Two sets of victims suffer from a killing in the family

Casey Anthony, Florida police mugshot

"If one of my kids killed somebody, they might just as well get caught and be put away, because they would never see me again."  Larry Beekham's remark is similar to those made by many people who say they would feel shame and would literally disown their children found guilty of a major crime.  But other parents remain staunchly devoted to their children, and their suffering remains, sometimes lifelong.

Leslie Gardner, whose name has been disguised because she lives in a small neighborhood community in Hawaii, left the mainland because her father had killed someone and was sentenced to death row.  She continues to maintain a low profile in her community but says it is lonely when people ask her about her family.  She said, "I go and visit my Mom every year, so people think everything is all right.  But when they ask about my Dad, I don't know what to say, so I say they are separated, my Mom and Dad; and he lives someplace else."

That someplace else is the place that causes Gardner the pain she says never seems to go away, even though it has been six years since her father's conviction.

Joran van der Sloot admitted he killed 21-year-old Stephany Flores, a business student whose body was found in a Lima hotel room last week.  His mother visited over an extended period of time, one of those parents whose future has been compromised by the actions of her son.

Compassion floods towards the victim's families when there is a terrible crime; and although the pain of the perpetrator's family  is mentioned, it is seldom the focus of public concern.

In November 2008 Greta Van Sustern interviewed an assistant District Attorney who had tried to speak with Paulus van der Sloot, Joran's father regarding the disappearance of Natalie Holloway.  Paulus van der Sloot was reported to have resisted speaking with anyone publicly about his son and to have guided Joran through the events that occurred when the young van der Sloot was accused of involvement with the disappearance of Natalie Holloway in Aruba.

The negatives of this were splashed on newspaper pages and in television scripts with quotes as well.  The mother's voice appeared silent, as there was no focus on her feelings during that time.Like other parents whose children have either admitted to or been found guilty of terrible crimes, the van der Sloot's will experience personal pain, experts say, that will go on for years.

Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother and father vacillated from making public pronouncements to withdrawing. Dahmer’s mother tried hard to stay out of the public eye. Jeffrey’s father wrote a book, A Father's Story, chronicling the history of a son who had problems at an early age.  Dahmer is the man who cannibalized and killed his victims.

For certain the grandparents of Caylee Anthony, George and Cindy Anthony, have faced the cameras, showing their personal agonies as their daughter Casey is waiting to be tried for killing Caylee, her young daughter.

Authorities say one of the major characteristics of the psychopath, or serial killer, is self-centered behavior.  Mental health experts maintain that type of behavior is noticed by parents who may disregard it and not see it as a signal of further mental health problems.

Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother, Joyce, was reported to be frequently sick during Jeffrey's childhood  but  otherwise not a problem mother. When Jeffrey was picked up for the killings, for which he was convicted,  his mother was employed as a drug and alcohol treatment counselor.. His father was a Ph.D chemist. The parents were reported to be as ordinary as the people next door when they lived in Bath, Ohio.  They who divorced when Jeffrey was a teenager.

Scott Peterson’s family ,according to news reports, continues to deny that Scott killed his wife Lacey and the couple’s unborn child and have hired new defense attorneys for appeals. But they too are shown having emotional stress and retreat from public view.

Ronnie Lee Gardner, a killer who was on death row for 25 years, was executed about five years ago for the death of an attorney and the injury of a court bailiff during an escape attempt at the courthouse where he was being held for a robbery and murder the year before.   after 25 years on death row, brought strong reaction on both sides of the death penalty argument.  But it brought up the pain of the parents on both sides as well.  Gardner's family stood in vigil the night of his execution with people against the death penalty, making a total of 60 people sorrowing Utah's education of Gardner by firing squad.

Nick Kirk's daughter, Barb Webb, and granddaughter, Mandy Hull, family members of the bailiff who was shot, never able to work again and who suffered both physical and emotional pain for years, were reported by Desert News to be planning a vigil of their own. They had planned but then canceled it because they did not want to share attention and space with Gardner's family.

"We sure as hell didn't want them thinking it was for them," Webb said. "It's horrible, just absolutely horrible. I don't know why they would do this to us."

The ethics of the death penalty and religious quotes are part of the news frequently in the United States when there is an execution of someone who has committed a terrible crime, both sides expressing outrage, with the families caught in between.

Families of those who commit heinous crimes suffer greatly, as the community turns its sympathy to the victims.  Yet what about the families of those who were found innocent yet spent years on death row?

Ray Krone's story chronicles this issue, as he spent 10 years on death row before being exonerated of the crime of killing a female bartender.  DNA testing found another man had committed the crime.  In the meantime, Ray served that 10 years, but in many ways his family served the same length of time in their grief and struggle to reconcile the image of the man they knew and loved and the one convicted of murder.

Ray Krone said this to one of those people who interviewed him about his release from prison. “There was the time when I was testifying on behalf of Witness to Innocence, and a prosecutor said to me, ‘You’ve been exonerated. They got the guy who did it. You’re out now. See: the system works.’ I said, ‘Tell my mom the system works.’ He didn’t ask any more questions."

There are two sets of victims when a murder is committed: the victim's family and the family of the one convicted of the crime. And it is even worse for the second set of victims when there is no way to recover the years lost and the agony of having to believe someone is guilty of a crime who is found innocent.

Romancing the killer: Why women marry death row inmates

Ted Bundy, infamous serial killer

Beverly is 38, divorced and a mother of two school-aged children, who married a death row inmates.  Like Beverly there are many women who are fascinated by men who kill, but what makes such women choose a killer for romance?



Eleven years ago The Guardian wrote an article about such women as Beverly, posing the question why women are drawn to men in prison. The article documents the backgrounds and behaviors of some of these women, offering initially the fact that prison romances span the social strata and are not confined to poor, emotionally needy women desperate for a mate. Instead they determined that women come from all social sectors. The newspaper offers the examples of Jimmy Boyle, a hard-core prison inmate who married a psychiatrist he met in prison. Carlos the Jackal became engaged to his lawyer the year before the article was written. The article went on to observe that most of the women who fall in love, and become engaged or married to prison inmates, meet their mates on anti-death-penalty campaign Internet sites.



Beverly, who has asked for anonymity for this article, said she had been part of a group that had fought against the death penalty in another state, following her divorce. She had become involved through a group of friends, and her advocacy work led her to meet Milt Russel, (not his real name) a convicted killer of three women, one of whom had been a long-time girlfriend. Beverly said she was captivated by Milt's letters, after she had initiated a correspondence through a penpal group. She liked his writing and said she was an amateur handwriting analyst who could tell he was an emotional person but someone with talent, creativity and passion. When she finally met him, through a visit, she said she was particularly impressed with his healthy, good looks, his musical abilities and his strong denial of killing anyone.



How does Beverly fare with friends when she tells them about her romancing a killer? Most of them would not understand, Beverly says. In fact, she is guarded about telling anyone, except a few “best” friends she says are in the prison reform movement themselves and therefore more understanding. Her children simply know she goes somewhere to visit a friend in jail, as they too are aware of her passion for the protest about capital punishment and prison reform. Still Beverly says she wishes she had met Milt in some other way and that she has to be some careful about who she tells about her romance with a man who is in prison.



Most of the women, the Guardian tells us, declare they would not have willingly chosen romance with a killer but that it just happened as a result of the pen pal experience. The man offers friendship, and that friendship then becomes something more. For Beverly her experience has been difficult at times, because she is unable to share the fine details of her romance with her friends; but she is adamant that this is “the real thing.”



A decade after Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his wife, Lacy, and his unborn child, Connor, he still receives pictures and letters from women, although these have diminished over the years. A reporter named Nancy Mullane interviewed Peterson recently as background for a book about women who are drawn to romancing killers. In an interview with Matt Lauer, Mullane said she had been visiting prisoners since 2007 to obtain information about their lives following a murder conviction and their tenure in prison.

Mullane learned that Peterson spends about five hours daily of his death row experience in a prisoner-friendly tier where he can go outside and exercise. A jury had convicted Peterson of killing his wife sometime between the night of December 23, 2002 and the following day. Peterson claimed he had gone fishing, however the jury, after reviewing the details presented at trial, found him guilty of killing his wife, Lacy, then pregnant with Connor, whose body was found separately during the search for both the mother and child. Because of the case notoriety, and the news stories about Peterson's female fan letters, much of what he does these days remains per prison officials “privileged information.”

One of the most famous serial killers, Ted Bundy, had his share of female fans, even when he was on death row.  Despite the violent nature of his crimes, women were said to be both afraid and yet charmed at the same time by Bundy.  One of them, Carol Boone, married Bundy and had a child by him after he had been accused of killing the two college women for which he was convicted and sent to death row.   He was said to have more female fans during his tenure on death row that at any other time in his life.



While journalists have covered stories about women who marry killers, for the most part it remains a puzzle to many about why women are attracted to men who murder, including those who are serial rapists as well. The New Statesman examined the visiting room on death row in one of Florida's prisons, finding women there visiting loved ones on death row. Some of these women met the men and married the men after the men were tried, convicted, sentenced and had spent time in prison.



One of these women cited by the New Statesman is Rosalie Bolin who married her husband Oscar in 1996, wearing a wedding dress while sitting in her apartment and offering vows over the telephone with a man on death row who had been convicted of raping and killing women. Rosalie, a crusader against the death penalty and mitigation specialist for those on death row, had met Oscar in the course of her advocacy missions. She became convinced he was innocent of the killings, although admits he had raped women, refusing to discuss it. Instead she focuses on what she claims are the signs of his innocence, such as the look in his eyes and his demeanor. She has convinced herself that her marriage, and advocacy of Oscar, were right and that she loves the man, whom she left her attorney husband to marry. The New Statesman points out that despite all the protestations of Rosalie about her relationship with Oscar, those same feelings are not shared by her children, who, during the interviews, spoke of the embarrassment their mother's situation has caused them.



Why do women fall in love with men in prison? References point to the fact that many of these women are white, professional and believe they have rescued someone whose difficult lives had led them to committing the most heinous crimes. In their efforts to protect and advocate, they confuse their emotions with love, protesting that like socialites whose husbands are often absent, they continue to maintain the bond because it is the right thing to do in those rescue efforts.



Women who love men who rape and kill can look just like any other woman, dress and speak well, and live in affluence or in poverty, according to a prison guard in Hawaii who years ago spoke about the many letters the Makiki rapist received in prison from women.   The Makiki rapist was convicted of raping and killing women in the central area of Oahu, not far from the University.   What these women share, is a driven desire to reform while advocating for justice, often not just dedicating their own lives to the cause but the lives of their loved ones, their children and families, as well.  They see themselves as humanitarians initially, using this as a foundation for their initial involvement.   While it confounds and confuses others, these women like Beverly are able to divorce themselves from the public revulsion that is directed towards those who rape and kill in exchange for their singular purpose, to make better those whose lives are so damaged they seem hopeless to everyone else.

A killer in the family: everyone has a story

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Carol Forsloff - It’s hard to grow up loving someone and then find that person becomes a killer, something that can hurt for many years and impact whole families.

“Everyone has a story,” she says, and it is this that keeps her secure and able to function past the sensation that the killing caused years ago and that encompassed her entire family.

Her brother killed his wife and children.  The newspaper story uncovered and reported the details.  Family members were approached for their responses, as they tried to go on with their lives.  They were asked repeatedly how they felt about having a killer in the family.

“I said as little as possible, “ she told a journalist one afternoon.  “I answered, ‘how do you think I feel,” to those who inquired about it.  Of course, it was a tragedy, something I won’t forget.  But I loved my brother and still do.  Loving a family member means sorting out what the person does from the relationship that exists long before.  It means hating what happened but not the person.  It might be something other people can consider when thinking about their feelings when someone they love commits a crime.”

The media asks questions of crime victims’ families and family members are asked what signs they might have seen that their violent family member exhibited that hinted of potential problems.  But often the families are grieving, as they express the kind of loss that takes place when someone is killed, and it is their loved one who has been accused or found guilty of the crime.

Some families deny the guilt altogether.  Other families are torn by the stress.  Some go on with their lives, not forgetting, but also not letting those memories of the worst impact what they do in the future.

For some, like Susan Smith, the mother from South Carolinia who killed her children by driving a car with them into a lake, the aberrance within the family is said by some to have been a motivating factor in her behavior.  Her father committed suicide in Susan’s childhood, and her stepfather was said to have sexually molested her to the point Susan had to have counseling, while the family rejected her pleas.

Scott Peterson, 36,  received the sentence of death in March 2005 when he was convicted of murdering his wife Laci and unborn son, Conner.  He is now appealing his conviction and is supported by his family in that appeal.  Furthermore he has frequent visits from family and friends, plays basketball  and has recreation with other inmates five hours daily in his prison home, San Quentin,   He is perceived as killing his wife and the subject of the death of the son is seen differently than if he had directly killed a child, according to sources that have followed up the case.
Samuel Robinson, a lieutenant with the California Department of Corrections,  is quoted as saying that Peterson has a fairly full life with friends and family visits and keeps a picture of his wife, Laci, prominent in his cell, as those supporters protest his innocence, in spite of a trial conviction.   "He has a significant amount of money in his account from people all over the world,"  Robinson told People magazine.

While the media presented a negative profile of Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother, those who knew her before her death in 2000 from breast cancer tell the story of a woman in anguish over having a son who committed such terrible crimes.  Joyce "Rocky" Flint was 64 when she died.  With a Masters degree in counseling, Flint had worked as a mental health counselor in the treatment of AIDS patients as well as a case manager in a retirement facility.  She was employed as a counselor the year Jeffrey, her son, was arrested, charged and convicted of killing 17 young men and boys in Milwaukee, after mutilating and cannibalizing them.   The Los Angeles Times reported on Flint’s death and quoted Julio Mastro as saying, "She was enthusiastic, and she was compassionate, and she turned her own tragedy into being able to have a great deal of empathy for people with HIV," Julio Mastro was then executive director of the Living Room, an HIV community center.   Dahmer himself had told his attorneys she was a great mother.  But the accent by some of the media was on Dahmer’s being alone at age 18 when his parents both left the home, intimating the mother's culpability in creating the personality of Dahmer who could commit such terrible crimes.

Casey Anthony is to be released on Sunday, with the plans under wraps today.  She was accused of murdering her child, Caylee and found not guilty of the crime.  Her family was described during the trial as dysfunctional.  That family faces an unknown future, with some who may move on like the woman whose brother killed his family.  But some may use what happened to motivate them to do good in the world and some may deny any problems at all,  but the memories like others will last.

The woman whose husband killed his family had this to say at the end, the value of which may be far greater than just getting past an event.  “Everyone has a story.   I remember that.  That can be a severe illness, the loss of a loved one, the ruin of one’s reputation, or the pain from something terrible  happening, that affects the person or a member of the family.    When we think we’re the only one who has had to suffer, we turn the corner and learn of the tragedy of someone else.”

Then she reminded me of the great poem “Desiderata,” and an excerpt that says this:

"Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. "