life-saving organs should be donated, and I asked her to call me at home, no matter what time, to tell me when the donation was completed. So she called about 5 A.M. on Sunday morning, and told us it was done. She thanked us, and said that through Steven a lot of miracles were made. She told me, and she didn’t have to do this, but she told me that she held his hand throughout the whole procedure. She said she treated him as if he were her own son, that she talked to him the whole time, telling him everything was going to be O.K. And, that really touched me. It touched me that she treated him with so much dignity and respect. Brad It’s wonderful to have that kind of compassion from people you have to suddenly come in contact with. Jack After that we had to deal with the mortuary, and they were really nice too. The man there said he’d call me after he picked up Steven. And sure enough, after he went to the hospital, got Steven, and got back to the mortuary, he called me and said, “I have Steven here now. He’ll spend the night with us.” And I remember feeling hurt, because it sounded like he was alive.

Brad: Was the memorial service helpful in any way for you? Yolanda: It helped me to see so many people there. The church was absolutely packed. I knew Steven had a lot of friends, but it was standing room only. Even the paramedics and others who had worked on him were there. They stood outside the church, and had a moment of silence for Steven. We received stacks of letters from strangers, people who had heard Steven’s story on the news. We got letters from people who thanked us for donating Steven’s organs. He just really made an impact, and it helped to know that. Brad So all expressions of sympathy were helpful to you.

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Yolanda: Yes, and outrage too. We knew we weren’t alone in what we were going through. Jack People we knew would come up to us and express their sorrow, people we had known in town. People would stay at our house until we fell asleep, just to make sure we got some sleep. They were great. Yolanda: One little girl from Steven’s class came by the house, just to give her condolences. She asked if she could go into Steven’s room just to see it. I thought that was kind of cute. A lot of teachers, from his preschool to elementary school to middle school came by to be with us. My oldest son was in his first year of high school when Steven was killed, and he was in ROTC. A ROTC group came to Steven’s funeral and draped his coffin in a flag, because he died a hero. He died in a street-war. The night of the viewing of Steven’s body, my mom’s friends came, and they said they had to wait in line 2% hours just to view the body. Jack During Steven’s funeral, all the kids from his Little League team wore their jerseys, and it was so nice to see all the kids there like that. It hurts to think about all the support and concern people showed us when we lost Steven, but it’s also nice. It’s a nice feeling to know people cared. Brad: Was the assailant apprehended in Steven’s case? Yolanda: No, he’s still on the run. The police believe he’s in Mexico, in an area that’s hard to get to. They think they know what state in Mexico he is in, and which ranch he is living on. It’s in the Sierra mountains there, in a town called La Yesca, in the Mexican state of Nayarit. Yesca is another word for Marijuana. So, I think, they’re cultivating Marijuana on this ranch, and if they’re cultivating it, they’re being protected by the Mexican mob. All the people at the Mexican consulate we’ve talked to here all say ours is a difficult case, because of the drug cartel protecting this place. Jack The problem though, is that the Mexican government is so corrupt, that we are expecting little help from them. Our hope is that the killer will go somewhere where he can be caught. Yolanda: Or, that eventually he’ll feel he can move around freely, he’ll think he’s not being looked for anymore, and then go somewhere and be arrested. There is a warrant out in Mexico for his arrest already. It’s a waiting game. But, Jack says if he gets caught, so what, it won’t bring Steven back. But I feel like I need that closure anyway. It’s been so hard on our family. It strained our marriage, and really affected all our kids.

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Our youngest son, Danny, has said he wants to die and be with Steven. He even ran behind Jack’s truck, once, when Jack was backing it up.

Jack I really lost my will to live for a long time, after Steven’s death. I thought about killing myself a lot, just to be with Steven, even if it meant I went to Hell. It would be worth it just to know that Steven was all right. Yolanda means the world to me, the kids mean the world to me, but to know that Steven was O.K., it would be worth everything, even going to Hell. Yolanda: But that’s part of what Hell is, you wouldn’t know how Steven was, you wouldn’t know if he was O.K. or not. Brad Well, I know what incredible stress you’ve been under, how stressful this grieving experience is. Suicide is not a solution, it’s not a real solution to anything. You know that. Yolanda, you mentioned to me earlier that you thought the profound grief you experienced after losing Steven contributed to your recent cancer diagnosis. Yolanda: I truly believe that, I really do. I didn’t before. People would tell me before, “Oh, you’re going to make yourself sick,” and I ignored them. But my brother, who is a physician, told me that while my grief didn’t cause my cancer, because stress weakens the immune system, it contributed significantly to my developing it. You have cancer cells in you all the time, and your body fights them off. But when your immune system is weakened through great stress, they can take over. Brad: How long after losing Steven were you diagnosed? Yolanda: He passed away in August of ’98, and I was diagnosed in December of ’99. One time, when I spoke to the detectives working on Steven’s case, I told them about my condition. And I said to them, “If I die from this cancer, when you catch this guy who killed Steven, I want him charged with my death as well! He’s responsible for that too.” Jack We’ve heard a lot of stories about bad experiences with the police, but I can honestly say the police working on our case have been great. They’ve been wonderful. We can’t say enough good things about them. They really care about us, and they really care about Steven. Yolanda: It even seemed like they were affected by Steven’s case. They shared our outrage. Brad: How did that make you feel?

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Yolanda: It made me feel good because it meant we had their support, and they were going to work for us. It meant they cared. Jack Even after Steven was buried, much later, people still ask us questions about him, want to know what he was like. That really helps us, to know he has not just been forgotten, like yesterday’s news. Brad: You two always wanted to talk about Steven with others, didn’t you? Jack Of course, and still now, I want Steven to be remembered. But it’s hard for me to be around the people who remember Steven, like friends, because they’re all going on with their lives. They’re going on living their lives, and that’s painful for me. It hurts to see that, because my life has been changed forever. It’s painful, and that’s a big reason why I don’t see my old friends anymore. Yolanda: We sort of expected that everyone else’s life would stop in its tracks just like our’s has, but, we realize, that can’t be, that wouldn’t be right. Jack It feels to me that these other people, my old friends, just let Steven go. And I can’t be around them, because then I would feel like I let go of him too. Yolanda will talk about visiting old friends, but I just can’t do it. Yolanda: It’s like what you mentioned in your book, Brad, Tender Fingerprints. You said that after you buried your son you had to go back to normal, to your regular routines. But you knew that your new feeling of “normal” was never going to be the same feeling of “normal” that you had before. It would be a new “normal.” There would always be something different in how you felt. That’s exactly what we’ve gone through, and are going through. We’ve gone back to our normal life, but it’s a different normal life. Jack But part of the new way we are is that we’re closer. We’re closer as a family now, and we are closer to our family, our other relatives. Yolanda: Before we lost Steven, we lived separate lives, really. And Jack and I had even separated for a while, living apart from each other. But Steven’s death has actually brought us closer as a family, we’re closer in a lot of ways than we were before, and I think we don’t take things for granted. Jack Steven has brought us closer, yet it hurts. Like last night, I was thinking, “God, I wish Steven was here.” But if he was here, then

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maybe our lives wouldn’t have changed in that way. He brought us together, but it still hurts to think about it.

Brad: So Steven’s loss has actually enhanced some of your other relationships. Jack: Family-wise, yes. Yolanda: You think your kids are always going to be there, but now, knowing that they may not, we don’t take anything for granted. You know, in the past, I would think, if I make a mistake with my kids, I think I’ll just make it up to them when they’re older, but now, we don’t make those assumptions. All of our family relationships are a lot better. Jack I’m sorry to say it took Steven’s death to bring a lot of our family closer together. Brad: It’s been just a little over two years since you lost Steven, Yolanda, what message to others do you feel developing inside of you? Yolanda: I find myself not needing to speak so much to the people who are dealing with this kind of thing, but to those who are causing it. They need to be aware of what they are doing. The bullet that killed Steven did not stop with him. The bullet went through me and Jack, it went through our whole family, it went through the community, and it tore everybody apart. Our lives are upside down. And this is not a one-time only effect. It’s a life-time effect. I will neuer get over this, That bullet is still going through me, it’s still going through my kids. Things are never going to be the same for me. I had four kids, I chose to have four kids. To have a stranger come and take that away from me, without my permission, without asking me, he just did it on his own, he had no right to do that. He didn’t know Steven, he didn’t know me, he didn’t know about our lives, and our family. He had no right to take Steven from us, no right at all. It frustrates me, it angers me, more than I can say. Somehow, this killing has to stop. I don’t think it will, but I’m going to do everything on my end to see that it does. Brad What is your message when you go into the jails and talk to the inmates? Yolanda: You have to stop killing the human race. It’s senseless, there’s no reason for it, no reason. What are you fighting for anyway, I ask them, a color? A boundary that doesn’t even exist? It’s stupid. Brad: It’s a backward sense of manliness. It’s cowardly.

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Yolanda: Exactly. I tell them there’s nothing brave about holding a gun. I tell them if you can fight with your brain, if you can prove yourself, your manliness, with your brain, that’s what’s intimidating, not a gun. I tell them a chimpanzee can pull a trigger. That’s usually my challenge to them. Brad: And how do they react? Yolanda: Surprisingly, a lot of them are taken by it. They shoot and run, and never think about the consequences. To be faced with it, in me, affects some of them. I’ve had boys cry like babies. I always tell them to put their mothers in my place. If you choose this lifestyle, there’s a chance you’ll be killed, and your mother will be sitting aside your grave. Imagine your mother in that position. If you respect her, if you love her, stop living the way you are. And, I say, when you kill that other person, your so-called “enemy,” ask yourself what did his mother do to you, that you would put her through what she is going to suffer, losing her son. You are impacting her life for the rest of her time on earth. You have to think beyond the bullet, I say. Brad You see this work that you do, Yolanda, speaking in jails, as a part of Steven’s legacy, a part of what his life means. Yolanda: Yes. He died a hero, he made an impact, so I feel that whatever I’m doing, I’m doing it to continue Steven’s work. He had his mission. His mission was to save those kids from those gunshots, and to save those people’s lives, through his organs. My mission is to maybe save those boys in prison, to keep them from picking up a gun. And I still have three kids, I have to protect them. Who’s to say that they wouldn’t be shot by someone. If I can prevent someone from using a gun, then maybe I’m protecting my three kids as well. I find it helps me to go there and speak to them like that. Other groups, people who’ve lost family like we lost Steven, have helped, too. Jack: Being in the groups with other family of murder victims has been a help to me too. At first, you know, you just sit and listen, but it helps to know what’s coming in the grieving process. It helps to hear someone say to you, “Yeah, I’ve been there, too. I’ve felt the way you’re feeling now, but things will get better for you. Your feelings will eventually change for the better, somewhat.” I remember, for the longest time I couldn’t get that last image of Steven, lying on the ground with a bullet hole in his forehead, out of my mind. It was just there, and wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t see past it. People told me to think positive thoughts about Steven and his life, but I couldn’t do it. People would

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say “Look to the Lord for comfort” but I would say why did the Lord let this happen? In this kind of grief, you go against the Lord, you go against family, you go against everyone who’s trying to help you. I used to go to a priest and tell him what I was feeling, but I was even scaring him, because I just questioned everything. Now, I believe there really is no answer to the questions I’ve had. There is no answer to why Steven was murdered. I’ve realized you just have to settle in and say “All right, I don’t have the answers, and I never will.”

Yolanda: You can only trust the Lord.

Jack I just have to trust that everything will be O.K.,and in the end I’m going to see Steven. Losing Steven has changed my life for the better in that I say to myself, “I need to live my life in such a way that I will see Steven when I die. I want to live my life in a way that I’ll go to heaven when I die, and see Steven again.”

Yolanda: People would always tell me to look to the Lord, and they’d start preaching at me. I’d put my hand up and say, “Don’t talk to me about that right now, I’ve got issues with the Lord!” Oh no, they’d say, don’t turn your back on God. And I’d say, “Didn’t you hear what I just said. I have issues with God right now. That means I still believe He exists, but I’m angry with Him. I have a God to be angry with. I’ll come around when I come around. I haven’t stop believing, but don’t push it on me.” But I want to say that the support groups we’ve been to have been helpful for me, too. Even though sometimes people inadvertently say hurtful things. One woman, who must not have experienced a loss like ours, said to me, after hearing my son had been killed, “It’s O.K., you’re young, you can have another son.” My first reaction was to want to slap her in the face. But then I realized she was just naive, and didn’t really know what she was saying. I said to her that I could never, ever, replace Steven. I could have another boy that looked exactly like Steven, and he wouldn’t replace Steven. This is not a stolen purse we’re talking about here, this is my precious boy. This is my son. He can never be replaced. There are some people we’ve known, in groups we’ve been to, who have lost their only children. And when I think about that, I see how blessed Jack and I are, because we have three children. They are our reason for living. They make us realize how fortunate we really are. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we feel blessed because we have them. It helps us to be grateful for all the good things

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in our lives. But we’ll always miss Steven, and we’ll always love him. We’re so proud of the way he died, and we’re so proud of the way he lived.

Brad That’s well said. Thank you both.

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CHAPTER 3

Lupe Thexton

Lupe Thexton is a warm and attractive lady, with long, curly dark hair and a soft expressive voice, tinged with a Spanish accent. After a Parents of Murdered Children chapter meeting in July of 2000, she told me she was eager to speak to me about her grandson, Michael. The teenager had been murdered just nine months earlier, and the grief and pain was clearly written on Lupe’s face. I went to her home near Los Angeles a few days later, and in a darkened family room, decorated with dozens of pictures documenting Michael’s short but loving life, Lupe and I spoke. Near the end of the interview, Michael’s mother, Liz, joined us.

Brad: Thank you for letting me speak with you. Lupe. When I met you the other night, I could see the pain and grief in your eyes. Lupe: Well, I’m not surprised. My grandson, Michael, lived with me here in our home his whole life. His parents divorced when he was a baby, and I raised him, I raised him like my own son. He was the kind of boy who was very thoughtful. If I would come home with groceries he would rush out, and help me bring them in. He would mow the lawn, clean the pool, all kinds of things. Whatever you needed, if you asked him to help you, he would be right there for you. He was eager to help everybody, a stranger, family, whoever. I’m afraid of large dogs. Michael had a friend across the way here, who had a very big dog. And every time I would be leaving our house, if I spotted the dog, I’d want to go back inside the house. But Michael would call out to his friend, “Hold on to your dog! My grandma’s leaving, hold on to your dog!” He was so thoughtful like that. He was a sensitive kid. You know, he grew up without his father, and that had an impact on him. He was always asking about his father. My husband and adult son were 45

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good men in his life, and they did things together, but Michael always missed his father.

Brad: What would he say when he would ask about his father? Lupe: All kinds of things. I remember one particular time my ex-son-in-law-Michael’s father-unexpectedly stopped by the house, when Michael must have been about five years old. Michael was all happy, because his father was here for a couple of hours. This was around Christmastime. Anyway, before he left, the father said’he would come back tomorrow, at 5 P.M., with toys for Michael and Michael’s older sister, who also lived here with us. So the next day, way before 5 o’clock, Michael had gotten all dressed up, and was waiting for him. He would stand by the window and look out front, then go walk outside and stand in front of the house for awhile, then come back in and look out the window again, eagerly waiting. Time went on, and the father didn’t show up. After a few hours, Michael was devastated, and was in tears, crying. He came to me and said, “Grandma, I just want my father to come. I don’t care if he brings me toys or not, I just want him to come and see me.” Then this little boy went upstairs and cried some more. I could hear him.

Brad: Was that kind of experience typical? Was the interaction between Michael and his father sporadic and unpredictable? Lupe: Absolutely. Years would go by between visits, and then all of a sudden he would appear out of nowhere, and then take off again. I remember one time the father came over and said he wanted to stay for awhile, so I let him. I let him live here in my house for months so Michael and his sister could be around him. Then, one day, the father said he was going to move to Utah. He just up and moved to Utah one day, with very little explanation. He was very impulsive. Michael was maybe about 17 years old, or so, at this time. Anyway, later Michael said to me one day, out of the blue, “Grandma, I think I’m going to go to Utah. I want to go to Utah and work with my dad, at the company he works for.” He was thrilled to be moving to Utah. He was excited about the chance to make some money, and excited that he was going to get to be around his father. And we thought, “Utah, that’s great. A safe, conservative state, with safe, church-going people. He’ll be safe there, safer there than here in southern California.” So, even though it was painful for us to see him go, we thought it would be good for him to get to work and to be with his father, and live in that safer environment.

Brad: Did he live with his father there?

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Lupe: Yes.

Brad: What happened while Michael was living in Utah? Lupe: Well, what my daughter (Michael’s mother) and I did not know, was that the father chose to live in a very bad neighborhood. But Michael was happy there. He had met a young woman, a 16-year-old girl, and fallen in love with her. She had a brand new baby, by a previous boyfriend, and Michael just loved that little baby. He adored that baby, and was always taking care of the baby, holding her, feeding her, changing her diapers.

Brad I can see that from the pictures you showed me. Lupe: Michael was there with this girl in the hospital when she had this baby, and he was just crazy about this little child, I mean he adored her. Even if he had been working all day, he would go to the girlfriend’s home and be with this baby, and take care of her. He was devoted to this baby, and her mother. I remember, Michael came home here, from Utah, to celebrate his 18th birthday with us. He brought his girlfriend and the baby with him, and his own father came over, and we all went out to dinner to a nice restaurant, and we had a great time. Michael always had a great sense of humor, and we all had a really nice time. It was wonderful.

Brad He seemed comfortable, at ease. Lupe: He was happy! He was wonderful! After the dinner we came back home, here, and had birthday cake, played music, had a great time. Then, a few days later, I was waiting for my daughter in the parking lot of her apartment, when Michael, who had been there visiting her before his return to Utah, came running down the stairs, with the baby in his arms. “What is it?” I said, because he seemed to be coming toward me so urgently. “I just wanted to say good-bye,” he said. “Michael,” I said to him a little surprised, “We’re going to see each other again.” “I know,” he said back to me, “I just wanted to say good-bye before I left.” Then he hugged me and kissed me. He said he’d be fine, but I told him to be careful, to take care of himself, because now-a-days people just pull a gun and shoot.

Brad Were his assailants caught? Lupe: Absolutely not, absolutely not. The police think that the shooter, when he heard police were looking for him, went to Mexico. They think he’s in Mexico, but they don’t know. This happened in 1999, and we still have no answers. My daughter called me that morning, as I

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was trying to rest, just screaming and screaming into the telephone. I didn’t even know who was calling me, because all I heard was screaming, I said, “Who are you? Who are you?” Finally, when I realized it was my daughter and she told me Michael had been shot, I thought well, lots of people get shot and survive. I thought to myself, well, he’s in the hospital, he’s going to be O.K.So I went and picked up my daughter, and brought her back to my house, and my granddaughterMichael’s sister-came and met us here. When my granddaughter got here to my house, my daughter told us Michael had been shot and killed. My granddaughter collapsed to the ground, screaming, and I just could not believe it, I couldn’t accept it. “No, it’s not true, I said, over and over.” I thought it must be a mistake. But it was real, all too real. We were in shock, complete shock, for the first several days afterward. We had to have his body transported back to southern California from Utah. The memorial service here in town was very, very painful. A lot of Michael’s friends came, people we did not even know, and the church, which was very large, was packed. There were even people standing out in the front during the service. We actually had two memorial services for Michael. Besides the one here, we also had one in Utah. It was so strange in the weeks after we lost Michael. I would look at that picture on the wall behind you, when he was 15 years old, and I would think to myself that he is still here, that another boy died, not him. It was as though my mind wanted to split him in two: the Michael here, and the one in Utah. It’s like, I didn’t want to let the whole person go.

Brad How did you feel at the memorial service, when you saw all those people, many of them strangers, come to grieve for Michael?

Lupe: Well, I felt moved by their support, by their concern for Michael. I saw how many friends he really did have, and how he touched their lives. But I was so overcome with sorrow, with pain, that it’s like I was there, but not really there. I felt dazed, separated from what was going on around me. I still couldn’t accept that Michael was gone, I could not admit that was him up in that casket. I could not go up and look at him in the casket, and I remember I even turned to my other daughter and said, “That’s not him is it?” I wanted somebody to say there had been a mistake, I really wanted that very badly. Brad What was your life like for the first two or three months after you lost Michael?

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Lupe: It was all pure shock, shock. It was an un-reality. I was not even in the world anymore. Whatever I did do, my daily routine, I did it like a zombie. I was constantly crying, depressed, just completely distracted. The tears kept coming, I would even break down crying talking on the phone to a complete stranger. The feeling of sadness was just overwhelming. It would come, and there would be nothing I could do to stop it. I remember calling my bank for something, and, all of a sudden, just sobbing uncontrollably into the telephone. The woman on the other end said “Don’t worry, your account is O.K.,” but I couldn’t even stop long enough to tell her why I was crying. Even a common conversation, unrelated to Michael, would trigger my tears. I remember in December I went to the mall, and whenever I would see a young man Michael’s age, I would start to cry. They were just regular people, but seeing them was like a knife in my heart. Places I would see, songs that I would hear, young people playing, they all reminded me of Michael, and how he should still be here with us. I found myself always thinking of him, I mean always. Not for one minute would I stop. I could remember some of the things he said, the tone of his voice, his laugh, all his mannerisms. And these constant memories, this constant remembering, it still goes on for me. It’s only been nine months, after all. Losing a precious child like Michael is so hard. These children are irreplaceable. Where could we go to get Michael back? There is not enough money in this world to match the value of a child. I would give everything I own, in a second, to have Michael back. Brad Have you received cooperation from law enforcement in Utah, what’s your experience been like with them?

Lupe: Well, it hasn’t been good. There attitude has been, like, “O.K., it happened, we don’t have anything, we don’t know where the killer is, don’t bother us anymore. We have other cases to work on.” We’ve tried to do things on our own, we’ve tried to find out where this killer is now, but, you know, we don’t know how to go about it, we’re not detectives. We’ve done what we could. There has been a lot of apathy about this case in Utah, and that hurts us. There’s just a lot of “We don’t care” attitude there, and that hurts us deeply. Brad: I know it’s only been about nine months Lupe, but do you already have any thoughts about the violence all around us, about our society?

Lupe: I do. Before Michael was killed, I use to watch the news, and I’d see young men shot, lying in the street, and I’d say “Thank God

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it’s not my family, thank God my family is safe.” But now that Michael has been murdered, I know that no one’s family is safe. This could happen to anyone, this could happen to absolutely anyone.

Brad Yes, and it seems like people are not really awake to that fact. Lupe: Well, they think that as long as it doesn’t happen to my family, then it’s allright. But it’s not all right. You see, there’s so much violence all around us, especially in the movies and other media, that we’re desensitizing young people, and that is a threat to everyone. We are teaching our kids today that violence is an answer to their problems. If you have an argument, or if you don’t like someone, then just go out and get a gun, and let them have it. Solve your problems that way. We have programmed our youth, and we have programmed all of our society, to think that violence is an option, violence is a way to solve problems. It didn’t use to be that way. In my day, the images were different. But today, every movie, and much of television, has violence, coarse language, and nudity. These are the images we feed our children, these are the ideas that nurture their minds. Why should we be surprised that they are so violent today? When you throw in the availability of drugs and guns, it only makes it worse. But you know what I wish? I wish that these people, when they are pointing a gun at somebody, would think, for just one second, that the person they are thinking of shooting, is a person, that he has a family, that he has a mother and a father and brothers and sisters who love him. He had people who loved him, people who wanted to be with him, people who cured about him. Brad You’re right about the entertainment industry, they always leave out the murder victim’s family. Rarely is there any realism about the human relationships and lives destroyed by murder. Lupe: Of course, and that’s because the people making these movies and producing these shows are making money, lots of money. They make the money with these images and with the glamorization of murder, so they just keep doing it. They don’t care about anything else, they don’t care about anyone else. Brad What are your hopes for your family now, Lupe? Lupe: Well, I have a grandson who is 4 years old, now. And the other day I asked God “Is he going to make it? Is my grandson going to have the chance to grow up, will he have the chance to live a full, complete life, or is he too going to be taken away by violence?” All of us are exposed, all of

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us are threatened by the mentality of violence all around us. Especially though, it is young men I see being killed. Young men are being killed all around us. \

Brad Usually by other young men. So you’re filled with a lot of uncertainty. Lupe: Yes I am. What’s going to happen to my family now? What’s going to happen to all these other young men? What’s going to happen to our society in general, if this trend continues, if we don’t put a stop to all this madness? Will we just stop being able to step outside our own front door? Brad Certainly violence begets violence. Lupe: It does, including among the young. The person who killed Michael was just 19, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see that he has killed before or since. He’s a teenager, but he is already very violent. You know, Michael never carried a gun, or a knife. He felt that he could solve his problems without that. Like men in my day, if they had a problem with someone, they would try to talk it out, or at the most, have a fistfight. They fought like men. Now any clown with a gun feels very superior, because of the gun, and his willingness to use the gun. He doesn’t care about the damage he does, he only wants to feel like a man. But I think men should learn to be men, true men, before they start carrying guns around. Brad I think part of what you’re saying Lupe, with good reason, is that a big part of our problem today is a crisis in manhood, in the making of men. Lupe: In my day mothers stayed home and supervised their children, they monitored what they were watching on TV and who their friends were. Today, children are raising each other. They come home to an empty house after school, and they are on their own. Our society has made it all but impossible for mothers to stay home and raise their children, because of the economy. Brad: So we have a lot of boys getting bigger and stronger, but they’re not really becoming men. They’re just bigger boys. Lupe: That’s right, they don’t know anything of what it means to be a man. Being a man means that, if you have a gun,you only use it in defense of your family or your own life. Other than that, you use your fists, and not a gun. But so many young men today are full of themselves because they have a gun, and they are so careless with it. So careless!

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Liz (Michael’s mother): This is so hard. It’s amazing to me that you can be in so much pain, yet life goes on. People are acting normally, and expecting you to be able to function, expecting that you’ll be able to hide your pain, or deal with it, even though they really have no idea what you are going through. You know, we’re dealing with a lot, not just the loss of a loved one. Michael was my son, I was his mother, and somebody took him from us, without consulting us, without any right to his life. We have to deal with how he died, not just that he is gone. The frustration we feel, the ongoing suffering, the uncertainty about the future. The person who took Michael’s life took a lot from us. We’ve been changed forever by this.

Brad: Murder is the ultimate injustice, the ultimate act of theft. Lupe: And cowardice.

Brad Which is ironic, right, because in the minds of these gangmembers, they’re being macho by being violent. Lupe: It is madness really, it is compete thoughtlessness. They have buried their consciences, they are not feeling human beings anymore. Somebody needs to teach these boys what being a man really is. And I also blame those who sell guns to any young person, just to make money. They don’t care what the gun can do, the terrible harm that the shooting of another human being causes. They’re just out to make money. The record industry is at fault, too. Anybody can record a song, full of violence and dirt, and profit from it. The so-called singers scream dirty and violent lyrics into a microphone, accompanied by loud music, and they don’t care, as long as they make money. They don’t think about the consequences of what they produce. It’s not right.

Brad: Well said. Thank you very much.

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CHAPTER 4

Gil Martinelli On a warm and still evening in the late summer of 2000, I arrived at the fellowship hall of St. Didacus Catholic Church in the Normal Heights area of San Diego. The San Diego County chapter of Parents of Murdered Children was about to gather. After the meeting of a half-dozen or so regular attendees was underway, I explained why I was visiting, and asked if anyone wanted to speak to me about their loss. Gil Martinelli immediately rose and said he did. He was a handsome, rugged looking man, with thick dark hair and sunglasses, which he wore indoors. Earlier during the meeting he had spoken movingly of his 21-year-old son, Michael, who had been murdered four years earlier. His wife Carol sat quietly next to him while he spoke, and when he rose and offered to talk with me about their experience, she dabbed at her tearful eyes. Gil and I stepped into a large empty room next door, and sat down across a table from each other.

Brad Thanks for speaking with me. I understand you lost your son at 21. Gil: Yes, Michael Martinelli.

Brad: I’m sorry. Can you talk about what happened? Gil: Well it was August 13, 1996, and Michael had gone to a friend’s house to have dinner. As he left, he saw a girl talking on the phone, in a phone booth nearby. As Michael was talking with this girl, two guys came running out of a nearby alley. According to witnesses, these two guys had beanies on their heads, that they pulled down over their faces, to cover their faces. Then they pulled out guns, and just started shooting our son. He was shot up and down both arms, up and down 53

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both legs, up and down the back and behind the head. It seems like they shot him from behind, without warning.

Brad And this was while he was speaking with that girl in the phone booth? Gil: Yes, this was a setup. It had to be some kind of setup. The police in National City, where this happened, never seemed very interested in investigating this case. We had one good detective who helped us, but otherwise, our experience with them just made an awful situation worse. They’ve never apprehended anybody.

Brad I’m sure. Let me ask you this, Gil. After you lost Michael so

horribly, can you see any differences, both initially and later on, between the way you have grieved, and how your wife Carol has dealt with it?

Gil: We were both quiet, we were both quiet. I didn’t want to believe it had happened, she didn’t want to believe it had happened, and I think that was one reason why we both grieved kind of quietly. I’ve been with her for 31 years. She was 14,I was 17 when we met. We got married in 1972. Her way of grieving has been quiet. Once in a while she’ll cry in front of me. For me, I can be doing something, and I’ll just come apart. I’ll cry without being able to stop it, for say, 5 minutes, and then the tears will just stop coming, and I’ll be O.K. I work for AAA, right now, and I drive a vehicle 8 hours a day, I’m driving all day. I’m meeting people all day long, assisting them. All the people in my area, everybody knows what happened to Michael. And I could be talking to one of them, and all of a sudden I’ll just start crying. I can’t hold it back. Then, just as suddenly, it’ll be over. But they understand, the people understand.

Brad: Of course a loss like this puts a heavy strain on a marriage.

The stress of grief can be incredible, as you well know. How have you two dealt with it?

Gil: We came to know that, no matter what, there was nothing we could have done to prevent this. We went through about 8 months of maybes, maybe we should have done this, maybe we should have done that, but we then told ourselves that there was absolutely nothing we could have done to keep this from happening. That knowledge has been helpful to us. Carol and I have been together basically our whole lives. We grew up together. We raised three sons together, including Michael,

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he was our middle son. We’ve seen each other through good times and bad times. We can be talking together, and she’ll finish my sentences, and I’ll finish her sentences. We know what each other is thinking. We just have a very tight connection, and that has helped us too. I remember once, not long after Michael died, we were at the cemetery, and we were both very upset. Carol’s always had bad kidneys, and once, when she was a young girl, she was in the hospital. The girl in the bed next to her was going to have major surgery, and Carol told her she would pray for her. Well, the girl died in surgery, and ever since Carol has felt really apprehengive about praying for people, and responsible in a strange way if things don’t work out for them. Anyway, at the cemetery that day I told Carol that maybe if she had prayed for Michael, this wouldn’t have happened. She got upset, and said that if I hadn’t argued with him the day he was killed, maybe this wouldn’t have happened either. After a few minutes of both being really mad at each other, we apologized to each other, and said we didn’t mean it. We both knew that neither one of us meant what we said. So anyhow, the ability to apologize to each other has also helped us.

Brad You mentioned to me earlier, Gil, that you always told Carol that if she could ask you a question you didn’t think you could answer, you would buy her something. Gil: Yes, she’s always, throughout our relationship, asked me a lot of questions, and I’ve always been able to answer them. After we lost Michael, she asked me “Why did God take my baby?,” and it was the first time I wasn’t able to answer one of her questions. Brad: If you could get her something, after that question, what would it be? Gil: I’d get her a picture of Michael, that we could have etched into his grave stone. We are looking for one, but we haven’t yet found a good one. Brad Do you and Carol have any philosophy about grieving, any kind of future expectations about the way you will go about trying to recover? Gil: No, we’ve found there is nothing we can do to control the feelings. Sometimes they just overwhelm you. But I will say we’ve lost a lot of faith in the criminal justice system. We fear anybody arrested in Michael’s case will get off with a plea. This was premeditated,

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lying-in-wait murder, but I’m afraid if those who did this are caught, they’ll plead some story, and get off with the average sentence for murder, 8 years. They’ll only have to do 80 percent of that, or six years. Everybody on the street, all these kids, they know that fact, and they know that if you want to kill somebody, make sure someone under 18 does the shooting, because then they are likely to be tried as a juvenile, and will receive a lesser sentence. It’s really outrageous, all the brutality.

Brad: Thank you Gil.

http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/LVSC5

CHAPTER 5

Elly Rossi Elly Rossi was standing in the entryway of her well-kept, spacious home in the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, when I arrived there. Her deep tan and shoulder length brown hair gave her a young, healthy look as we stood in the sunny foyer of her home, remarking on how hot and dry it was on this last day of July. She poured me a tall glass of orange juice as we sat on couches facing each other. She leaned toward me and spoke in the calm but intense voice I recalled from our telephone conversation of a few days before.

Brad: When we spoke earlier, Elly, you said that you’ve been told

by other bereaved parents that after a child or adult child has been murdered, the parents often find themselves thinking of their child’s babyhood, their days of infancy. Elly: Yes, I think they do that because those were the happiest of times with their child, when, basically, everything seemed perfect. I’ve thought about my own son’s babyhood too, after losing him. I think that when a parent is given the news their child’s life has come to an end, it is like a reflex to revert back to the child’s birth. The start of that life and the nine months that led up to it seem all the more precious. The innocence of youth and the times when as a parent you could protect your child, that is a temporary safe place to be. Nothing or no one can take those memories away. The joys of hearing that first cry or seeing that first tooth, hearing the first word, they replay in your mind over and over again. There is comfort in these memories when you find yourself in the darkness that suddenly envelops you when you hear your child has been murdered. I kept thinking of my son’s birth and how I held him close, thinking what a joy he was. I re-lived those precious times. 57

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Brad: Can you talk about what happened? Elly: Well, yes, but let me give you some background first. My son’s name is David. He was 34 years old at the time he died. He was a father, a friend, an uncle, a cousin, a brother, a brother-in-law, and a husband. I say husband with great sadness because it was his wife who murdered him. I still look at pictures of David and his little family and cry. They looked so happy. I ask myself why this happened, it makes no sense. David’s father and I had a violent marriage that ended with a bitter divorce. There were four children from that marriage. David was my first born son. He was born when I was only 18 years old. He and his sister lived with their father, and the younger two kids lived with me. It was difficult for me to maintain a relationship with my children because their dad used them as pawns in the divorce, and continued to do so thereafter. I had no family or close friends to help, so it was just me against this very abusive, violent man. It was hard. When I was informed by my kids they were moving back to their dad’s hometown in the Midwest, I was powerless to stop it from happening. David cried because he did not want to move. That was the first time David was taken away from me. I compare it to having my heart ripped out. I was so, so sad about it. Once they relocated back to the Midwest, the door was really slammed in my face. After that I was at the mercy of my ex-husband. He cut me off from all communication with my children. My letters to them were returned unopened, and my phone calls were met with silence, or just a click and a dial tone. I never got to speak with them. It was so painful to be shut out. I would later learn they were told I no longer wanted them, and no longer cared for them, and that I had relinquished all my maternal rights. Of course it was a lie, I didn’t do any of that. I became estranged from my biological family as well, because of this. My mother wrote to me that giving up my children was a one way ticket to hell. I was ready to give up hope of reconciling with my kids because time passed and I had zero communication with them. I felt tremendous guilt and started to believe I no longer mattered to them. It was extremely difficult to live with these feelings, but I didn’t tell anyone of my anguish. One day out of the blue, about four years later, the phone rang. I answered it and much to my surprise it was David. My heart nearly stopped. He said he got my number from information and took a chance on calling me. He said his dad would be furious if he knew we talked so this had to be our secret. He did not say where he was calling from and he left no number to call him at. I was overjoyed! We tearfully talked

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briefly. I gave him my address so he could write and send pictures. He did so for a few years, but then without explanation stopped. Then I received a letter from my mother, which was another surprise, because it had been a few years since I heard from her since she last condemned me. David had called her. He wanted information about me, and asked her if she would give me messages from him. She was my link to David, because they lived in the same area. David and I began to reconcile although miles separated us. I was remarried by then, and my husband and I visited Illinois to see David, but he was in Florida at the time, and we missed him. David and his wife lived on a farm in Illinois with her relatives. Their apartment was upstairs in the same house that her grandparents lived in. The grandparents were out of town conveniently one week in late July when the murder happened. David reported to work as usual and finished the work day, probably July 27th, 1998. That was probably the day he was shot. Evidence shows he was in bed when a gun was put to his head. He was already dead when the second bullet was discharged. I am told she attempted to put his body in a wagon to move it but couldn’t, so she used meat-hooks to drag his body. He was rolled up into a rug and was hidden behind a shed, where he remained for a few days. In the meantime, she got a restraining order against him and even showed up at his place of employment looking for him. She told people he just suddenly up and walked out, and she didn’t know where he was but feared he would come back and harm her and the children. By now he had been dead a few days, but his remains were hidden. She let his body just lie there for about three days, and then decided to burn the remains. There were other family members who lived on the property, and saw the smoke. They went to investigate, and that’s when my son’s body was discovered. The details of this grizzly crime came to me in bits. The more I heard, the uglier the details got. It’s really hard to think about, especially around this time of the year. As a matter of fact, the day you called me to arrange for this conversation was the two year anniversary of the murder.

Brad: How awful. So much pain in your relationship with him during his childhood and early adulthood, then to have this happen. Was the woman arrested?

Elly: Yes. When the police came to the scene she was away, but later she returned while they were still there, and she confessed to them that she had done it. Brad: Was she convicted?

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Elly: They gave her a plea agreement for second degree murder. In exchange for the plea bargain the accused would be sentenced to less time in prison, at most 10 years with a chance of early parole with “good behavior.” She had no prior police record or convictions or anything. My son is dead and for this crime maybe five years will be served. My husband and I went back for the sentencing. My daughter and I each read our Victim Impact Statements. What I did not know was that the accused also had family members reading statements on her behalf. This was an effort to gain sympathy for her and to show she was driven to commit the unspeakable act of murder as a means of escaping a bad marriage. I watched as she was led into the courtroom. So this is the murderer, I thought. This young woman was my daughter-in-law. My son chose her to be his wife. He loved her. He keeps telling me in dreams not to hate her. As I sat behind her, my thoughts went to the two children of their marriage. My son was so proud of those kids. Now they had neither parent and would live from that day forward without their dad. How will life unfold for them down the road, I wondered. The family of the accused was angered by my presence. They had many friends who tried to crowd me out of the courtroom occupying every seat until the courtroom became filled to capacity, denying me the right as a parent to be at the sentencing of my son’s murderer. The hearing was then moved to a bigger room. There was no sympathy from the blank faces that gawked at me, only glares and pursed lips, arms smugly folded across their chests. It was the complete opposite of my last encounter with them when we cried together and they told me David was like a son to them. What turned them so cold? Permission by the court was given to the accused to speak to me. With only a foot of space separating us, I was face to face with the person who killed my son. “I’m sorry I have hurt you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for what I have done.” I nodded yes. She went on, “David carried a picture of you with him. He said he didn’t know a lot about you but he loved you. He didn’t understand what went on, but he loved you.’’ I thought to myself, out of the mouth of his killer come these words of love from my son, given to me, his mother. Dear God, I thought, help me because I want to hate this woman, but I can’t. I wish I could undo what has happened. “Please know that I am so very sorry,” she continued. “I want very much for the boys to know you. David would want that.” Her soft voice was cracking as she also began to cry. The accused did apologize publicly for what she had done when she took the stand to speak on her own behalf. She realized too late she had changed her course in life, and the lives of so many would also change

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because of it. Whether she was sincere or not reciting tearful words of regret, I don’t know. I ,want to believe she felt remorse. All I could think of was-my son is dead-he no longer has a future and all his dreams and hopes died with him. For him there will be no serving time-he’s gone forever and he’s not coming back. ’Till death do us part-the marriage vow spoken by both the accused and the deceased. Why, God, did you let this happen? The news media that waited outside the courtroom rushed me when I left, pushing microphones to my face, asking if I felt justice was served. What did I say to the accused when we spoke privately in the courtroom? What do you feel now? What were my words now that sentencing was handed down? I remember calmly saying if this is all the law allows then, that’s it, so be it. It was so frustrating, though. What I really wanted to do was grab a microphone and scream at the top of my lungs, “My son is dead! Someone held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger! His body was burned to get rid of evidence! This is my son and he’s dead! I’m a grieving mother who has lost her firstborn son. His dad stole him from me when he was a little boy. I was robbed of my son and now he’s dead and no one has him. How am I suppose to bloody behave living with that? Somebody tell me what the hell to do because I feel like I’m going crazy!” No, it was a calm but grief stricken mom who stood before the cameras, giving a calm statement. I don’t think the public wants to see the true rage and the true sadness of a grieving mother.

Brad Terrible. How did you learn of the murder, how were you informed?

Elly: On July 27, 1998, the day David was murdered, my husband and I were sitting in our kitchen, and he was playing his guitar as he likes to do. He was playing real soft though, unusually soft. I was sitting at the table listening to him, and all of a sudden, in my head, I heard two gunshots. I jumped up from the table and said “I heard gunshots!” He said “What?” I said “Gunshots. I heard two gunshots.” He said “How could you, no body has a gun around here?” And I said, “I don’t know, but I heard two gunshots.” I knew then something was wrong, I just sensed something was wrong with one of my kids. I tried to contact them, but I couldn’t reach David. Brad: Why did you associate the sound of those gunshots with your children?

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Elly: I don’t know, it was something that just came to me. I guess it’s like a mother’s intuition. I just knew somethingiwas wrong with one of them. I tried again to contact David, but was unable to. So, I let it pass. Then, the next day, at 7:30 in the morning, I got a phone call from my mother. She said “I have some bad news.” I said “What is it?” She reminded me that David and his wife had been having some problems, and then she told me that he’d been shot by her. I didn’t understand at first. I kept asking “IS he O.K., Where is he?” But then my mother told me straight out, “He’s dead.” Those words were stunning. I was in bed, and I just lay there, telling myself this was a bad dream. I kept mumbling, “I have to wake up.” I finally handed the phone to my husband, because I couldn’t believe what my mother was telling me.

Brad How shocking for you. Elly: Usually the first thing I do when I get up is read the newspaper on the Internet. And I would always read the newspaper local to David’s area. And that morning, when I went online and went to his area newspaper, the story of his murder was there. It had already been posted. I couldn’t believe it. If I had not gotten that phone call from my mother, I would have found out about my son’s murder from the Internet.

Brad: Inasmuch as his wife did this to him, did you feel a sense of betrayal? Elly: Well, yes, because he loved her so much. He was really looking forward to spending the rest of his life with her. A little while before his murder, David had spoken with his brother, and told him how happy he was, how excited he was to be married to his wife, and how he wanted the rest of the family to meet her. So, this just heightened the shock for us. I really felt betrayed after the murder. I was angry again with David’s dad for robbing me of my maternal role in David’s upbringing, and robbing David and I both of the years of a bonding relationship we could have had. Now David’s wife robbed him of his life just when I was reconciling with him. There would be no reunion with David and I would not get to hug him or see him smile, or laugh with him or catch up on all the years that had passed. The void David left remains empty, and, you know, it cannot be filled. This can’t be fured. He is irreplaceable.

Brad: It’s only been two years since David’s murder, Elly, and your experience of grief is still developing, but what has it meant to you to lose your 34-year-old son?

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Elly: He was my firstborn son. I was a new Christian at the time of his death, and losing him caused that verse, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son . . .” to take on a whole new meaning for me. I remember the morning I heard he’d been murdered, I just fell on the floor and started crying the hardest I’d ever cried, and I thought of that scripture. Looking back, I think that if I hadn’t been a Christian, this would have driven me mad. But having a higher source to cry to, to vent my anger at, was a huge help. Without that, I don’t know what I would have done. I questioned God a lot. I said “You’re the almighty, you’re all controlling, you’re in charge of everything, why did you let this happen?” I really expected an audible answer or something, but nothing happened. Still, it helped me to ask those questions. I realized this was just something I would have to work through. After David’s death I felt alone, I felt very alone. I wanted to talk with someone who had had a loved one murdered, who had experienced what I was going through, but I didn’t know of anyone. My husband wanted to help me, but he didn’t know how to, of course. It hurt me once when I heard him on the phone talking to a friend of his, and he said “I don’t know what to do with Elly, she’s a mess, she’s just a mess.” And I thought to myself, “Wait minute, I’m not a mess. My heart is broken, I’ve lost my son, and my husband is calling me a mess.” He didn’t know how to deal with me, he didn’t know the effect it had on me. Plus, you know, David was 34 and I hadn’t seen him in a long while, so I think that made it harder for people to know how I was feeling. I remember that once, after the murder, my husband and I were out to dinner with a friend of his. The man heard my story, and he said something like, “So, what’s the big deal, he was like a stranger to you.” I was so hurt by that. I nearly passed out when I heard him say it. After a minute I looked him in the eye and said, “You have no right to say that to me. You have no idea what my son meant to me. You don’t know a thing about me, my son, or what I’m going through.” Brad He didn’t have the heart of a mother, he was not thinking like a parent.

Elly: I know, and when people say things of that sort, after your child has been murdered, you wonder if you’ll survive the frustration. You wonder how you’ll make it through. Fortunately-in some ways I guess-you tend to forget a lot of the events and circumstances after the time of the murder. Brad Looking back, is your memory spotty about how you spent your time in the weeks right after David’s loss?

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Elly: Yes, I find there are chunks of time, several days at a time, that I can’t remember what I was doing. As I think back to the aftermath of the murder, large periods of time are a blank. I had short term memory problems, too. Did I put detergent in with the laundry? Did I feed the dog? Where did I put my purse? Who was I going to call? Where was it I had to go? How could I go from an organized person to a forgetful slob? What is happening to me? I do know that I felt glad to be out here in California, glad there was a lot of space separating me from the site of the event. If I would’ve had to deal with newspapers and reporters and all the other stuff, I think I would have lost it. When we went back to Illinois for David’s services, we were driving from the airport to our hotel room where we would be staying, and on the car radio was a talk show. It was just sort of on in the background, I wasn’t paying attention to it, until all of a sudden I realized they were talking about my son’s murder! The show was about spousal abuse, and the host was saying that any guy who does that to his wife deserves to be murdered. And I thought “Wait a minute! This person doesn’t even know my son, they don’t know anything about him. These people calling in to this radio show, making these crude remarks, don’t know that the victim’s mother is listening.” It was so frustrating to hear all of that.

Brad: What helped you through the first several months of your grief? Elly: Well, I had Internet access, so I went online, and I started looking for grief support groups. I started communicating, in chat rooms, with other people who had lost a loved one to murder. I wanted to talk with as many other people who had lost children as I could, so I could know that what I was going through was normal. I didn’t like the feeling I sometimes had that I was going insane. I wanted to know that I was normal, and having normal feelings. I didn’t like the fact that my husband had said I was a mess, that he didn’t want to leave me home alone because he was afraid I might try something.

Brad: Like kill yourself? Elly: Yes. It was a big, big help to hear from other parents of murdered children that the emotions I was experiencing were feelings that they were having too. It was a relief for me to know that I was not becoming insane.

Brad: What were some of the common feelings that you found other relatives of homicide victims were experiencing along with you?

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Elly: Everyone I talked to said they had the feeling that they were going crazy. Brad: You mean, a powerful sense that you are losing all mental and emotional balance, losing sanity.

Elly: Yes, it’s like there’s something welling up inside of you, and you feel as though you are about to explode. If you cry, the tears aren’t enough. There’s something else inside of you that you have to get out. I and others I spoke with also experienced a lot of short-term memory loss. My husband was constantly reminding me of things I could not recall. Also, I stopped cooking, for some reason. A lot of the ladies I’ve talked to who have lost children have said the same thing. They said they just went through a long period of time, after their child’s murder, where they simply could not cook, and they could not bear to spend a lot of time in their kitchen. I felt that way too. Brad Had you previously enjoyed cooking?

Elly: Yes, I had, but after the murder I suddenly stopped. It was just too painful. For me, it brought back memories of when my kids were little. They had always enjoyed eating, and I would make them big dishes of spaghetti, big dishes of meat loaf, and they would all laugh and play and fight, you know, like normal kids. After David’s murder, when I’d go into my kitchen, I’d hear in my mind the laughter of little kids, and that hurt a lot. I didn’t want to hear that any more, so I’d try to stay out of the kitchen. Women who lost teenagers, especially, told me the kitchen had become too painful a place for them, because teenagers eat so much, and they had spent so much time in there. Brad I can see what you mean. The kitchen itself, is, in many homes, the center of the home, the place where the family is most often together. I can see how it would be a real focus of memory. What other common feelings did you find victims’ families sharing on the Internet?

Elly: A lot of people talked about dreams, dreams they’ve had about their kids. The night of the day my mother called me to tell me about David, I had a very hard time sleeping, and when I finally did fall asleep, I dreamt about David. In my dream he was riding his bicycle as a boy. He was wearing a white shirt. He said he wanted to talk to me, and then he said he was fine, and he didn’t want my heart to be filled with hate, because then I would no longer be the mom he remembered. He told me not to hate his wife for what she did. In the dream I reached out to him to touch him, but he said he had to go, and he’d talk with me later. And he told me again, not to hate. I know that other parents

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I’ve talked with have had similar dreams. Their children assured them they were okay, they were happy where they were, and they told them not to worry about them. And also, before a child’s murder, many of the parents I’ve talked to said that, like me, they had some kind of premonition that something was wrong. I’ve dreamt about David more than once, of course, and I’ve found it to be somewhat of a comfort. It may have helped me get through the shock. As the shock slowly starts to wear away, you’re able to look back and see how horrible a time it was for you, right after losing your child. I’ve done some research into how murder affects the victim’s relatives and friends, and I’ve found that for every one homicide, there are 10 other people impacted by the loss, and that’s not counting acquaintances and people who were not close to the victim, but are still somehow affected by the event. It’s just, it’s just a catastrophic occurrence.

Brad In the months after your loss Elly, did you find yourself unmotivated to do things, or did you find yourself wanting to throw yourself into your activities, trying to keep yourself as busy as possible?

Elly: I wanted to be busy, I wanted to do things. One of the tasks I really wanted to do was to start a grief support group. After David’s death, I didn’t have anyone to turn to, I had no one to talk with who had any understanding of what I was going through. I felt so shattered, so alone, and I needed to identify with someone. I wanted to be with people who had been through the same thing, so I started a local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. I very much wanted to be busy doing something. It was like I had this compulsion, that I had to touch everyone who had lost someone, so I could help somebody, so I could be helpful to somebody. A story ran in my local newspaper about the Parents of Murdered Children chapter I was starting, and the response was overwhelming. I was amazed at the telephone calls that came in. There were even calls from out of state. My oldest caller was a soft spoken gentleman whose daughter was murdered 20 years ago. He said it was so hard to talk with people about her, and ‘what happened. He had not been able to work through the grief. He cried and cried, saying it felt good to talk with someone who had gone through the same thing. He wasn’t interested in joining a group, he just wanted someone to cry with him and talk about the tragedy. As a matter of fact, I got calls from several elderly people who were absolutely shattered because in days of old you didn’t talk about things like this, so having a child murdered was like the child had not been

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born. What a horrible thing to carry around for years, yet these people were forced to keep silent. From the time your loved one is murdered, every time you read about another murder you feel an ache in your heart because you know another group of people is suffering unbearable pain. I think reaching out to people, even if it is one by one, is very important because they need that support system and they need it available to them 24 hours a day.

Brad So you wanted to help others, and thereby helped yourself. I take it that the exchange you had with people gave you a sense of meaning, a sense of life-purpose. Also, do you think it, in a sense, brought some good out of your own loss, that it somehow redeemed your own tragic experience? Elly: Yes, I felt that way. You know, a lot of parents of murdered children and murdered loved ones generally, I think, just feel hopeless, they feel like they have no hope. I found they often focus on the violent death their loved one met, and I always tell them “No,you can’t do that, don’t focus on that because it will destroy you.’’ I told them to think of the good, to focus on the good, think of the laughter you had with them, think of how they lived, not of how they died. Some parents have said to me that they feel like they can’t go on after their child has been murdered, because their kids were their whole lives. But I tell them they had the love of their kids, and they should be grateful for that love. Some people have kids, and don’t have their children’s love. I say things like “You had your child’s love for 16 years (or whatever their age was), there are some parents who have had their children for 50 years, and their children hate them. Try to be thankful for that.” I had to say this kind of thing recently to a woman who lost her son at 16, he was shot. He had stepped in front of someone he was with, who was about to be shot, and took the bullet for his friend. I told the mother “Be grateful for the time you had him. He died a hero. He stepped in front of his friend because he respected life, and that was something you taught him. So many kids today have no regard for human life, but you taught him to care.” So, I really like to look for the good, and focus on that. I urge parents to do that, and not to think about just those few minutes of how their child died.

Brad So you’re saying that being thankful, cultivating a sense of gratitude, can actually contribute to healing for parents of murdered children. Is that right? ‘ Elly: Yes. I’ve found that if I’m dealing with a parent who is a Christian, sometimes this approach is not as effective, because they are focused on

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the question “Why did God allow this to happen to my child, and to me?” But when the person is a non-Christian, I find it best to focus directly on the good that was a part of the victim’s life. I tell parents to dwell on the good that was inside of their child, that defined who their child was, and who their child will always be in their memory.

Brad: Now in your own life, Elly, as a Christian, how have you dealt with the question, “Why did God let this happen?”

Elly: Well, I don’t know that I have any great answers to that question. Sometimes I half-expected a voice from above to speak and explain it all to me. Of course that didn’t happen. Someone once showed me a sampler. On one side it was a very pretty design, but when you turned it over, it was just a bunch of ugly, broken threads. I always remembered that image, and after David’s murder, I realized that the reality of his loss is sort of like that picture. To me, if I think of his death, it’s the bunch of ugly, meaningless threads. But there’s another side to his loss-the good and beautiful things that have come out of it. For example, I have a greater appreciation for his life and all the good he did, and all the lives he touched. I also have a greater appreciation for my life and my relationships. And at David’s funeral, I had the chance to see all of my siblings-from all over the country-who I hadn’t seen in many, many years. It was a chance to express a lot of suppressed feelings and emotions, and to heal in some ways. Brad: That’s a beautiful way of understanding tragedy, the image of a sampler.

Elly: Yes, it’s just like that painting there on the wall. If you look at the back of the picture, all you see is smeared paint, and unattractive splotches. But if you look at the painting from this way, from the front, you see a beautiful picture. So I prefer to take this whole view, to see the big picture of his life and death. I think about the fun times we had together, all the times we laughed together, and enjoyed each other. And there were a lot of those times. I remember right before David moved to Illinois, a family friend took David and his siblings to Disneyland. This was their favorite place in the whole world to go. They loved it. David purchased a necklace for me. It was a gold painted chain with a Dalmatian hanging from it. He gave it me and asked that I keep it until I saw him again. He was sure he was coming back to California. This was another “Don’t tell dad thing.” I would think of David whenever I looked at it. This was to remember him. I joked that I might get old and die, or get old and

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forget what it was for, so I didn’t want too much time to pass before he got it back. He said, “Save it until I get back, and go to Disneylandsee The Small World and think of me.” I held onto it for all those years. When I went to Illinois for his memorial service, I placed the little dog in with his ashes. That dog represented a tender, poignant moment between the two of us. That is a memory I treasure. When I get a picture in my mind of him lying on his bed, shot to death, a scene the police had so graphically described to me, I just refuse to dwell on it. I refuse to allow the anger of that thought to continually be a part of my life, and to shape my life now. Instead I remember the joy, the sweetness, the happiness.

Brad That’s a very powerful choice on your part. In place of the anxiety and anger that the event and your constant questioning “Why did this happen?” can generate, you’ve decided to remember the good, and to cultivate gratitude.

Elly: Yes. I get a lot of phone calls from parents of murdered children, people who just want someone to talk to. Of course they always ask why, why did it happen to me, and besides telling them that they have good experiences to remember, I also have to tell them that I don’t know why it happened. I don’t know why their child was murdered, I simply don’t know. That’s an answer, I think, people need to learn to live with. Brad Do you find people who can’t, who are just so consumed by the anger and hate that they cannot begin the journey toward healing?

Elly: Yes certainly. I always tell such people they need professional help. I urge them to get into a doctor or therapist’s office, and seek help that way. Sometimes it just takes nothing less than that. Brad Well, Elly, what’s your strategy for the future, as you continue to learn to live with your loss?

Elly: I’ll continue to do the same things I’ve been doing to help me

deal with grief. I’ll keep trying to help the relatives of homicide victims. These are people who need compassion, help, someone to talk to who cares about them and what they’re going through. They need understanding and hope. They need the touch of friendship that says “Hey, I care.” People should know that victim’s survivors need compassion. Just because they are the parent of a murdered child, it doesn’t mean they have leprosy or anything. They need people to be with them. ‘

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Brad: It’s ironic isn’t it, that the kind of feelings parents of murdered

children go through-depression, anger, hopelessness, fmstrationare all isolating emotions, yet being alone is not at all going to help them. It’s the last thing they need. And on top of that, people who have not experienced the loss of a child don’t really know how to interact with grieving parents. They feel like they don’t know what to say to the parents, so they avoid them, even further isolating them. It’s a vicious combination. Thank you for your time.

PART I1

Toward Understanding and Healing

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CHAPTER 6

Nancy Ruhe-Munch, Executive Director of Parents of Murdered Children* Brad Stetson: In your view, what is the predominant emotion that parents of murdered children feel during the early stages of grief? Nancy Ruhe-Munch At first, of course, it’s always shock someone I love was murdered, my child was murdered. Parents immediately feel shock and disbelief. One word, I think, that describes most of the grieving process is “despair.” Parents become filled with feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and of being completely out of control. They live with a gut-wrenching, heart-tearing despair.

Brad What is the usual experience of parents of murdered children with the criminal justice system? Nancy: You’ll find those who find it all of what they expected: they work well with the police, someone is caught, that person is brought to justice, justice is served, and that person gets the sentence the family hopes for, whether that is the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. But I think too often, for too many people, the justice system is just that: justice for the criminal. Often times, family members are the

*Parents of Murdered Children is comprised of over 100,000 members, people who are the parents, siblings, children, relatives, and friends of murder victims. It is the largest nationwide self-help support group for survivors of homicide. Its national headquarters is at 100 E. 8th Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202. In the Fall of 2000, Nancy Ruhe-Munch, the group’sExecutive Director, recorded these responses to questions I had sent her on a cassette tape. 73

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first suspects, and until another suspect comes under scrutiny by the police, family members are questioned, finger-printed, and kept in the dark so they don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know exactly what happened to their loved one. Many times details are kept from the family members merely because they are facts that only the murderer would know, and this lack of information only deepens the distress and suffering of the family. Then, often the trial itself, if there is one, can increase a family’s suffering. The defendant will be provided with several hearings, from preliminary hearings to grand jury hearings to trials with assorted delays to paid defense experts who will testify the way the defense wants them to. So, from the perspective of the grieving family, they find out very soon in the process that the focus of the criminal justice system is not their child, but the state. It’s not that a crime has been committed against their child, but against the state. Often parents are not permitted in the courtroom if they are going to testify, and if they are allowed into the courtroom, they are not supposed to show any emotion whatsoever. In this way, I think, the whole experience of the criminal justice system begins to victimize the family members all over again. Also, you have to remember that in a situation like this, when someone has been murdered, and the family has been notified (and hopefully that’s been in person, by someone who is sensitive, but all too often it’s through the newspaper, radio, or television), if no one is apprehended the family may well have to fight for months or years on end to make sure the police are still working on their case, and it just hasn’t been forgotten. Murder cases are never “closed” unless someone has been brought to justice, but cases can lay on the shelf for a long, long time until new evidence, if any, is discovered. So, for those who don’t have an arrest or a conviction, they feel frustrated and forgotten; for those who do have an arrest and a conviction, they feel victimized by the procedures of the system, a system not designed to be sensitive to their feelings as the loved ones of a murder victim, as people who have suffered-and are sufferingdeep, profound emotional trauma. People who have had a loved one murdered tend to have their emotions always on the surface. Tears and outright hysteria are never far away. For fathers especially, it seems, anger is also an everpresent feeling. But detectives, other police officers, and prosecutors all have specific and demanding jobs of their own to do, so taking hours of their time out from their work to comfort and console an emotionally devastated family member of a murder victim is not really something they are able to do.

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Brad What should people who have never experienced the loss of a child know about the parents of murdered children? Nancy: Well, regarding any of the loved ones of a murder victimwhether the victim was a sibling, aunt, uncle, parent, child, whoeverthere’s the misconception in our society that you can get over grief, that you can just deal with it, and get on with living, and put what happened behind you. Now, when you’ve suffered a loss like this you certainly do get “on with it,” but you never completely “get over it.” For example, it you have an unsolved case, you are going to have to continue being in touch with the detectives, to see what’s going on with your case. If you have a solved case, and someone has gotten 15 years to life for murdering your child, you live in constant fear of that person being paroled. You will also have to live being surrounded with our “murder as entertainment” culture, constantly seeing murder glamorized. For example, in Fall 2000 a television show called “Confessions” debuted, where murderers offer for the camera detailed confessions of their crimes. Things like this lead to intense feelings of re-victimization for victim’s families. It’s like driving in your car and always checking in your rear-view mirror, looking over your shoulder, waiting for the next insensitive, painful, and hurtful sight. Take the case of Parents of Murdered Children founders Robert and Charlotte Hullinger, in 1978 when their daughter Lisa was murdered. She was murdered by a former boyfriend, who bludgeoned her to death with a 16 pound sledgehammer. Their daughter’s murderer spent six months in a German prison for taking her life, the murder happened there while Lisa was an exchange student. After his release the perpetrator came to the United States, went to college, and earned four different degrees. Just three years ago this man murdered another one of his girlfriends. The Hullingers said that for them, this event was like September 25th, 1978 (the day their daughter was murdered) all over again. You see, the parents of murdered children never “get over” grief, or get away from it. They go through grief, and they never come out being the same. People who have never had someone in their family murdered need to understand that those who have will never again be the same people they were before the horrific event. So your best friends, the ones you used to play cards with or go out to dinner with, if their child’s been murdered they’ll be different now, and you have to give them lots and lots of time, and be there to support them all the way. You also have to know and remember that their child lived, and was loved. Simply because their child is dead, it does not mean that he or she is forgotten. It is very important to remember the

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murdered child’s birthday, anniversary dates, and at Christmas time. Give permission for the parents to talk about their child. Not two weeks after the event, or two months, but two years, and six years, and sixteen years after the loss.

Brad: What kinds of things can someone who has not experienced the murder of a child do to practically help those who have? Nancy: First, of all, don’t let their children ever be forgotten, in any way. And, as I’ve said, don’t expect those who’ve suffered this kind of loss to ever be the same as they were before this trauma. They now have a “new normal” to their lives. They will have different interests, some different attitudes, they will seem to be obsessed with their child’s murder for many, many years to come. I don’t know if there has been any kind of study on this, but I know that since I’ve been with Parents of Murdered Children starting in 1985, I’ve seen that the life-expectancy of fathers whose children have been murdered is five to eight years after the murder. The stress of the frustration, anger, and agony gradually overtakes them. Mothers tend to have the stress of this kind of grief manifest in illnesses like cancer and heart problems. We are, in our society I think, insensitive to the way these parents are feeling. I mean, we have Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and other special days of mourning following national disasters like the Oklahoma City bombing, but for the family members of the 20,000 people murdered in our country each year, we have no formal way of remembering them. If we had some kind of memorial, it would help the grieving families, and of course remind the public of this ongoing horror. We’re also insensitive to families in the way we focus on the murderer, rather than the murder victim. We seem to want to know who he is, what he is like, why he murdered, what’s happened to him since the murder, and so on. But it seems like once the child is buried, the child is forgotten by the public at large. We make the murderers infamous, and we make the murder victims invisible. So, I think anyone wanting to help families of murder victims, they should be aware of this cultural problem of ours, and be sensitive to the families’ pain during rites of passage like a graduation, anniversary, or wedding. I mean, if you have a child who is 21 and getting married, and your neighbor’s child, who played with your’s, was murdered at age 12, consider how your neighbor is feeling as your child gets married. And of course, one of the most significant ways of helping parents of murdered children is just to let them talk and talk and talk. Most

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parents of victims say they have a need to talk about the crime, to tell their friends every minute detail of the crime that they are aware of, over and over and over again. It’s because these parents are really still in shock, even months and years later, and the recital is a kind of reminder of reality. I remember one mother who told me she had to talk about her son’s murder to everyone, even to people in line with her at the grocery store. This woman’s son and his girlfriend were abducted, bound and gagged, and placed in the trunk of his car. They were then driven a few hundred miles out to a desert, and shot in the head. This woman found herself needing to repeat these facts to people over and over. It took literally years for the reality of this nightmare to sink in to this mother’s mind. Another way of assisting the parents of murder victims is to remind them to have a physical exam every six months. Grief and stress related illnesses are very common in victim’s families, so it’s important they be examined, preferably by a physician who understands what stress can do to the body. In fact, I recently had back surgery, and when the doctor asked me what kind of work I did, and I told him I was the Executive Director of Parents of Murdered Children, he asked me if I was the parent of a murdered child. I said no, but I hope that had I said yes, he would have been sensitive and taken that very central fact about my life into consideration as he planned my treatment. Sadly, I often hear parents of murdered children say that they use to have a lot of friends, but now they have none. My old friends, they say, know my child was murdered, and they think it is contagious, so they don’t have contact with me anymore. Well, I don’t think that’s really true, I think the former friends just don’t understand that parents have changed, that they aren’t the same people anymore. And, also, it gets very wearying for friends to hear that same awful story, over and over again, all the details of the murder. In my office here, with a staff of four, we handle approximately 1,068 contacts a week from people who have had, at some time, a child or loved one murdered. We need a lot of time off from the job, otherwise we become desensitized to the pain and suffering the family members are going through, since we hear similar stories repeatedly. Additionally, friends of victim’s families can encourage them to act out their feelings. Screaming, yelling, beating the air, whatever they can safely do to get out those feelings of rage, frustration, and agony is going to be helpful to them. But patting them on the head and saying “Now, now, it will be O.K.” is a bit like telling them to just shut up, and that won’t be helpful. If they start crying and you hand them one tissue, you’re not giving them a very supportive message. You should hand them the whole box of tissues, which says to them

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“It’s fine with me if you cry a whole box’s worth, and if that’s not enough I’ll buy you an entire case.” That says to those mourning that you will be with them, and that’s so valuable.

Brad Does our entertainment culture glamorize murder and murderers? What effect does this have on the families of murder victims? Nancy: Of course our entertainment culture glamorizes murder and murderers, and in doing so by definition exploits murder victims and their suffering families. In our society we don’t play rape, we don’t play domestic abuse, we don’t play drunk driving, and yet there are “murder mystery” dinner performances held all across this country, and our televisions are full of murder-shows, from “Murder, She Wrote” to “Homicide” to “L. A. Law,” “Court T.V.,” and “Confessions.” Every night, in every home across the nation, television brings murder as entertainment. We amuse ourselves with murder through countless books, toys, and games, including games for children. We have computer games for children today, actually teaching them to kill, to regard that as “winning.” Through such exposure our children become desensitized to murder, and what it means. Family members of the murdered live their lives daily realizing that of all the crimes in this country, of all the tragedies, and of all the politically-correct concerns we have about not offending people, the one crime, the one tragedy that actually, literally destroys lifemurder-is the one act that we not only culturally embrace, but actually entertain ourselves with. There was a time in this country where we were genuinely, as a nation, appalled by scenes of violence, torture, and mayhem. But now we eat dinner while we watch someone’s head blown off on the 6:OO o’clock news. This is another way in which we victimize all over again the parents of murdered children. I mean, sometimes the police and prosecutors will withhold information from parents about how their child was tortured and brutalized before being murdered, believing that the information would simply be unbearable for the parents to know. I appreciate their efforts, but I often think “Why bother,” six months from now someone will write a book about it, presenting all the gory details, or perhaps the horror will show up on “Court T.V.,” or “Confessions.” “Murdertainment,” as I call it, is grossly insensitive to victims’ families, it ignores the individuality and dignity of the murder victim, it exalts the killer, it desensitizes society, and it makes kids into killers. One-half of all murderers are under the age of 25. We talk about the school shootings at Columbine High School, in Jonesborogh, Arkansas

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and in West Paducah, Kentucky, and people can’t understand why this is happening. Well, it’s the culture of “murdertainment.” Kids today are growing up saturated with images of murder, and the computer games that fill their lives fuel their fantasy-and give target practice at the same time. A successful lawsuit against the tobacco companies just won 1.5 billion dollars to run anti-tobacco ads on television and all billboards. We won’t allow tobacco ads on clothing, and we won’t allow cartoon characters to promote smoking or chewing tobacco. That shows we believe that if we allowed those things, children would be influenced by those images to begin smoking and using tobacco. Yet, our children are inundated with murder stories, slasher movies, violent comic books, TV shows, and blood-filled computer games, and as a country we aren’t concerned that some of them are being influenced to kill. It’s inconsistent, and it doesn’t make sense.

Brad In what other ways do you think our country has cheapened human life, and its value? Nancy: In my view it’s only through murder, and the way we treat murder, that we have cheapened human life. The way we make killers infamous is truly terrible. Just about anyone would know the name of Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy or David Berkowitz. You could mention these names to an audience of 25 people, and I guarantee you that almost all of the audience would know these were the names of murderers. If you mentioned the names of any of their victims, I seriously doubt that anyone in the audience would recognize them as a murder victim of one of these men. I remember the mother of a murder victim of Jeffrey Dahmer’s called me, telling me that a comic book featuring Jeffrey Dahmer was going to be published, and in the comic book were going to be photographs of some of the murder victims, including her son. She wanted to know if there was anything we could do to stop the publication of this comic book. I told her there wasn’t, that it would be protected by the First Amendment. The murder of her son became theater through this comic book. The mother told me that when her son was born, he weighed six-pounds, seven-ounces. When he came back to her, after the murder, he came back to her in a shoebox, weighing less than two pounds. We have cheapened human life so profoundly that now mass murders, like at so many schools recently, have become the scene that defines America to the rest of the world. Our president can stand up and declare a national day of mourning after a catastrophe like the

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Oklahoma City bombing where 168 people were killed, but what about a national day of mourning for the fact that dozens of peoples’ lives are taken every day in this country? The truth is we have simply come to expect murders everyday, so we tolerate them. From 1978, when Parents of Murdered Children was founded, up through 1998-20 years-there have been 443,610 non-negligent homicides in this country. That’s more than most wars, but you’ll never hear about most of them. If you do, it will be because of the number of people killed at once, like the Oklahoma City bombing, or because of the gruesomeness of the cases as with the Dahmer killings, or because of the celebrity status of the accused, as with the 0. J. Simpson case. We only continue our devaluation of human life by ignoring these cases, and failing to see the horrible tragedy of each one. Another one of the ways we perpetuate degrading the value of human life is by failing to ever consider what murder leaves behind, 20, and 30, and 40 years after the event. It’s ironic that I’m talking to you today, because today I heard from someone whose story illustrates the awful collateral damage murder does. Back in 1982, here in the Midwest, a four-year-old boy named Jason and his six-year-old sister, Amy, were playing at a YMCA, and Jason was abducted by a stranger and murdered. His body was found and the killer was caught, and at age six Amy had to testify against him in court. I assisted that family, and I’ve seen all that Amy has went through over these last 18 years. I was with her when Jason was buried. I saw her mother and father get divorced. I saw Amy be blamed for what had happened. Even though her parents didn’t really want to blame her for what had happened, I would hear them say to her sometimes, in exasperation, “Why did you let Jason go with that man?” “Why didn’t you run and tell us?” “Why didn’t you come get us sooner?” All these questions haunt her forever. After her parents got divorced, I saw her mother, who drank heavily and took pills at night to try to be able to sleep, overdose and die at age 30. I saw Amy struggle for closeness with her father, who, after his son’s murder, had lost all of his will to live. She ended up being bounced around from relative to relative, without a stable home. The murderer of Jason was sentenced to 14 to 15 years. Through our “parole block” program-which is an important way for survivors to ensure that killers serve at least their minimum sentence-we were able to get his parole denied four times. Now he’s been in prison for 18 years, and today, the day I’m talking to you, he came up for parole again, and we just knew that he was going to get out. He’s been incarcerated four years beyond his minimum term, which is unusual. Amy called me at 5 3 0 P.M. tonight, hysterically

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relieved, because, due to our efforts, not only was this murderer denied parole, but he will not be allowed to request parole for another 10 years. Listening to Amy, I heard the profound relief in her voice. To her, even though she’s in her twenties now, married with a child of her own, this killer getting out of prison was like the monster coming back out of the woods, and abducting her brother all over again. So, even though it has been 18 years since her brother was murdered, the trauma continues to effect her life. Through the years she’s been suicidal, regularly depressed, plagued with thoughts that, though her father loves her, he must have loved Jason more. You see, murder leaves behind a flood of suffering and hardship that never, ever, goes away.

Brad Do you find that people who don’t understand the nature of murder-grief sometimes criticize parents of murdered children as vindictive or insanely angry? Nancy: Yes, sometimes I’ll hear people dismiss parents of murdered children as just out for revenge, or as irrationally angry. Now, certainly, parents of murdered children are very, very angry. Wouldn’t you be? It’s not like this was an accident, it’s not like perhaps it was God’s will, and the child contracted a deadly disease and died. No, the fact that someone by pre-calculation and design, on purpose took the life of your child would make any normal person extremely enraged. This anger is only furthered by the fact our society contributes to such horrors with streets flooded with guns, children breast-fed on violence, drugs plentiful, and a general lack of respect for human life. One mother of a murdered child recently said to me she’s come to accept what happened to her child, but she still can’t accept the way our society has contributed and reacted to her loss. She’s found our society does not know how to react to all the emotions she’s been put through-the shock, the anxiety, the depression, the despair, the hopelessness, the helplessness, not being able to sleep, sleeping too much, not being able to eat, eating too much-grief is a craziness, the griever is not crazy. Our culture is a fast-food society: we expect someone to take three days off for the funeral, and then get back to work, get over it, and get on with their lives. But the truth is, it’s against nature for parents to bury their children, and then immediately continue their lives as before. But we’re a replacement society. If we lose something, we just go out and get another one, then carry on. We don’t allow people to grieve, we’re

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uncomfortable with righteous anger, we’re uncomfortable with tears. We don’t seem to want to allow people the time they need to live with and through their losses. Our society is oblivious to the fact that for parents of murdered children, coping with what happened to their child never really gets easier, it does get different. Parents of murdered children are our country’s forgotten victims. We have been educated on everything from smoking to drugs to domestic abuse to drunk driving, but not this most horrific of acts, and what it does to families. I came to Murdered Children in 1985, having worked in the women’s movement, helping rape and incest survivors-being an incest survivor myself. I’ve always been struck by the similarities between rape and being the parent of a murder victim: both acts are deliberate; in both cases you’re not given time to grieve, you have to help with the investigation and work with the police by answering questions, taking a lie detector test, get fingerprinted; you worry whether the perpetrator is a stranger or someone you know, whether they will come back, whether you’ll ever get justice; in both cases you lose a part of yourself, and in a sense you lose your past as well as your present, since you’re inevitably surrounded by people who don’t understand. And of course, in murder, you also lose your future, because your child will never come back. You will never see them marry, you will never have grandchildren, you will never have your child to be with as you age, and perhaps even care for you when you are elderly. Dealing with murder is an unending story, you never really find peace, and you always wonder why, why did this have to happen. And you never get away from the act. As I talk to parents of murdered children, as I have done for over 15 years now, I keenly sense their pain, the excruciating pain and depression they experience. I especially find it difficult to talk to fathers, I don’t really know why. But fathers or mothers, talking to them one can just feel the agony coming from them. I think that’s why they often feel so isolated in our culture. The pain they radiate is just so profound, that even to be around them can make people feel, well, miserable. The misery is that strong. Even when these parents are not speaking, you experience something of their turmoil just being in their presence. I find even volunteers and psychological professionals often shy away from murder victims. They want to “save lives,” they say. But in my view the work we do at Parents of Murdered Children is vital too. Without an organization, without a self-help support group, without a

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“parole block” program, without a “second opinion” program, without a “murder is not entertainment” program, without the murder wall honoring the memories of murder victims, many parents of victims would be a lot worse off. This kind of work is a lifeline, it is a way of saving the lives of people most of our society would just rather not think about-the parents of murdered children.

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CHAPTER 7

Pastor K e n Wilson and Mark Mogensen Did the angels come from heaven, to help you through the night Did they feel your terror, and take away your fright? Did the angels bear the pain, of what was being done to you Did they hear your cries of fear, and stay to help you through? Did the angels hold you tightly, the way I would have done Did they know how I would feel, and wish they were the one? Did the angels cry out loudly, for the unjustness of your plight Did they call “Lord Jesus,” and lead you to the light? Did the angels softly kiss your check, before you took your leave Did they remind you how I loved you so, and forevermore I’d grieve? Did the angels whisper in your ear, “Don’t worry, you will not go alone” Did they know part of me went with you, the day God called you home? -Anonymous

Ken Wilson, a pastor, and Mark Mogensen, an elder, are affiliated with Orange Covenant Church in Orange, California. They both regularly attend meetings of a chapter of Parents of Murdered Children which convenes once a month at the fellowship hall of their church. Besides offering their support and encouragement to this large monthly gathering-the meeting I attended had over 40 people present-they host occasional smaller group meetings of homicide victim’s families, open to any one who wishes to attend.

Brad As you come in contact with the parents of murdered children and learn about them, what do you find they’re like? Ken: My first impression of them, and it’s been four or five years now that I’ve been working with them, is that they’re people who need 85

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a place to meet each other, and talk with each other. You sense immediately that these people are hurting, and you feel like there is not really much you can do for them. But it turns out that they’re grateful if you just listen, if you just provide a place for them to come and talk to you, and talk about what they are feeling. They need someone to talk to about their hurt, their pain, their struggle for justice, everything.

Brad As pastors, do you find that people who’ve lost loved ones to murder are eager to talk with you about their feelings toward God, or are they reticent?

M a r k Some people will talk openly about their Christian faith, and how that’s been the only thing that has enabled them to survive their ordeal. Others, though, don’t talk about religious questions, or say that they’re angry at God for letting this happen, and they wonder how could a good God exist, given what has happened to them. For the most part, I’d say when they talk about God, it is with some confusion and anger. Brad: What have you found helps them to begin to start feeling a bit better?

Ken: The willingness to try to dialogue with someone else about their experience is really the first step, I think. Because when murder victims’ families talk with each other, what they are really doing is helping each other to heal, to start to deal with what has happened. And I find that when they talk together, say, in a small group setting, they are able to be very honest, and express their struggle with God clearly, because they know they are among the only people who really understand what they’re going through. Brad What answers do you give to parents when they express their rage at God, when they wonder how, if God exists and is all-loving,their child could be murdered?

Ken: Well, that certainly is a legitimate question, and it’s hard to answer it in a really satisfying way. Some answers I have given include the point that yes, there is evil in this world, but there’s also a lot of good, and, though I can’t explain the mystery of God’s presence in the middle of this world’s evil, somehow His goodness comes out of bad things and their consequences. This kind of answer does not give them immediate hope, but it can give them a kind of understanding that can be helpful over time. As people listening to the parents of murdered children, it’s important that we understand and accept their anger and questions, and not try to criticize them or judge them. It’s O.K. to question God, and it’s

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O.K. to be angry at God. Those emotions are normal. If you look at the book of Psalms, there’s a lot of passages like “Why do you let these wicked people prosper, God?” “Why are you doing this?” and that is normal human processing of hurt and pain and anger. M a r k I’ve never felt like we’ve tried to come up with an “answer” for the people we speak with who are suffering with homicide. It’s so hard to even try to put yourself in their place, because the depth of what they feel is so great, and their loss is so tremendous. What we try to do is just provide a chance for people to talk to us, to express their pain and rage and bewilderment. We want them to let their anger out, and we try to let them know that God can handle their questions, and doesn’t judge them for being so upset. We want to let them know that God cares for them, and cares about what they’re feeling, and wants to help them, even though it may not feel like that to them. Brad So you’re trying to keep the lines of communication open, trying to see the process of healing begin, not to say that their pain ever goes away, but that they begin to integrate their loss into the rest of their lives, so that it becomes a painful part of a healthy whole.

Ken: That’s right, there’s one woman we’ve met with who lost a young child, her child was murdered about a decade ago, and she has hope in God now, but she’s still very angry, and doesn’t like to be preached at, doesn’t like people to tell her she shouldn’t be angry. She’s journeyed a long way through grief.

M a r k When you hear this woman talk today, it’s amazing, because when she first started coming to chapter meetings of Parents of Murdered Children at our church, she couldn’t talk at all. She could not speak. All she would do, for ayear, is sit and listen and cry. But now she’s able to talk about her experience and her feelings, and, although the emotion is still raw and intense, she’s able to talk, she’s able to talk about her faith, and about how much she depends on God. What’s really striking, though, about the people we meet, is how much they depend on the group. There is a really profound camaraderie among them because of their life experience. So they understand each other in a way we simply can’t. Ken: There’s a barrier between the parents of murdered children and the rest of us. It is a barrier a person is pushed through, nobody wants to go through it. So only those who by tragedy have been pushed through this horrible barrier can understand what life is like on that side of the barrier.

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I’ve experienced death through family members, and church members. But it’s not the same. The metaphor I use is a megaphone. Death is terrible and sad no matter how you experience it. Losing parents or siblings through old age or disease is painful. But losing someone, especially a child, to murder is so painful, it is the “loudest” feeling of grief we can have. It’s like being right next to the megaphone of pain, where the sound is the strongest. Other losses hurt terribly, of course, but they are a bit further out from the megaphone. Someone can say they understand what death is about, but they can’t say they understand what that sort of death is about.

Brad Well said. M a r k Their faith though, too, sustains them in a way I think that might be a bit different than the group does. The group gives the folks a day-to-day source of support, a concrete community. I think their trust in God is the knowledge that, overall, God is going to take care of them, that they are secure in him in eternal matters. They rely on Him for day-to-day needs too, but their faith tells them He has his hands on their lives, and that, in this world, things work the way they work, and that though some of us suffer terrible things, we have no choice but to deal with the hardship that comes to us.

Ken: It’s helped me, as someone who listens to the families of murder victims, to realize that God knows the feeling of having a son be murdered unjustly. According to the Gospel, and Christian theology, there was a reason for it, but still, God understands what it is like to lose a son, to suffer injustice. So, although I don’t know what it is like to suffer as they have, God does, and that gives me the patience, I think, to sit and listen to their very sad and difficult and outrageous stories. This is a part of the discussion I have with victim’s families sometimes: you are not alone, you are not alone, God understands. M a r k I remember being present when Ken has mentioned this to a small group of people, and I remember seeing tears in some of their eyes, because, I think, it helped them form a connection to God. Just as they know they are connected to each other by this horrible experience, they realized perhaps they are connected to God in this same way, He’s had the same sort of feelings they have. Brad Do you find the parents and others you see who’ve suffered because of homicide have a lot of anger toward our society?

Ken: Of course.

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Mark These families really are disgusted by the “murder as entertainment” mentality of our culture. It’s all around us-film, TV, the news-for kids and everybody else to watch. Ken: See, people who’ve lost loved ones to murder feel that impact again when they see a murder portrayed on TV. It tears them apart. It means something to them it doesn’t mean to just the average person. They know the reality of the event, and there is nothing entertaining about it. They know what will be left behind in the lives 6f this murder victim’s loved ones.

Brad The focus on murder and on murderers, in popular and legal culture, must be agonizing to the families of victims. Mark It is, of course, and it magnifies their frustration at the injustice they’ve experienced. It’s not uncommon for them to spend a lot of time talking about how angered and frustrated they are at murder as entertainment. When you think about, I mean really think about all the things these people deal with, being reminded by everything they see of the murder of their child, feeling that pain over and over, day after day, it’s amazing they’re able to function as well as they do. And some of them even do things like go and speak to groups of kids at schools, or people in prisons, and share their stories with them in an effort to make a positive impact in the world. It really is amazing. Brad Do you think this says something about the human spirit, about the drive within people to do what they can to make something redemptive about even the worst of situations? Ken: Yes, and like Mark said, we’ve known several people who’ve been like that. Like one man said who lost his son, his son’s life was more than the few seconds in which he was murdered. His whole life was a much longer and very beautiful story, and, this man said, by talking about his son’s whole life to troubled or incarcerated youth, he may be able to emphasize that, and bring about a meaning to his son’s life and death that may save someone else’s life. By telling the story of his son’s life to young kids in detention, he can humanize murder victims, and this may stop these kids from taking another human being’s life, which is the direction they’re already moving in. But I wanted to return to something Mark said. Many of the families we speak with feel as though they are treated as a bother, a someone who’s in the way of their case being solved. They feel as though they are treated like they are in the way.

Brad By whom?

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Ken: By the police, by the courts, by the attorneys, by whatever process they have to go through in their case. They don’t have many rights, and this is frustrating to them. In fact, they have less rights than the murderer. Only in the last 20 years have they been able to even speak up in court, after the trial, and tell what the impact of their loved one’s murder has been in their lives and in their family. What gets me, is that, when I put myself in their place, these people who’ve just had their child murdered can’t even go over and touch them at the scene, they may not be able to see the body for several days or even weeks. They have no chance to even say good-bye. It’s necessary to be able to establish evidence and have a good case, but the pain to the families is simply tremendous.

Brad Of course. At the scene of a murder, a parent’s overwhelming impulse is to be at the side of their fallen child, to hold them, and weep over their body. But they can’t do that. And the pain and trauma of this, of not having been able to join their child at that moment, stays with them, I should think, through the years. Mark: It does, and so does further frustration. The inability of the police to share evidence about the case with parents, to give them information about their own child’s death or the investigation into the case, is exasperating for parents, and this frustration stays with them over time. It is a part of their suffering.

Brad So this experience of frustration at every turn through the criminal justice system, what affect does it have on the grieving process

for the parents or other loved ones of a murder victim?

Ken: It prolongs it. I think it stifles the grieving process because the victim’s family can’t really enter into it well, because there are so many unanswered questions and they can’t get the answers. They can’t get the information they need to begin to really move through the process of grieving.

Mark: The word I would use is “intensifies.” It intensifies the grief and mourning they are experiencing. And of course, in some cases, the victim’s families are approached as suspects themselves in the beginning, so they have to endure that aspect of it as well. That’s a terrible position to be placed in. Ken: When somebody murders somebody, look at the complexity of what goes on. It affects everything around the victim’s family. Sometimes it tears families apart with all the strife and stress it creates. One man came in the other night and said, “My son’s been dead for five years,

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my wife and I are arguing with each other all the time, it seems all we ever do is yell, and I don’t know what to do about it.” So, I think it’s easy to see that if grief doesn’t at least get partially resolved in a couple’s relationship, they are headed for real trouble. Brad Earlier we talked about the anger inside the parents of murdered children, but what attitudes do you think they would have the rest of society adopt towards murder and the entertainment culture generally?

Ken: Well, I think they want the general public to know the truth about what it’s like to be a victim. It’s not just an hour and a half show, where you have the murder, and solve it, and get to go home. But in reality it affects the rest of your life. It disrupts the entirety of your life. There’s no good representation out there, in any aspect of the entertainment industry, of what it is really like to be a victim, to have a child or loved one murdered. In addition, it’s my sense that these families would really like to see the public boycott entertainment that glorifies murder and murderers. Stop going to it, stop supporting it, stop tolerating it. I think that’s how these families really feel about it. They know how deeply murder affects people. They know how painful it is, and how there is nothing light or entertaining about it, and they wish other people realized that. M a r k They hold that part of our culture that so flippantly glorifies murder responsible for what has happened to their loved one. They have seen the connection in their own lives between public images cheapening human life and individuals’ actions taking human life. Of course they want to see the entertainment industry act more responsibly. Brad So with the standard violent imagery, the entertainment industry victimizes these families all over again, bringing before themor their communities-the cheapening of human life and the exaltation of the fascination with murder.

Ken: Certainly, it’s capitalism, and if money is to be made by showing something, no matter how objectionable, somebody is going to show it. I’ve been thinking about this, and trying to think about what’s different in our country today than say 50 years ago. If you think about World War 11, our whole country was involved in it to some degree. Everybody was impacted by the war. When a neighbor lost a son, everyone felt the loss. I remember my mom telling me that of the 12 boyhood friends of my dad who went off to the war, only one came back. Everybody, all over the country, knew of someone who had been

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taken, and everybody was sensitive to the pain these losses caused in families. Today, though, we don’t identify with the loss when somebody is murdered. In our culture-as a culture-we don’t say, “That’s terrible.” We don’t go over to the family’s house, and share in their loss. We don’t take them coffee, and say “Oh, I’m so sorry your son was killed.” If he had been killed in a war, we would do that, just as we did in World War 11. But today, that sensitivity to loss and grief only exists among the few people who’ve had to experience the aftermath of murder. We’ve lost the cultural sensitivity and solidarity that was a part of our lives 50 or 60 years ago.

Brad Interesting. Thank you both.

PART I11

Reaching for Resolution

http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/LVSC8

CHAPTER 8

Steps toward Healing for Parents of Murdered Children and Other Survivors of Homicide I held him when he was born, I held him as he died, and I believe I’ll hold him again one day in heaven. -Sharon Cecchi, mother of Matthew Cecchi, murdered at age 9 Although my daughter is no longer with me, she’ll always be within me. -A mother of a murder victim Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. -Helen Keller When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. -Corrie Ten Boom

No discussion of murder or grief would be complete without reflection on the concept of healing or resolution. Before we embark on such a discussion though, two facts must be made abundantly clear. First, those of us who have never experienced the murder of a child or other loved one cannot know what it is like. There is an impermeable psychic wall between us and them, and, though we can try to imagine and empathize, we cannot fully know and completely understand the nature of the experience. We can develop compassion and insight regarding the experience of those touched by murder, but total and comprehensive personal understanding is simply not within the realm of human 95

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possibility. This is a basic and very important presupposition of this study, and of any grief-work with survivors of homicide. Second, relatives of homicide victims, and the parents of murdered children, never “recover” from their grief. They don’t “get over it.” They are forever changed by the experience, and their lives are never the samk as they were before murder suddenly stole their child, spouse, or sibling. This is another fundamental premise of murder-grief that those outside of this most awful of clubs must always keep in mind. “Life goes on” is the popular cliche helping Americans deal with all manner of inconvenience and hassle. But loss by murder is on a different scale of anguish altogether, and no one who suffers in this way or wants to help those who suffer in this way ought to believe that the pain of such tragedies can be erased like an errant scribble, or deleted like a typo. It is an anguish that endures. Healing and resolution can come, but the loss-with its trauma and consequencescannot be undone. Given the focus of this book on the parents of murdered children, we will concentrate our discussion of grief and healing on their context, the context of murdered-child grief, hoping and believing that much of what applies to their profoundly intense experience will also be keenly relevant to those who have lost parents, spouses, siblings, relatives or close friends to homicide.

TO BE THE PARENT OF A MURDERED CHILD What do parents of murdered children feel? Though this is a very difficult and unpleasant question to reflect on, and though, as I said, it cannot be adequately answered by those of us untouched by this ultimate calamity, it is important that we ponder it. Although the interviews in this book yield some sense of the anguish endured by parents of murdered children, personal reflection on what such a profound loss might be like for us will build within us a deeper concern and solidarity with those who have actually had children murdered, and it will develop within us a proper sense of outrage at homicide. So, as a thought experiment, think about your own child, or, if you are not a parent, think as if you had a child of your own. Think of the joy you felt when she was born; think of all the messy diaper changes, the nights your sleep was interrupted by her newborn cries; think of how you worried when she was sick, how relieved you were when she recovered; think of your joy and wonder at seeing her grow, your

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ecstatic glee when she first smiled at you and returned your affection with a giggle or a snuggle against your check; think of all the hours you spent planning her future, picking a school for her to attend, every month saving money for her to go to college; think of all those nights you tenderly tucked her into bed at night, softly kissing her check saying “I love you with all my heart,” then gazed at her as she peacefully slept; think of your pride at seeing her school work, or hearing her teacher compliment her; think of all the times you went to a restaurant together, or vacation or movies; think of all the games and concerts and her performances you attended; think of how you dreamed of her future, what she would become, the things she would do with her life, who she would marry, how wonderful it would be to a grandparent to her sons or daughters; think of all the times you bought her clothes or made her lunch for the next day’s school or helped her with homework; think of all the times you had to discipline her for her own good, even though it was painful for you to have to do that to her; think of your pride at every graduation, and how happy it made you to see the feeling of accomplishment or self-satisfaction wash over your daughter’s face. And what of the thousands upon thousands of other moments-good and bad, easy and tough-that you and your daughter shared together through the years, the passage of time and shared experiences melding your two souls together in an inseparable intimacy and inexpressible depth of loving emotion. Now, suddenly, a moment of sheer panic and dizzying horror as you get an unexpected knock at the door, or a phone call at an odd hour: “I’m very sorry,” a regretful voice says to you as your heart starts pounding, “but your daughter has been murdered.” A thousand questions instantly flood your mind as you go numb with disbelief. Screaming, yelling, howling, and confusion fill the air as you are gripped with a feeling so unknown and so urgently horrible you do not know what to do, where to go, what to say. In an unanticipated instant, your entire mental world has been shattered, your life has been forever altered. Fred Goldman, father of murder victim Ron Goldman, recounts the moment he was told of his son’s murder, The instant I heard [Ron had been killed] I fell into shock, stunned by a blast of disbelief and pain so great that the only thing I could do was push it down and bury it somewhere deep inside. . . . The moment blurred. I was numb. Everything was going blank. Suddenly the receiver was back in its place on the kitchen wall. [My wife1 Patti and I held on to one another, quivering. Muffled screams came from places deep inside of us, places that were totally alien and uncomprehending [l,p. 81.

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This is just the beginning. The dark and unwanted package of grief delivered to you in that instant will continue to unfold through the years and decades to come. The searing pain of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, other people's children's birthdays, graduations, and marriages will be felt over and over again, as the loss of your child gradually manifests itself in your life. No less painful will be the array of collateral losses that may come, for example the end of friendships, loss of your health, loss of your job, and quite possibly divorce. Wanda Bincer describes her own experience: I was thrust into the world of senseless violence, grief and anguish with the sudden news of the murder of my oldest child, my only daughter. It began with utter shock and disbelief and a slim hope that a mistake had been made. The shock and disbelief still catch me at times, even though four years have passed. And of course a terrible mistake was made: some cruel and misguided man ended the life of a young woman who loved life, people and animals. She picked up stray puppies, loved children, had a radiant sunny smile and wanted to start a camp for mentally retarded and disabled children. A part of me was killed with her and I will never be the same again [21.

HOW TO HELP THE PARENT OF A MURDERED CHILD What then can be done by people of goodwill who want to attempt to help, in even the smallest ways, parents of murdered children? Here are 11positive steps one can take to be at least modestly helpful. To begin with, two difficult truths must constantly be kept in mind. First, as I said earlier, unless you have experienced this kind of loss directly, fully knowing and understanding it is not a possibility. If you pretend to know what it is like, you will only annoy the grieving parent, and increase their suffering. Second, resign yourself to the inevitability that you will make mistakes as you try to help parents living with murdered-child grief. You will inadvertently say something they construe as insensitive, or you will accidentally say something that ignites their temper. This is unavoidable given the unique context of your interaction with them, so do not let this inevitability discourage you from assisting them. Similarly, don't take it personally should they lose their temper with you, yell at you, etc. They are under a lot of stress, and if you keep that in mind you will better understand their attitudes and reactions. With those two ideas as a beginning framework, a third principle for those wanting to help suffering parents is listen to the parent. They

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need someone to listen to them express themselves, even if they do so incoherently, or with yelling and invective, or however. Listen intently to them. By doing so, you communicate you care, and you give them permission to allow their deepest thoughts and emotions to emerge. Fourth, don’t be afraid to ask them about their child, or to mention their child in conversation. Rest assured their murdered child is always on their mind. Do not feel as though you must avoid mentioning him or her. Fifth, continue to express sympathy, and acknowledge the unfairness and injustice of what happened to their child. Sixth, while understanding the subjectivity of grief and grieving, do not encourage the suffering parent to take solace in self-destructive behavior like drinking alcohol, being violent, taking drugs, being sexually reckless, or any other pathology. Sometimes it may be necessary to gently yet firmly warn against engaging in any such activities. Seventh, be ready to recommend competent professional grief therapists, and offer to drive the parent to their appointments. Eighth, sometime, probably many months or even a few years into their grieving, gently try to encourage the grieving parent to get involved in some new activities or hobbies. It is a human temptation to allow ourselves to live in self-pity, and focus on how badly we’ve been treated. While obviously such feelings are a part of the grieving process for parents of murdered children, as their friend you may need, at the appropriate time, to sensitively encourage them to begin considering and planning the rest of their life, their life to come without their child. Nine, understand that the parent has now changed, don’t expect them to be exactly the same person they were before. Don’t expect them to necessarily join with you as eagerly as before in the activities that you as friends once shared. Ten, stand with them as they endure the criminal justice system, from the search for an assailant to arrest to trial to sentencing to parole hearings. Rarely are any of these steps fully satisfying for parents, even when they go as well as possible. As a friend, enduring this torment with them is a great service you can render. Also, if the parent has the opportunity to deliver in court a Victim Impact Statement, telling the court of the toll the murder of their child has exacted from them and their family, be ready to help the parent develop their statement. This can be a very powerful and helpful chance for grieving family members to publicly express their outrage, sadness, despair, and other emotions. Eleven, try to be patient with their emotional upheavals. For example, if you are out to dinner with them, and they suddenly burst

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into tears, crying loudly, don’t allow yourself to be embarrassed. Realize that their psychological and emotional lives may not be stable. Bonnie Hunt Conrad, the mother of a murdered child, presents some excellent ideas for ways that friends of parents of murdered children can give both immediate and future help to mourning parents [31. The following discussion summarizes some of her practical recommendations.

Immediate Help Immediately after a child has been murdered, parents will need help with specific tasks. If you are a close friend, you may be able to meet these needs, which might include: handling incoming phone calls, assisting with funeral plans, caring for elderly relatives in the house or the family’s pets, furing the cars, feeding the family, making arrangements for relatives arriving from out-of-state, doing the laundry, etc. Any stress relieving chore will be a tremendous help. Often, dealing with the mundane tasks that are always present-after the stunning heartbreak of being told your precious son or daughter has been murdered-sends grieving parents over the edge. The “little things” of life become towering mountains of difficulty. In addition to helping in these useful ways, you can help by not allowing yourself or anyone else to needlessly probe the family about the details of the murder. Most Americans have lived their lives saturated in the prurient culture of emotional voyeurism. Avoid any “Sally Jesse Raphael” moments, and don’t permit the exploiting of the parents’ anguish. Another manner of assistance friends can give is overtly honoring or respecting the memory of the murdered child. If the late child had a talent or interest, make it a point to acknowledge that to the parents, or celebrate it at the memorial service, or later on birthdays or anniversaries. Establish a scholarship fund in their name in a field they excelled at, like art or music. Take a poem or painting or award the child had won, and have it framed or placed in an attractive setting, and give it to the parents. If you have photos of their child, arrange a collage and give it to them. If you have a child who was a friend of the murdered child, have your child write a letter to the grieving parents in homage of their late son or daughter. Arrange for the murdered child’s classmates to write poems or draw pictures of their classmate, and give those to the parents. Also of importance in the immediate days after the murder is to attend the viewing and/or the memorial service, whether that be in a church or graveside or other location. It is incredibly important to

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parents to see people, a lot of people, attend their child’s funeral. Besides attending yourself, it would help to try to encourage others to attend the service. Further, avoid focusing on assessing blame for the murder. While obviously the murderer is guilty of a profound crime, and is a proper target of rage, matters won’t be helped by, in the aftermath of the event, speculating about who else might be to blame. Certainly the parents should not be permitted to blame themselves for what has happened, as they may well try to do in their despair. If necessary, they should be reminded that they are not at fault. Lastly, listen for expressions by the parents of a desire to die. Often thoughts of suicide flood parents’ minds in the wake of their child’s murder, and friends should take steps to prevent such a compounding of family tragedy from occurring. If there are guns in the house, consider removing them, and likewise with powerful medications, alcohol, or other potentially lethal substances. When appropriate, urge parents to seek medical or psychiatric help, and be prepared to independently notify the family’s physician if the parents’ psychological condition becomes urgent.

Future Help In terms of future help, remember that the grieving process will never truly end completely for the parent of a murdered child. Decades hence painful feelings will persist. Do not be surprised if progress is very slow. Perhaps the most helpful action you can take long-term is to treat the parents as you always have. While they will change through great mourning, some aspects of their personality will remain the same, and they will need you only more now that they have suffered so traumatically. If you avoid them or disappear from their lives altogether, their feelings of loss and alienation will only be exacerbated. One of the most wrenching times for any parent of a murdered child comes months and often many years after their loss: the task of disposing of their child’s property, such as their toys, clothes, car, pictures, etc., and redecorating the child’s room By assisting them however they wish you to in this tear-filled work, you will be rendering them a great help. Importantly, remember that, given the radical subjectivity of grief and grieving, don’t put your own limits or timetable on the parents’ sorrow. They have lost the most important person in their lives in the most frustrating way possible, and so allow for a trajectory of feeling that is unique and perhaps confusing to you. Avoid statements like

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“Don’t you think you should just get on with the rest of your life now?,” “At least you’re young, you can have other kids to replace this one,” or “It’s time to move on, put this behind you and get over it.” Eric Schlosser nicely summarizes the uniquely terrible situation of parents of murdered children, When a person dies after a long illness, his or her family has time to prepare emotionally for the death, to feel an anticipatory grief. When someone is murdered, the death usually comes without warning. A parent might have breakfast with a child on an ordinary morning-and then never see or hold or speak to that child again. The period of mourning after a natural death lasts one, two, perhaps three years. The much more complicated mourning that follows a homicide may be prolonged by the legal system, the attitudes of society, the nature of the crime, and the final disposition of the case. A murder is an unnatural death; no ordinary rules apply. The intense grief experience by survivors can last four years, five years, a decade, even a lifetime [41.

And of course, friends can help over time by remembering the birthday of the murdered child, the parents’ pain at holidays, the anniversary of their child’s murder, etc. Mention these significant dates t o the parents. They are thinking about it, even if they don’t say so. And if they say they don’t feel like talking about it, at least you have shown you care. I know a man who suddenly lost his 12-year-old son who had been an athlete and football player. Every Fall, the start of football season was a very difficult time for this father and his family, and he always wanted to talk about his son especially during that time of year. Be sensitive to the “seasons” of grief that parents endure, and try to anticipate them through the years.

WHAT PARENTS OF MURDERED CHILDREN CANDOTOHELPTHEMSELVES There are a host of actions parents of murdered children can take to regain a sense of control over their lives. They can successfully complete the journey from “Victim” to survivor. It can be done, and parents everywhere have learned to survive even the most brutal of murders of their precious children. There is one step that all such people have taken, one behavior they all have in common: they have made a decision-consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or implicitly-to go on living. This is by no means to suggest that they are forgetting their child, ceasing to work on their child’s case, or pretending not to grieve deeply. Rather, the decision to live on means that the parent will engage life, try to live it the best they can,

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and to the fullest of their ability as a survivor of homicide. It is, at the deepest level, a resolve to integrate the murder of one’s child into one’s life and self, to accept the reality of it, and to exist with the permanent pain of great loss. It is a profoundly courageous act, and a profound affirmation of the human spirit. Parents in search of the motivation for the survival-decision can find it in a number of areas. These include their remaining children and family, their profession, bringing the killer to justice, a sense of responsibility to God to make the most of their life, or, as one mother said whose son was shot on a street while walking his girlfriend home one night, the killer had already taken too much from her and her family, and she “could not, would not, let him have more” 13, p. 1111.

Examples of Physical Work There is a physical component to living with great grief. The experience of deep loss is a tangible, physical experience as well as a mental, emotional, and spiritual one. Parents of homicide victims who have made the decision to live can care for their bodies in all of the ways any one else does, including exercising, eating well, taking vitamins, doing relaxation exercises, listening to music they like, and doing breathing exercises. Being out of doors is also a simple but helpful practice. Sometimesjust sitting on the porch, or in the backyard, or on a bench at the park, or on the sand at the beach can mean progress. Some parents may find satisfaction in using their bodies to create something, like a painting, a redecorated house, a new landscape on their property, a chair or table or some other piece of carpentry. Some may take up a new hobby, like jogging, playing a sport, playing an instrument, or some type of collecting. While this is all easier said than done, and while it may be a struggle just to get out of bed in the morning, some manner of physical activity A l l contribute to positive development.

Examples of Mental Work Establishing a healthy attitude toward the circumstances they now find themselves in is critically important for parents of murdered children. Obsessions with rage, revenge, violence, misanthropy, and one’s own suffering are normal, but should nonetheless be resisted as much as possible, especially as the years go by. Remember, with murdered-child grief, “normal” emotions don’t necessarily equal healthy or helpful emotions. A desire for vigilante revenge is normal, but obviously it should be resisted.

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But this recognition that some “normal” emotions are not good must be balanced with a non-judgmentalism on the part of both the griever and his supporters. If a grieving parent screams out for the blood of the murderer and his family, obviously they should not be scolded for doing so by their friends, nor should they be allowed to condemn themselves for so thinking. Grieving parents should begin by accepting that in all likelihood whatever they are feeling is normal, it is a commonly felt emotion or state by parents whose child has been murdered. They should not punish themselves for feeling so intensely what they do feel. They may face a wide variety of emotional, psychological, and practical sentiments, including: Feelings of isolation and helplessness A sense that no one else cares about their loss Feelings (unwarranted) of guilt for not having protected or rescued their child Torment at the final memory of their child, laying dead, their body bloody or mutilated Frustration at inaccurate reporting of the facts surrounding their child’s murder, and an inability to obtain information about the crime from police and the district attorney’s office Disorienting grief and misery, impairing the ability to function during the day at work, home, or doing errands Marital strain, frequently causing divorce Declining health, financial standing, strength of religious faith Intense depression sometimes causing moral lapses into alcohol and substance abuse or personal sexual recklessness Anger at entertainment media, politicians, and public interest organizations who, to the parent of a murdered child, seem to glorify murder and murderers, and focus on their rights rather than the memory of the murder victim or the rights of that victim’s surviving family Consuming anger over a light sentence for the murderer, or a plea agreement resulting in a light sentence for the murderer Distracting obsession with revenge and disabling fantasies of killing the assailant Severe frustration at not being allowed to speak during the trial, or perhaps even be allowed in the courtroom during the trial The unending pain of memory, with mementos around the house, songs, pictures, the sight of other children and smells all reminding a parent of their murdered child Nightmares about the murder, night sweats, chronic insomnia

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New health problems brought on by the stress of grief A lack of desire to care for oneself, wash and shower, take medication, or eat properly Thoughts and fantasies of suicide, loss of the will to live Spontaneous and uncontrollable outbursts of crying in public Regularly having to relive the horror of their loss, by knowing of or attending regular parole hearings of their child’s murderer, and the very real possibility that he will be set free Armed with the knowledge that what they are feeling is to be expected though not necessarily to be indulged, parents can begin to develop positive mental habits, the most important of which is talking about their grief, thereby beginning to assimilate it into their mind and personality. An excellent way of doing this is to join a support group like Parents of Murdered Children which will allow parents to hear and identify with others’ experiences, as well as relate their own experience and perhaps learn helpful facts about the criminal justice system from other parents’ encounters with it. Being around those who understand the totally unique experience of murdered-child grief is always a source of great support to suffering parents. As one mother said whose daughter had been stabbed to death during a robbery of her home, “Group involvement is the greatest way to start the healing process. It is a safe place to talk and no one will judge you” [3, p. 1291. Many parents have also noticed that by trying to help others with their grief, or by trying to urge youth to avoid crime, they have contributed to their own personal progress through mourning and loss. By harnessing the emotional power of their experience and using it to somehow aid other people with their difficulties, contributing to goodness in the world, parents find some redemptive purpose in their child’s murder. This is not to say everything becomes “O.K.,” but rather that parents feel some sense of satisfaction in tangibly seeing their loss assist other people. They see their child’s legacy impact other people and the overall community for good, and they derive a sense of contentment from this. As one parent said, “Since it is a lifetime of adjustment without my son, I give help to others who have had a loss. I have [thus] regained a balance in my life with my son’s death as a part of it” [3, p. 1211. There is a deep paradox here: as human beings, we find selfsatisfaction and self-fulfillment when we focus on others, not ourselves. This is a fact about human nature, and it also holds true with the way we live with grief. We process our losses best when, even in the midst of our pain, we join with others in their suffering, and express empathy

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for them and what they are enduring. We mend our own sorrows by tending to the wounds of others. By coming to know the commonality of human suffering, we are able to see that it is not the full and total story of our individual life, but rather a part of it. The grief we are participatmg in is a part of the larger human story, not the whole of it. It is as though our grief is the sober base line in the larger symphony of our lives, that includes the wonderful life of our child before he was murdered and the wonderful memory and legacy of his life now that he is gone. By helping others with their pain, we realize we are more than a mourner, we are endued with a power to contribute to the soul-healing of others. The lightning strike of great grief that so horribly touched us has given us a gift of insight into the struggles of others that is a great source of strength for them, and, as we give this gift away, we ourselves are regenerated. Learning to accept the strange intensity and wide range of the new emotions that come with murdered-child grief, learning to help others who suffer, and coming to see your loss in the context of the good of your life and the beauty of your child’s life and legacy are not easy, and never without difficulty. Coping will always be imperfect, pain will always exist. The mental fight to reconstruct one’s life after the devastating explosion of child-murder is very long and arduous, but it can be won. Faith

The choking grief brought on with the death-especially by murder-of one’s child has always been one of the strongest challenges to religious faith. It is an existentially disorienting tragedy, so cruel in its ambush of paradox: death amid youth, the end of a life before it has fully begun, a funeral instead of a graduation or wedding, the stale pall of death over the young body of new life, no chance to say “Good-bye”or “I love you” a final time. Parents of murdered children are sentenced to a lifetime of mystery. Who would our child have become? What would he have done with his life? Would he have married and made us grandparents? In not knowing how he might have lived, parents also lose a measure of self-knowledge and intimacy with each other. They never find out who they each might have become as his father and mother, how the fullness of his life would have caused them to change and grow. Indeed, through the years the tendrils of grief can creep into the soul, altering one’s psyche and relationships in mysterious ways. The American presidency has become a sort of public illustration of this phenomenon, Abraham Lincoln and Calvin Coolidge each bore the

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immense stress of losing young sons while in office; John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan both had their already complex selves enduringly altered by neonatal death. Still today, former President George H. W. Bush cannot discuss the death by cancer of his three-year-old daughter-which occurred about a half-century ago-without a tearful, inarticulate stammering. From the melancholia of Lincoln and the rueful taciturnity of Coolidge, to the reckless hedonism of Kennedy, the strange familial detachment of Reagan and the emotional aphasia of George Bush, we see in these men’s demeanor the reverberations of soul-trauma. The harrowing mourning of parents who have lost children reminds us that the terrain of the psyche is not as well-charted as we like to believe. The twenty-first century sees us mapping the brain and reading DNA, yet the dark and tortuous tunnels of psychic trauma into which the vortex of great loss conducts us remain largely unexplored. What then, is the human soul to do? Can the oppressive weight of such loss be in any way leavened? For the believing heart, the answer is a courageous “Yes.” For amid personal ravaging, the redemptive paradox of loss emerges: by being reduced we grow. In the experience of being cut back to the root of our selves, we can find a concentrated clarity in the nature of our humanity. We see our finitude, vulnerability, and deeper immateriality. We sense more urgently than we otherwise do the inherent void within us that cannot be filled but by the healing embrace of the One who, being personal yet infinite, is alone able to integrate and bring meaning to our bewildering human experience. The flaming sorrow of grief can become the Refiner’s fire, consuming spiritual dross, leaving behind only understanding which cannot be burned. And in its purity, that substance of soul becomes a new and utterly priceless treasure. It seems to me that profound loss brings a strange point of contact with the ultimate purposes of life, with the true nature of living and the fantastic reality of the hereafter. Indeed, ironically, intense sorrow may well be one of the more under recognized phenomenon supporting the plausibility of God’s existence. For most people, the initial response to child-loss is a rage against God for allowing such tragedy to befall them. Yet, why should it turn us into God’s prosecutors, unless we had a natural, prior knowledge and expectation that matters ought to have been different? It is more than the unusualness or untimeliness of child-loss which so provokes us to shake our mortal fists at the most High. We are moved by the violation of the inner analogy to the transcendent that the parent-child relationship represents. As we are designed to mature toward God, so our children are intended to be intimately with us for years. We perceive our

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relationship to our children is more than physiological and emotional. It is a bonding of soul. Thus, the existential jolt we experience at their death, in time, may speak to us of the metaphysical by heightening our awareness of it. The shaking of our souls gives us a penetrating vision that renders transparent the often otherwise thick curtain confining our consciousness to this side of the veil. The turmoil of intense sorrow can propel us up to the limits of this world, providing us a hint of the larger order, an ecstatic suspicion that there is an ultimate purpose beyond the dimness of our today. In more reflective moments parents of murdered children may sense this, but still the suffocating cloak of grief lays heavy upon them, letting them perceive little other than their own tremendous pain. Their intense, amplified emotions of grief, rage, helplessness, emptiness, and regret can have such a paralyzing effect on their spirit that they can only wonder “Why God?” Parents of murdered children often and understandably feel betrayed by God, and furious at him for allowing the murder of their child [51. But of course, God is not to blame, but rather an evil person, the murderer, is to blame. In a world where people can choose to be good or evil, some will use their freewill to hurt others. This is neither God’s will nor his fault, but it is a consequence of human liberty. If authentic human love and virtue-which require genuine human freedom-are to exist, evil is always going to be a possibility. There is no way to avoid the connection between freedom and virtue or vice. Human freewill will always lead to one or the other. God is not responsible for the tragedy of murder. Parents’ of murdered children must struggle to believe and remember that God is just. This is important for their psychological and emotional well-being. There is moral order in the universe, and in the end true justice will be done, and everyone will know it. The conduct of every human being will be rightly and wisely weighed, and all will be fully accountable for their behavior. It is in faith that parents of murdered children will find their deepest and most enduring comfort. The heart of God weeps with their’s, and if they come to know this, it will preserve their sanity and overall health better than any other realization. Inexplicable tragedy and grief has always been a part of human life. But the comforting knowledge that all will be right in the end is a powerful sentiment buried deep within the human heart, and grieving people can draw upon it for sustenance. I remember being in an old cemetery once and seeing this general feeling expressed on the gravestone of an 18-year-oldboy who died in 1891. The poem on the gravestone read,

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God knows why, with chilling touch Death gathers those we love so much And what now seems so strange and dim Will all be clear when we know Him.

The New Normal But there are no magic mantras or potions that will quickly ease the searing, burning pain of murdered-child grief. Not even time will necessarily bring healing, if the parent has not decided to enter into their new life as a survivor of homicide. But there is a goal to strive toward, one that can be reached. That goal is the “new normal,” a way of living where loss has become a painful part of the healthy whole of one’s self, and not the all-consuming, constant awareness it once was. Assimilating the loss into one’s consciousness, blending it into one’s moment by moment awareness, defines this transition. Childmurder changes parents forever, and their old life with their child will not return. But something beautiful can develop in its place, just as a healthy, attractive green plant can take root and flourish in ground that was once scorched by fire. When will a parent know she has settled into the new normal of a homicide survivor? Certainly there is no clear answer to this question. The subjectivity of grief means different people will take different journeys to the peace of the new normal, and these journeys will take different amounts of time, and they will all bring with them the scar left by soul-trauma, a scar that still throbs with powerful pain now and again. Someone seeking a new day cannot tell exactly when the morning starts, but there comes a time when they realize they are no longer staring up at a dark, black sky. The rosy fingers of dawn slip in when we are not expecting them, and they gently show us a new day has begun, and they beckon us to live in it with the hope of a new beginning. The new normal comes upon us like that, and we realize that we are living a new life in a new day, forever lighted by the sacred memory of our precious child.

ENDNOTES 1. Fred Goldman and Family with William and Marilyn Hoffer, His Name Is Ron, William Morrow, New York, 1997. The Goldman’sbook provides insight into the compounding difficulties of grieving amidst media interest in one’s case. For detailed discussion of their book, see the review by Brad Stetson, “Moving Past Pain,” The Orange County Register, April 27,1997.

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2. Comments of Wanda Bincer, M.D., drawn from the Parents of Murdered Children Web site, www.pomc.org. Another helpful presentation that can yield understanding of what parents of murdered children experience is Michael H. Hodges, “A Parent’s Anguish: Nothing Hurts Like the Death of a Child, Say Those Who Have Struggled On,” The Detroit News, January 28, 1997. 3. See Bonnie Hunt Conrad, When a Child Has Been Murdered: Ways You Can Help the Grieving Parents, Baywood, Amityville,New York, pp. 79-134,1998. 4. Eric Schlosser, “A Grief Like No Other,” The Atlantic Monthly, September 1997. 5. See Phillip Yancey, Disappointment With God, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1997,for very insightful discussion on this point. See also C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Macmillan, New York, 1962.

APPENDIX I

A Reflection on Teen Suicide

It is a rather stunning fact that the rate of teen suicide in this country has more than tripled since 1960. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among American adolescents. This, in the wealthiest, best educated, most technologically advanced and privileged society in the world. Why is this happening? Any social explanation can only be partial, as each case is unique, and since an element of the inexplicable always seems present in such epic tragedies. Further, we must admit that in moments of anguish and despair cultural and political recriminations come easy: Newt Gingrich faulted the Democrats for the murdering of Susan Smith, and former president Bill Clinton blamed Rush Limbaugh for the bombing of the OkJahoma City federal building. Still, we are not without some objective knowledge about the tides of our corporate life. It is part of our social history that the last forty years have seen a radical shift in the moral ethos and self-understanding of the American individual. The cultural critique of the Left-with its heavy accent on personal autonomy and suspicion of authority-has decisively altered the avenues of self-formation in American life. In postmodern America, meaning-making is very much a do-it-yourself enterprise, detached from the moorings of previously embedded traditional religious and ethical convictions. Although progressives ,and liberals frequently deride as “oppressive” the cultural framework of moral norms, behavioral expectations and social conventions that conditioned American life from the end of World War I1 to the sixties, this was an authority that served the practical purpose of placing teenagers-often given to instability and insecurity-under the regime of a nurturing discipline that functioned as a caretaker until they were mature enough to rationally deliberate about their own future, values, and worldview. Adult, professional elites may revel in the antinomian effects of the 111

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Leftist critique of middle-class values, but for youth the murky worldview and moral relativism that often ensues is stressful and discouraging. They can become anti-life, submerging themselves in dark music, dark moods, emotional narcissism, and a general rebellion that renders romantic fantasies of punishing peers and parents by “ending it all” seem attractive. This is not to suggest cynically that contemporary liberalism causes children to kill themselves. Rather, it is to recall us to the sobering reality that changes in the macro-structure of society inevitably filter down to alter the micro-structure of individual life-attitudes, often in a negative direction. Those of the Left, possessed as they are of an unconstrained optimism about human institutions and human capacities, often fail to see this. And it is young people, being at a stage of psycho-emotional development where they are very sensitive to cues from their social milieu, who are most exposed to the unsettledness that this anti-realism brings. Children, especially teenagers, need a solid framework of behavioral guidelines and rules in their lives-even though they may deny they do. Contemporary liberalism’s resolute unwillingness to publicly affirm a rudimentary vision of the good life and fundamental values to live by-coupled with its decisive portrayal of old-fashioned mores as unenlightened and intolerant-can contribute to a deep sense of anomie and a pervasive feeling of non-attachment among some young people. Drifting toward nihilism and meaninglessness, they wonder “Why does it matter how I act?” An unsatisfying answer to this quest‘ion can quickly evaporate the will to live in teens who may have isolated themselves from family, friends, and any close association. The deconstructive tides of the American Left have emancipated many teens from traditional values, yet these young people are not psychologically or intellectually developed enough to manage this unencumbered “freedom.” They find that liberty unordered by any ultimate ends or limits brings on an existential vertigo, a maelstrom of confusion that makes it hard for them to see purpose to their lives. The searing tragedy that is teen suicide is not new. But the frequency of it is, and if we do not honestly consider the possibility that our efforts at social engineering generate psychologically debilitating cultural messages for some youth, we risk continuing to reap this harvest of grief that is one of the most profound failures of any civilization.

APPENDIX I1

Groups Supporting Parents and Loved Ones of Murder Victims and Others Who Grieve

The Compassionate Friends P.O. Box 3696 Oak Brook, IL 60522 312-990-0010 The David Institute P.O. Box 1248 Tustin, CA 92781 Grief Recovery Institute P.O. Box 461659 Los Angeles, CA 90046-1659 888-773-2683 Justice For Murdered Children Berth 77 P7A San Pedro, CA 90731 310-547-1367 Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) 669 Airport Freeway, Suite 310 Hearst, TX 76053 817-268-6233 113

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Parents of Murdered Children 100 E. 8th Street, Suite B-41 Cincinnati, OH 45202 513-721-5683

SHARE Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support, Inc. St. Joseph Health Center 300 First Capitol Drive St. Charles, MO 63301 Suicide Prevention Center P.O. Box 1393 Dayton, OH 45401 513-223-9096

Bibliography B. Bartocci, Nobody’s Child Anymore. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2001. J. Bramblett, When Good-Bye is Forever: Learning to Live Again After the Loss of a Child. New York: Ballantine, 1991. G. Bristol, These TearsAre For Diane: A Mother’s Story. Waco, T X Word, 1978. J. T. Burton, Trusting God Through Tears:A Story to Encourage. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000. N. Chethik, Fatherloss. New York: Hyperion, 2000. B. H. Conrad, When a Child Has been Murdered, Amityville, NY:Baywood, 1998. B. H. Conrad, Who Will Sing To Me Now? Baltimore, MD: Books Unlimited, 1995. B. H. Conrad, When a Child Has Died. Santa Barbara, CA Fithian Press, 1995. D. A. Crenshaw, Bereavement. New York: Crossroad, 1990. G. W. Davidson, Understanding Mourning. Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1984. B. Deits, Recovering After Loss. Dealing With Death, Divorce and Other Losses. New York: MJF Books, 1988. N. H. Donnelley, I Never Know What to Say: How to Help Your Family and Friends Cope With Tragedy. New York: Ballantine, 1987. A. Finkbeiner, After the Death of a Child. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. G. B. Gentry, Stars I n the Deepest Night: After the Death of a Child. Lincoln, NE: Writer’s Club Press, June 1999. M. 0. Hyde, Missing and Murdered Children. Danbury, CT: Franklin Watts, 1998. J . W. James and R. Friedman, The Grief Recovery Handbook: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce and Other Losses. Revised Edition. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. E. Kiibler-Ross, On Death and Dying. New York: Macmillan, 1968. H. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. New York: Avon Books, 1981. C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed. New York: Bantam Books, 1976. D. Magee, What Murder Leaves Behind: The Victim’s Family. New York Dodd Mead, 1983. 115

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E. Mehren, After the Darkest Hour, the Sun Will Shine Again: A Parent’s Guide to Coping with the Loss of a Child. New York Simon & Schuster, 1997. E. H. Monkonnen, Murder in New York City. Berkeley, C A University of California Press, 2001. C. M. Parkes and R. W. Weiss, Recovery From Bereavement. New York Basic Books, 1983. C. R. Pfeffer, The Suicidal Child. New York: Guilford Press, 1986. A. Poussant, The Grief Response Following a Homicide. Paper presented at the 92nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. Toronto, Canada, 1984. T. A. Rando, Parental Loss ofa Child. Champaign, IL: Research Press Co.,1986. T. A. Rando, How to Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies. New York: Bantam Books, 1991. T. A. Rando, Treatment of Complicated Mourning. Champaign, IL: Research Press, 1993. B. Raphael, The Anatomy of Bereavement. New York: Basic Books, 1983. C. Sanders, How to Survive the Loss of a Child. Rocklin, CA: Prima, 1992. D. Sanford and G. Evans, It Must Hurt a Lot. Sisters, OR: Multnomah Press, 1986. G. Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995. L. Smedes, How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong? San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, Revised Edition, 1992. B. Stetson, Tender Fingerprints: A True Story of Loss and Resolution. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999. S. H . Straub, Death Without Notice. Amityville, Ny: Baywood, 2000. J. E. Tada and S. Estes, When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997. H . S . Vigueno, Dear David: Memoir of a Son’s Killing. Ventura, C A Regal Books, 1977. G. Westberg, Good Grief: Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971. M. A. White, Harsh Grief, Gentle Hope. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1995. N. Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987.

Index

Abortion, 4 Abuse, domestic, 58,64 Activismlwanting to help others healthy attitudes toward difficult circumstances, establishing, 105-106 Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 89 Rossi, EllyDavid, 66-67 Admiration of murderers, emotional impoverishment leading to, 6-7 Adult children as murder victims, 57-70 Anger, murder and the culture of,

Avoidance, inability in knowing how to interact with parents leading to, 70,82 Avoid mentioning the dead child, don’t pressure yourself to, 99 Babyhood, parents thinking of victim’s days of, 57 Barriers between parents and the rest of us, 87-88,95-96,98 Behavioral guidelines and a reflection on teen suicide, 111-112 Bennett, William J., 9 Berkowitz, David, 6,79 Bible, the, ix See also Religiodfeelings about God Bincer, Wanda, 98 Birth rates, teen, 8 Blame for the murder, helping parents by shifting away from assessing, 101 Bogan, Inez, 15 Boom, Corrie T., 95 Bork, Robert, 8 Bradbury, Laura, 18 Brandley, Robin, 18 Brown, Amerae, 15-16 Bundy, Ted, 6,79

3-4

Anger felt by parents life-expectancy, 76 Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 87,8849, 91 Morales, JacWolandaJSteven, 40 religiodfeelings about God, 107 Rossi, Elly/David, 69 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 74,77 See also Emotional volatility of parents Apology in court, the murderer’s, 60-61 Atta, Mohammed, 14 117

118 I LIVING VICTIMS, STOLEN LIVES

Buono, Angelo, 6 Bush, George H. W., 107 Causes of murder. See Sourceslcauses of murder CD players, 5 Cecchi, Sharon, 95 Claes, Daniel, 18 Clark, Alfred, 18 Clearance rates for murders, 9,25, 47 Clinton, Bill, 111 Collateral damage murder does, 10-12,80-81,90-91,98 Columbine High School, 78-79 Commonality of human suffering, 106 Community silence, 29,31 Compassion, 29,36-37 Compassionate Friends, 113 Computers, 5 “Confessions,” 75,78 Conrad, Bonnie H., 100 Consequences of murder, social, 10-12,80-81,90-91,98 Cooking, inability to return to, 65 Coolidge, Calvin, 106-107 “Court T.V.,” 78 Criminal justice system, police and the bother, families feel as if they are treated as a, 89-90 clearance rates for murders, 9,25, 47 friends of parentstmurder victims, 99 glamorization of homicide, 5-7 killers not the victims, focus on, 15,73-74 Lopez, Juanita/B.J., 29 Martinelli, GiVMichael, 54,55-56 Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 89-90 Morales, Jack/Yolanda/Steven, 38-39 parole, 83,99

[Criminal justice system, police and the1 profits made by killers, 15-16 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 73 Thexton, Lupe/Michael, 49 Victim Impact Statements, 60-61, 99 Crying, 49,74 Cultural sensitivity and solidarity, loss of, 92 Culture of anger, murder and the, 3-4 Culture of death, murder and the, 4-5 Culture of disrespect, 32,81 Culture of murder, weakening the, 13-18 Custody battles, child, 58 ~

,

‘

Dahmer, Jeffrey, 6,14,79 Dallas, murder rates in, 9 D.A.M. (Declaration Against Murder), 13-14 David Institute, The, 113 Death, murder and the culture of, 4-5 Declaration Against Murder (D.A.M.), 13-14 Dehumanization and stranger murders, 9 Desensitization to violence murder, ix-x See also Entertainment industry and society drenched in newstimagery of murder DiIulio, John J., Jr., 9 Disorientation, 27,49,63-65 Disrespect, culture of, 32,81 Divorce, 58 Domestic abuse, 58, 64 Dreams, 65-66 Economic pressures and family dissolution, 51 Eminem, 6

INDEX I 119

Emotional impoverishment leading to admiration of murderers, 6-7 Emotional volatility of parents healing for parentslother survivors of homicide, steps toward, 103-105 helping parents by being patient, 99-100 Rossi, EllyDavid, 65, 70 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 74,77-78, 82 Thexton, LupeIMichael, 49 See also Anger felt by parents Entertainment industry and society drenched in newslimagery of murder dangerous habit of not acknowledging the wasting of human life, 16 glamorization of homicide, 5-7, 75 indifference and ignorance, the breeding of, 1-2 killers in jail making money, 15-16 Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 89,91 Murdertainment, 78-79, 83 overview, ix-x realism about human relationships destroyed, leaving out, 50,91 record industry, 3 4 5 2 re-victimization for victim’s families, 75, 91 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 75,78-79, 83 Entertainment Weekly magazine, 5 Exam every six months for parents, physical, 77 Extended family, help from the, 28, 39,68 Faith, 106-109 See also Religiodfeelings about God

Family of parents, help from the, 28, 39,40, 68 Fast-food society wanting parents to get over their grief, 81-82 Fatherlessness, 7-8,32,45-46 Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 5 Freedom and virtuelvice, connection between, 108 Friends of parentslmurder victims helping parents, guidelines for, 98-102 Lopez, Juanita/B.J., 31 Morales, JackKolanddSteven, 36, 39 Rossi, EllyDavid, 70 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 77 Thexton, LupeIMichael, 48 Frost, Lisa, 18 Frustration, feelings of, 74, 76, 77, 90 Funerals, 27, 37, 68 Future of parents of murdered children Lopez, Juanita/B.J., 32 Rossi, EllyDavid, 69 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 82 Thexton, LupeIMichael, SO-52 Future plans of murdered children, 31 Gacy, John W., 6 Gangs, 29-30, 35,40-41,52 Get over grief, societal misconception that you can, 75,81-82,96,101-102 Gingrich, Newt, 111 Glamorization of homicide, 5-7 See also Entertainment industry and society drenched in newslimagery of murder God. See Religiodfeelings about God Goldman, Fred, 97 Goldman, Ron, 97 Good that was part of victim’s life, focusing on the, 67-69

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Gratitude, cultivating a sense of, 67-69 Grief Recovery Institute, 113 Grieving process commonality of human suffering, 106 helping parents by not putting timetables on, 101-102 Lopez, JuanitdB.J., 26,27 Martinelli, Gilwichael, 54 misconception that you can get over grief, societal, 75,81-82, 96,101-102 Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 90 Morales, JackNolanddSteven, 38 Rossi, Elly/David, 62-63 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 75 Thexton, LupeIMichael, 49 Grossman, David, 5 Groups. See Support groups Guilt, feelings of, 32 Guns, 51,81 Harris, Patricia, 15-16 Harris, William, 15 Headstones, 25 Healing for parents/other survivors of homicide, steps toward barriers between parents and the rest of us, 95-96 faith, 106-109 healthy attitude toward difficult circumstances, establishing, 103-106 helping parents, guidelines for, 98-102 misconception that you can get over grief, societal, 96 “normal” a new, 109 parents themselves can take certain actions, 102-109 physical worklactivity, 103 what do parents feel, 96-98 See also Understandinghealing, toward

Healthy attitudes toward difficult circumstances, establishing, 67-69,99,103-106 Hernandez, Virginia, 18 Hip-hop music lyrics, 3 Ho, Amy, 18 Hobbies of murdered children, 30, 33 “Homicide,” 78 Hopelessness, feelings of, 67 Hullinger, Charlotte, 75 Hullinger, Robert, 75 Hysteria, 74

I Know What You Did Last Summer, 5

Illness from stress, parents and, iv, 38,76,77 Imagerylnews of murder, society drenched in, ix-x See also Entertainment industry and society drenched in newslimagery of murder Indifference, familiarity with murder images breeding, 1-2 See also Entertainment industry and society drenched in newslimagery of murder Infancy, parents thinking of victim’s days of, 57 Information culture and society drenched in newslimagery of murder, ix See also Entertainment industry and society drenched in newslimagery of murder Interview method used for book, vii-viii Isolating emotions, 70 Judeo-Christian view of death, 4 See also Religiodfeelings about God Justice For Murdered Children, 113 Juveniles, trying murderers as, 56

INDEX I 121

Keller, Helen, 95 Kennedy, John F.,107 Killers not the victims, focus on, 15, 73-74,76,79-80,89 Kitchen, inability to spend time in the, 65 “L.A. Law,” 78 Left’s cultural critique and a reflection on teen suicide, 111-112 Legal process. See Criminal justice system, police and the Liberalism and a reflection on teen suicide, 111-112 Life-expectancy for parents, 76 Limbaugh, Rush, 111 Lincoln, Abraham, 106-107 Listening to parents, helping by, 76-77,98-99 Lopez, B. J., 25-32 Lopez, Juanita, 25-32 Los Angeles, murder rates in, 9 Macabre obsession with murder, 6 Manliness, a backward sense of, 40-41,51 Manson, Charles, 6 Marriage impacted by the murder Martinelli, GiVMichael, 54-55 Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 90-91 Morales, JackfllolandaJSteven, 39-40 Rossi, EllyDavid, 63 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 80 Martinelli, Gil, 53-56 Martinelli, Michael, 53-56 Mass murders, 2-3, 78-79 Meaninglessness and teen suicide, 112 Medical attention, 35 Megaphone metaphor, 88

Memorial services helping parents by attending, 100-101 Morales, Jack/YolandaJSteven, 36 Rossi, EllylDavid, 64,69 Thexton, Lupemichael, 48 Memory of murdered people. See Remembering victims Method used, interviewing, vii-viii Mexico, murderers fleeing to, 37,47 Mistakes when helping parents, inevitability of, 98 Mogensen, Mark, 85-92 Morales, Jack, 33-43 Morales, Steven, iii-iv, 33-43 Morales, Yolanda, iii-iv, 3343 Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), 113 Mundane tasks, helping parents with, 100 “Murder, She Wrote,” 78 Murder statistics, 2-3, 8-10 See also SourcesJcauses of murder Murdertainment, 78-79)83 Murray, Lynette, 18 Music lyrics, 3-4,52 Newslimagery of murder, society drenched in, ix-x, 7 See also Entertainment industry and society drenched in newslimagery of murder New York City, murder rates in, 9 Nihilism, 112 “Normal” a new, 76,109 Novis, Corinne, 18 Obsession with child’s murder, parent’s, 76 Oklahoma City bombing, 80, 111 Orange Covenant Church, 85 Organ donation, 34-36 Osama bin Laden, 14 Osbourne, Wendy, 18 Out-of wedlock births, 8

122 I LIVING VICTIMS, STOLEN LIVES

Palencia, Liz, 45-52 Parents of Murdered Children, xi, 25,73,114 See also Ruhe-Munch, Nancy Park, Linda, 18 Parker, Nicole, 18 Parole, 83,99 Pellosi, Sylvina, 18 Personhood of victims put in background, 15 Philadelphia, murder rates in, 9 Physical worktactivity, parent healing and, 103 Placebo measures and attempts to guarantee safety, 12 Police. See Criminal justice system, police and the Powerlessness leading to admiration of murderers, 6-7 Pregnancy, teen, 8,47 Presidency and soul-trauma, the American, 106-107 Probing family about details of the murder, helping by not, 100 Professional grief therapists, recommending competent, 99 Profits made by killers, 15-16 Property, helping parents in disposing of child’s, 101 Psychic connection to the murder, a parents’, 61-62 Psychological professionals shying away from murder victims, 82 Punishment for murder, 13,56, 60-61,99 Rabin, Itzhak, iii Racine, Jean B., 1 Rage, murder and the culture of, 3 Rage felt by parents. See Anger felt by parents; Emotional volatility of parents Random killings, 26 Rape and being parent of murder victim, similarities between, 82

Rap music, 3 Reagan, Ronald, 107 Religiodfeelings about God healing for parentslother survivors of homicide, steps toward, 106-109 Lopez, JuanitdB.J., 28-29 Martinelli, Gimichael, 55 Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 85-92 Morales, JacWolanddSteven, 42 Rossi, Elly/David, 63,67-68 Remembering victims helping parents by, 100, 102 institutionalizing the memory of victims, 16-18 killers not the victims, focus on, 15, 73-74,76,79-80 national day of mourning for murder victims, 80 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 75-76,80 weakening the culture of murder, 14-18 Repressed souls leading to admiration of murderers, 6-7 Respect for human life, general lack of, 32, 81 Revenge, feelings of, 103-104 Re-victimization for victim’s families, 75, 91 Reward money, 29 Rossi, Elly, 57-70 “David, son of Elly Rossi,” 58-70 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 73-83 Ryen family, 18 Safety, placebo measures and attempts to guarantee, 12 Sampler image used to help understand tragedy, 68 Sanity, feeling of losing, 65 Scene of the murder Lopez, Juanita/B.J., 26 Martinelli, Giwichael, 53

INDEX I 123

[Scene of the murder] Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 90 Morales, JacWolanddSteven, iii, 35 Rossi, EllylDavid, 58-59 Schlosser, Eric, 6-7, 102 School activities of the murdered children, 30-31 Schools and institutionalizing the memory of victims, 17-18 Second opinion programs, 83 Self-formation in American life and a reflection on teen suicide, 111-112 Self-protection and blaming the victim, 11 Sensitivity and solidarity, loss of cultural, 92 Sentences, murder, 13,56,60-61,99 September 11 attacks, 14 Serial killers, 3,6 SHARE, 114 Shock, feelings of, 73,98 Siblings of murdered children, 34, 38,80 Signs (roadside) for institutionalizing the memory of victims, 18 Silence, community, 29,31 Smith, Susan, 111 Social consequences of murder, 10-12 Social stress, 11-12,76 Soul-trauma, 106-107 Sourceslcauses of murder anger, the culture of, 3-4 death, the culture of, 4-5 fatherlessness, 7-8 information industry, 7 social consequences of murder, 10-12 trends, murder, 8-10 weakening the culture of murder, 13-18 Southall, Angela, 18 Spousal murder, 58-70

Statistics, murder, 2-3, 8-10 See also Sourceslcauses of murder Stranger murder, 9 Stress, social, 11-12,76 Suicide, parents contemplating, 38, 64,101 Suicide, teen, 111-112 Suicide Prevention Center, 114 Super-predators, 9-10 Support groups healthy attitudes toward difficult circumstances, establishing, 105 listing of, 113-114 Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 87 Morales, JacWolandalSteven, 41-43 Rossi, EllylDavid, 64-67 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 82-83 Surgeon General’s Office, U.S., 5 Sympathy toward parents, expressing, 99 Talk about the crime, parent’s need to, 76-77,86,98-99 Tasks, helping parents with specifiijmundane, 100 Teen murder rates, 8-9 Teen pregnancy, 8,47 Teen suicide, 111-112 Television, 5 Tender Fingerprints (Stetson), 39 Theft, murder as the ultimate act of, 26-27 Thexton, Lupe, 45-52 Torres, Cathy, 18 Twain, Mark, 18 Understandinghealing, toward Mogensen (Mark) and Wilson (Ken) (pastors), 85-92 Ruhe-Munch, Nancy, 73-83 “Unforgiving, The,” 15

124 / LIVING VICTIMS, STOLEN LIVES

Unmarried individuals, birth rates for, 8 VCRs, 5 “Vengeance Is Mine,” 15 Victim, blaming the, 10-11 See also Killers not the victims, focus on; Remembering victims Victim Impact Statements, 60-61, 99 Video game players, 5 Violence as a way to solve problems, youth programmed to see, 50, 52,81 Visiting the grave site, 27-28, 55 Voices of parents of murdered children Lopez, Juanita, 25-32 Martinelli, GWichael, 53-56 Morales, Jackmolanda, 33-43

[Voices of parents of murdered children] Rossi, Elly, 57-70 Thexton, Lupe, 43-52 Volunteers shying away from murder victims, 82 Walters, John P., 9 Weakening the culture of murder, 13-18 Webster, John, 1 Why did it happen, the question of, 69 Willard, Dallas, 3-4 Williams, Stanley, 6 Wilson, Ken, 85-92 Wong, Lenora, 18 Workplace murders, 4 World War 11, 91-92 Youhanian, Paul, 18

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Death, Value and Meaning Series

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A COP DOC’S GUIDE TO PUBLIC SAFETY COMPLEX TRAUMA SYNDROME Using Five Police Personality Styles Daniel Rudofossi LOSS, GRIEF AND TRAUMA IN THE WORKPLACE Neil Thompson

DEATH AND BEREAVEMENT AROUND THE WORLD, VOLUME 5 Reflective Essays Edited by John D. Morgan, Pittu Laungani and Stephen Palmer FREEDOM TO CHOOSE How to Make End-of-Life Decisions on Your Own Terms George M. Burnell

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