Last
summer I worked on a biography of my dad for the online journal
http://palaeo-electronica.org/splash/index14_3.html.
Its November, 2011 issue was dedicated to my Dad. It contains a
comprehensive review of his life and his profound impact on several
different branches of paleontology. He continues to be deeply missed
by the scientific community.
Now
I have been invited to contribute to a very different kind of review:
the parole hearing of one of the 5 people who ended his life. What
relevant contribution can I offer to a parole hearing? It seems to
me that what I have to say can best be expressed in an open letter to
Ms. K.
Dear
Ms. K,
Just
over 7 years ago, you had a home and my dad was alive. Then, just
after New Year's in 2005, you sat at your kitchen table while your
husband and his associates plotted to ransack my father's home for
drug money. I heard you took notes.
Mr.
S claims that he told your husband and his friend to go at a
time when my ailing father was not at home. This is ridiculous since
he was mostly housebound. So they chose to go in the middle of the
night. They succeeded in ransacking the house and savagely murdering
my father.
Here
we are 7 years later and I have been invited to write a Victim Impact
Statement for your parole hearing. I don't know you. I don't know
what the last 7 years have been like for you. I doubt that living in
a Women's Correctional Institution has taught you much compassion.
Perhaps you have learned to respect other people's property.
Compassion and respect for others are the two qualities you need to
learn. If you had either, you would never have participated in this
inexcusable and horrific crime.
I
understand you didn't know that my father had been murdered by your
husband and his friend until a few days later. But the basic point
is that you do not have the right to take other people's things just
because you need more money for drugs. If you and the others had
understood that basic fact, none of you would have planned to go over
to his house that night in the first place.
But
this is supposed to be a Victim Impact Statement. I am only one of
the victims of your actions. Let me tell you a bit about what the
impact of that night has been for me and for some others.
A
large number of paleontologists are also victims of your rash deeds.
They still miss him badly. You robbed the world of science of a
unique and brilliant man.
My
brother still worries everytime he goes out in public with his small
children. He has become aware, thanks to the five of you, that the
world is not a safe place and that he is helpless to protect the
people he loves most from crazy, drug addicted people like the five
of you. He copes with terror.
As
for me, every year about this time, I have a very strong reaction.
Sometimes I don't consciously remember that this is the anniversary
of the murder, but my body remembers. I feel horribly sick or I have
a night when I am utterly awake and jump at small sounds. Or I feel
strangled and suffocated.
I
saw the photos of what your husband and friend did to my dad and I
heard the description of what it was probably like for him while he
died. For a long time, I would dream it was me that it happened to
and I would live through his last few moments over and over. I felt
horribly guilty that I allowed him to die alone and by violence. It
was his worst nightmare. I think I felt that, since I wasn't there
for him when he was murdered, I could at least face the horror of his
death and stand witness to it.
I
think you knew that he was a WWII soldier since you wanted his Nazi
memorabilia. Maybe you didn't know he had PTSD. He often had
flashbacks of being a POW. I know he expected to die in POW camp. I
wonder if, as he lay convulsing and suffocating, he hallucinated that
he was back in the Stalag and dying. I imagine he did.
About
a year after the murder, our landlady needed some work done on the
roof of the building and insisted that I stay home in case the
roofers needed anything. All I could think of was that the people
who planned my father's murder were roofers! The first day I spent
quivering and sobbing in a little ball in the corner of my living
room as they pounded on the roof. I was sure they were coming in to
murder me. The next day I told the roofers my fears and they assured
me that I didn't need to be home for them. I spent the next few days
at Starbucks.
This
was about when I decided maybe I needed therapy. I have been in
therapy ever since. My therapist has helped me let go of my fears,
for the most part, and I rarely dream of my father's murder anymore.
But only a year ago we needed a new furnace and the man who came to
install it reminded me of Michael M. I completely paniced all
over again. I called everyone I knew and talked to them loudly so
that the installer would know that I was not alone. A good friend
came over and stayed with me until he left and that really helped.
But I still had trouble sleeping for the next 3 weeks because I was
afraid they were going to come back in the night and murder my family
the way you all did.
Any
day I get mail from the Colorado State Department of Corrections is
an automatic signal for my husband to order pizza because I will be
in no condition to cook dinner. Yet I can't feel safe unless I know
that they will keep me updated on the 5 of you.
We
pay for the most expensive burglar alarm system we can afford. It
connect directly to the police and fire departments and it has a
“panic button.”
7
years ago, I was a confident, cheerful, happy woman. Most days I
still appear to be that person. But a hard kernel of fear and
mistrust has taken root inside me. It will bloom into full scale
panic from time to time unexpectedly. I miss who I used to be.
I
am a Catholic. Every week during Mass we say, “Forgive us our
tresspasses as we forgive those who tresspass against us.” And
every week when I say that one of your faces pops up in my minds eye.
There is no one who has tresspassed against me more than the five of
you. And I am supposed to forgive you. This makes me angry.
In
the last 7 years, I have come to realize that you hurt me badly and
damaged me (perhaps permanently) by your actions. But that was a one
time act. As I allow myself to relive it, I am hurting myself over
and over again. Some of that I can't help, but some of it I can stop
by trying to forgive you. As I let go of my anger and grief and
learn to forgive the five of you, I can slowly put an end to the
nightmares and the terror. I must forgive the five of you so that I
can stop the memories from hurting me any more. I have made some
headway in forgiving the five of you for damaging me and my family so
badly, but I still have a way to go. My father managed to forgive
his captors and become a brilliant scientist in spite of his PTSD. I
imagine he would want me to finally forgive the 5 of you so that I
can be free from the damage you all did to me. 7 years has not been
enough time for me or my family or the scientists to completely move
on from that day.
I
have no idea whether or not 7 years is enough time for you to be
sufficiently punished or whether you deserve parole because I don't
know what you have done with yourself while in jail. I am grateful
that it really isn't my decision to make. I hope, if they allow you
to move to a halfway house, you will manage to live a better life. I
hope I never need to hear your name again.
