Reconciliation means accepting you can not undo the murder but you can decide how you want to live afterwards.
Ran Chen, Albany, California
Ran lost her father to execution.
The death penalty has always been unthinkable to me - a dark thing of the past. My father's execution in China, however, forced me to confront the dreadful fact that putting someone to death is still considered justice in many parts of the world. My father, Wo Weihan, was arrested by the Chinese Ministry of National Security and charged with passing state secrets to a Taiwanese organization. The trials were conducted behind closed doors and the lawyer, who was denied access to my father and information during the first ten months of the interrogation, was subject to state secrets laws and could share very little with our family. I appealed for transparency and a fair, humane process through the EU Presidency, the US State Department, human rights organizations, and international media. Diplomats and human rights organizations pointed out the grave deficiencies in the handling of the case and the inhumanity of the pending execution, but their pleas were ignored. After nearly four years without being granted visitation, I was finally allowed a half-hour supervised visit with my father. Because neither my father nor our family had been officially notified that the execution would take place the next day, this final meeting did not serve as a last goodbye and my father could not deliver a last will and testament. Although my father's life was taken, I hope that my family's struggle to save him contributed some momentum toward a more humane form of justice around the world. A modern society deserves a fair and transparent justice system that respects the rights of the accused, in particular the right to life. Capital punishment is a primitive and barbaric custom that trespasses against the democratic values and inalienable rights outlined in the US Declaration of Independence and reiterated in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It does not restore the dignity of those who were victimized by crime and closes the door on the values we need for a stronger and more humane society: contrition, reconciliation, forgiveness and redemption. It's time to stop using violence, revenge and the threat of death in the name of justice and order.
Eddie E. Hicks, Sr., Atlantic County, New Jersey
Eddie lost his daughter to murder.
Long before I knew very much about the death penalty I was opposed to it. I just felt that it was wrong for the government to be in the business of killing people. To me killing was wrong regardless if it was by an individual or the state. I was appalled that the taxes I paid could be used to kill someone, thereby making me an unwilling participant in the death of another human being. Often people who knew I was against the death penalty would tell me I wouldn’t be against it if I lost a loved one to murder. I would respond to them by saying I could not say how I would feel in that situation. But I did not believe it was a situation I would ever be faced with. On May 29, 2000 I received a telephone call that would forever change my life. I was informed by my youngest daughter that her older sister was just shot dead in High Point, North Carolina. My oldest daughter was murdered senselessly by a 19 year-old who was recently released from jail. My daughter was 26 at the time of her death and the mother of two young children. The pain of losing a child regardless of age has got to be the worst feeling possible. My family was never so devastated. Years later we continue to be affected by that tragic day. People have asked me what my opinion of the death penalty is since my daughter’s murder. I tell them in the days following my daughter’s murder I was in so much pain and turmoil I was not sure how I felt. But after the initial shock wore off and I was able to think clearly again, I realized that the many reasons I was opposed to the death penalty had not changed. Since my daughter’s death I have learned much more about the death penalty and oppose it for even more reasons. When someone says that they support capital punishment for the families they are not speaking for my family.
Pat McCoy, Charlotte, North Carolina
Pat lost his sister to murder.
My sister, Kathy Lu McCoy, was abducted off the streets of Spokane, Washington and murdered in 1974 by a stranger, Harry Edward Brooks. The crime was shockingly brutal, and it’s still very hard to accept emotionally that the last several hours of her life were hell on earth. Mr. Brooks was apprehended quickly and remains in prison. Our family opposed capital punishment, and Kathy Lu’s death didn’t change that, especially since she opposed it herself. Many murder victims’ family members do support the death penalty, of course, and I’m fine with that. It’s appropriate to want persons who have taken the lives of others in dreadful ways to pay with their own lives. I know exactly how that feels, but personal feelings about the death penalty – however justified – don’t make it right or wrong. We’ve worked for decades now to fix the death penalty, and we’ve failed. Unacceptable factors such as race, money, geography and mental health still have way too much impact on who lives and who dies. We can’t even eliminate racial bias in capital sentencing in spite of our state’s troubled and shameful history of using the death penalty disproportionately and illegally against persons of color. It’s past time to put this discrimination behind us. We also continue to convict and sentence innocent persons to death in spite of the enormous amounts of money and judicial resources that we spend – and must spend – on each capital case to prevent this from happening. At this point we’d be much better off using our limited financial and judicial resources to assist crime victims and enhance law enforcement. Lastly, I wouldn’t want to see Harry Edward Brooks’ family subjected to the same heartbreak that our family has endured. No family deserves such punishment, and I want no part of it.
Kathy Dillon, New York
Kathy lost her father to murder
Op Ed, Newsday: Avoid Death Sentences: Give Cop Killers Life Without Parole September 21, 2004: Newsday AVOID DEATH SENTENCES Give cop killers life without parole The recent slaying of two detectives does not warrant restoration of capital punishment in New York State Op-Ed By Kathy Dillon [Kathy Dillon, a former social worker from Syracuse, is a member of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty.] The recent tragic murder of two police detectives in Brooklyn left many people reeling, including me. When I was 14 years old, my father was shot and killed in the line of duty on the New York State Thruway. He had been a state trooper for 16 years. So news of the Brooklyn shooting awakened some very painful memories for me. The crime also left some people calling for restoration of capital punishment, after Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said it could not be sought in this case because of a recent Court of Appeals ruling striking down the state's death-penalty law. Some said the death penalty is the only way to protect police officers who risk their lives every day to protect us. But I'm not so sure. New York had the death penalty in 1974, when my father was murdered, but it didn't protect him. And since the death penalty was reinstated in New York in 1995, police officers continue to be shot and some have been killed. Some might believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime, but these events suggest otherwise. Ten years after my father's murder, my boyfriend of four years was also murdered. Issues related to crime and punishment are woven into the fabric of my life. We all seek a more peaceful and just society, yet I have found that there are no easy answers. Some say the death penalty is the answer. I have family members who share this view, but it is not the answer for me. Executing the man who murdered my father would not have brought me peace. Whereas some advocates of capital punishment claim that an execution brings "closure" to surviving loved ones, I think most of us feel that there is no closure. I'll always miss my father; an execution would never change that. Far from bringing closure, a capital prosecution may do the opposite. After a death sentence is handed down, the legal proceedings drag on for years with the outcome left uncertain at best. The emotional wounds of victims' family members are opened again and again. One thing I know clearly: In my lifetime, I must give voice to my opposition to the death penalty. In the wake of a murder, we all feel deep sadness, outrage and vulnerability. But the antidote to violence is not more violence. For me, an execution in response to a murder in my life would only have added to the horror and the trauma of the whole experience. I know too well the far-reaching, damaging effects of violence to want any more violence. I wouldn't want to spend 10 or 20 years waiting for some illusory "closure." If one of my loved ones' murderers had been executed, it wouldn't have made me feel any better. Rather, it would have driven home the truth that no number of state-sanctioned killings could compensate for the loss of my loved ones. A life taken by execution would not have replaced the precious life lost. New York's 1995 law is usually referred to as the death-penalty statute. But the real value of that legislation was not the death penalty - which has proved ineffective, costly, unjust, and (according to the recent Court of Appeals ruling) unconstitutional. The bill's real achievement was the provision for life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. With no executions and millions of dollars wasted, the death penalty has been a failure. But, with 143 murderers locked up for good since life without parole went into effect, New Yorkers can feel safer. The man who shot my father might someday walk free because life without parole wasn't an option in 1974. Now it is. Life without parole is sufficient to keep New Yorkers safe while guaranteeing that no innocent person will be executed by mistake. It's a viable, effective alternative to the death penalty - one that reinforces the value of human life. I belong to a national organization called Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, dedicated to abolishing the death penalty. The words of Marietta Jaeger Lane, a fellow member whose 7-year-old daughter was murdered, stay with me. She said, "Our loved ones deserve more beautiful, noble and honorable memorials than premeditated state-sanctioned killings." Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
Kasia McRoberts, New Mexico
Kasia lost her brother to murder.
My brother Sammy was murdered, and along with his murder something inside of me died. It took me a few years to realize, through great suffering and despair, that I welcomed the death of that something inside of me: before Sammy was murdered, I believed in the death penalty. That belief was fostered by misinformation, and it grew through a disconnect from the one foundation we all are born with and are invited to see, breathe and live, and hopefully reside in: the ability to see the bigger picture. Sammy did not deserve to be murdered in his 30th year of life. I did not welcome the angst and despair I experienced. But rather than embracing the call for state-sanctioned murder, I chose instead to embrace my heart, which begged “no more violence no matter what.” My membership with MVFR is not solely about Sammy. It also encompasses how I choose to live with an undeserved and unwelcome event. With my membership I stand with all people who have experienced unexpected and/or senseless loss as a result of violent crimes. Enduring deep, to-the-core grief makes me part of a community that encourages expression of such loss without perpetuating the violence. This shared community nurtures and encourages expression of all feelings that come with an overwhelming numbness, and it invites me to live my life, while honoring the life of Sammy. I am, and will forever be, heartbroken that Sammy is not in my life. And at the same time, I am grateful that I no longer wish for the death of another being in retaliation to murder.
Andre Smith, North Carolina
Andre lost his son to murder.
Compassion for the man who killed my son
“One act of compassion can truly change the world in profound ways”
At Nash Correctional Institution in North Carolina, where I share the Buddha’s teachings for the Liberation Prison Project, I was asked by an inmate, “Are you suggesting that if someone that I love is harmed or killed I am supposed to forgive the killer?” And then the follow up question, “How can I have compassion for the perpetrator?” My answer was and has always been a very simple one: “This is what the Buddha taught, and this is how he lived his life.” adding, “The Buddha has not been alone, the Christ, Gandhi, Saint Francis, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa are all examples of people who practiced compassionate thought and compassionate living. However, in all honesty, I confessed, never having been in that situation, I couldn’t be certain as to how I would truly behave. What I can say, I told him, is that I would hope to be able to demonstrate such compassion if ever faced with such a dilemma.” December 28, 2007 my son Daniel was stabbed to death at a popular nightclub in downtown Raleigh, NC. The police arrived at my house around 6:00 am and delivered the devastating news. Upon hearing that our son was dead, my wife collapsed to the floor, my daughter cried uncontrollably, and I felt as if my guts were ripped from my body. Instantly we were plunged into grief, our lives irrevocably changed. That same day, when asked by an interviewer from a local news station as to how I felt about the young man who killed my son, without hesitation, and without forethought, I answered, “I feel nothing but compassion for him”. I explained that the young man is just as much a victim as my son was. The moment he plunged his knife into my son, killing him, I explained, he truly began to suffer. “How could I not have compassion for him?” I asked. “He has to live with what he has done for the rest of his life, and lifetimes to come”. Since that tragic day and interview I have given a great deal of thought to just why compassion for the killer of my son came so easily. I recall what I have been taught from my teacher Venerable Robina Courtin. She instructs that if anger or compassion comes easily for us it is because we must have been practicing it for a very long time. To become an accomplished pianist, we must practice piano. The reason that this young man could so easily pull out a knife and take the life of another is because he has been practicing anger and hatred for a very, very long time. In the end, he became an accomplished killer. We think. We act. We become. This is the process. Thought always precedes action. I teach my students that if we want to become loving, compassionate, and generous human beings we must possess and cultivate loving, compassionate, and generous thoughts. We think. We act. We become. I believe that another reason explaining why compassion and forgiveness came so readily to my mind is due to the work I do in the prisons. Teaching meditation and anger management to inmates has allowed me to see that each and every person in prison is a human being, like me. Working closely with these guys that I truly consider my friends and my brothers, has allowed me to see in them what I see in me. That is, that we all want the same thing. As the Dalai Lama says, all sentient beings desire the same thing; to be happy and to be free from suffering. We are equal, in potential. There is no difference, in essence, in our mind and in the mind of the Buddhas. Awareness of this fact allows me to have compassion for all living beings. Equanimity opens the door to compassion. My deepest and sincerest wish is that the young man that took my son’s life will be my student someday and I will be given the opportunity to teach him anger management based on compassionate thought and compassionate living.
Bonnita Spikes, Baltimore, Maryland
Bonnita lost her husband Michael to murder.
My husband Michael was killed in a convenience store robbery in March 1994. To date no one has been arrested for the crime. Michael was my childhood sweetheart. We married young and had four wonderful sons. It was devastating to go with the police to identify his body. My 15-year-old son, James, was with me. He revived me from fainting when he asked what we were going to do. I didn't know. It was like a dream; something I read about, that couldn't be happening to me. Somehow I got the arrangements done. My faith and family and friends were a tremendous support. My youngest son, Michael, had a severe bout with depression after losing his father. He attempted to commit suicide several times and was hospitalized for three years. When I asked him why he wanted to die he said, "I miss my dad and it hurts too bad to live." I knew how he felt. I wanted to stop breathing myself, but knew my sons needed me. I am glad to say today Michael lives a productive life. My husband, Michael, had told me early on that he opposed capital punishment – both for religious reasons and that he had learned that it wasn't distributed fairly. Today I fight for abolition of the death penalty because I am outraged that most people who are executed are poor people of color who often can't get adequate representation. It is no human being's right to say who lives and dies, not to mention the number of inmates found innocent after years on death row. I think the monies spent on execution could better be used for helping supply dollars to mental health so that the victim's family's needs could be met. Michael’s medical care and medication was very expensive. Although I had good insurance, mental health was not covered under the policy. I sought help from the board of the institute and fought for Michael's treatment. The prisoner's family could also be helped because both sides are victims. I visit the gentlemen that sit on death row in my state; I know their families and their stories. Many of them are victims who have had very hard lives. Although each had different circumstances they all had difficult times and small chances of overcoming the environment driven life dealt to them and their families. I would love for money spent on executions to be utilized for preventive, restorative and reentry programs. I pray for abolition in our country. Maryland is close to it, but it's a shame it is state-to-state. I am optimistic we will end the death penalty in the United States. I will continue to pray for everyone with capital sentences and their families. Keep hope and faith. I believe in forgiveness and redemption. Not all victims' families seek death.
Bess Klassen-Landis,Windsor, Vermont
Bess lost her mother to murder.
On March 14, 1969, my mom, Helen Klassen, was beaten, stripped, strangled, raped and shot four times in our home, while my sisters and I were at school and our dad was out of state. Suzy, age eleven, came home from school alone to find her. The aftermath of our mother’s death caused devastation of the heart and the psyche, destruction that rippled out and touched hundreds of lives. In 1969, DNA testing was not yet a reality, so although seven suspects were identified, no one was ever convicted. This added a level of fear to my life that was both real and imagined. At 13 years old, I learned that neither my home nor my community was safe, and that it was not a safe thing to grow up into a woman. Although I went ahead and played sports, sang in a folk band, expressed myself in art, and was in the National Honor Society, I walked with my head bowed between classes and immediately pulled out a book when I got to class, so no one would talk to me, or look me in the eye. I could not voice out loud to anyone, my utter despair, grief, fear and rage. I needed to pretend for others that I wasn’t being torn apart inside, that I wasn’t afraid to live in a home with bullet holes in the floor, and that our family was doing okay. The incongruency of my outer self and my inner self produced tremendous feelings of failure that were nearly intolerable. My family had been exploded and silenced. We each knew the depths of the others’ pain and would not burden each other with our own. For the next 37 years I dealt with symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For the first ten years, I visualized a dead body on the floor any time I needed to walk into the next room, open a door or turn on a light. I believed that Mom’s murderer watched me at all times, and would kill me before I could grow up. I created escape plans constantly in my mind as I moved around my own home. As a young adult, fear and nightmares paralyzed my growth. The physical and psychic stress of being hyper-vigilant for many years created an over-active immune system; so that today I have many environmental and food allergies. Although I was ashamed of my unvoiced feelings, when I would hear about awful crimes of murders of young children and the death penalty had been given, something very smug inside me said “Good. You deserve it. I don’t care about you at all.” In my mind, my mother’s murderer was someone who was so sick, he was unredeemable, damaged beyond control, a monster. To heal, murder victim family members need to feel safe. We need to be able to tell our stories to a peer group who understands what we’ve gone through. We need to be asked what we need, not told. And we desperately need to recapture the goodness of our own humanity again. To let go of feelings of hate, fear, and failure and allow a place for real joy back in our lives. This takes time, but it can’t happen while we are wishing evil on another human being. We need to find ways to move on. We all know individuals who have lost someone to illness or an accident. We would never suggest to them to fill the deep void within them with hate or that hate would bring them healing. Whether I like it or not, healing and forgiveness is my life’s work. The good news is, that when I came to acknowledge my mother’s murderer as a human being, I began to reclaim my own humanity and heal. I realized that I could reach out and extend my forgiveness and even love, to my mother’s murderer, despite not knowing who he was, or where he was. Forgiveness brought me release from fear, and the inner peace I was looking for. We must work to end the cycles of violence that proliferate in our society, not add to them.
Rev. Cathy Harrington
Cathy lost her daughter to murder.
"Don’t even think about protesting the death penalty" my broken-hearted sons told me each one separately on that very sad, fall afternoon that we had to bury and attempt to say goodbye to our precious, Leslie. I’m a parish minister in the Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, a faith that upholds the inherent worth and dignity of every human being, even murderers. The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations has called for a moratorium on executions since 1961 by the passing of resolutions at its annual General Assembly. Prior to November 1, 2004, when the issue was thrust into my experience through the brutal murder of my youngest child, I was philosophically opposed to the death penalty, but I didn’t give it much attention. Many UU ministers and lay persons have devoted tremendous energy to abolishing the death penalty, but I never felt moved or called to throw my weight into this issue. I have always firmly held the conviction that if we are going to change the systemic injustice and structures that oppress and dehumanize others, we must begin with the health and well-being of children. This is where I have focused my energy and my passion and that has not changed. My sons were all I had left. I was too numb and broken to think about the impact of the death penalty or to even care, but eventually I knew I would face a moral dilemma. Leslie Ann Mazzara and her roommate, Adrienne Insogna, were brutally stabbed to death in their home in Napa, California on Halloween night. The murderer was not apprehended for eleven months and during that time, both families and the surviving roommate were held in trauma space. From the start of the investigation it was believed that Leslie was the murderer’s target and that Adrienne died trying to help her. Finally, after 218 DNA samples and no suspect, Eric Copple, a friend of Adrienne’s, turned himself in after the police finally published evidence that the killer smoked Camel Turkish blend cigarettes, a new and rare brand. I hadn’t realized that I had been holding my breath until I received that call in the middle of the night to tell me that the murderer had been found. Because of the special circumstances, DNA evidence, and multiple victims, the death penalty was considered an appropriate punishment. By the summer of 2006, after several trips from Michigan to California for pretrials and hearings, and enduring unwanted media attention, and the threat of further exploitation, even my sons were weary enough to consider a plea agreement in lieu of a trial and the death penalty. No grieving family should be forced to endure this. It makes no sense at all. Compounding the tragedy, we were facing the potential of a lengthy and painful highly publicized death penalty trial that could go on for months or even years. With the potential of appeal after appeal, executions can take up to 23 years in California. My family wanted to be free to grieve Leslie’s death and move toward healing. We knew that would be impossible if we followed the traditional judicial process. I searched for answers by contacting the director of MVFR, Robert Hoelsher, who connected me with Tammy Krause, a victim outreach specialist who created DIVO, Defense Initiated Victim Outreach in response to staggering needs of the families of victims in the Oklahoma City bombing case. Pamela Blume Leonard borrowed a poem by Emily Dickinson for the title of an article that describes the principles of DIVO: All But Death, Can Be Adjusted. Tammy’s compassionate understanding of the needs of victims, “adjusts” all that can be adjusted. The best way this preacher knows how to describe the miracle of her intervention in our lives is to say that the work that Tammy accomplished ushered in the kingdom of God. When she invited the spirit of love and compassion and created a dialogue between both sides, it made all the difference. With Tammy’s help we were able to negotiate a life sentence without parole waiving all rights to appeal. The agreement included several other important conditions compiled by both families. She empowered us in a judicial system that seems to perpetuate and compound the violence done to victims and their families. The sentencing hearing at the end of January 2007 marked the end of the judicial process sparing us months of trial, years of appeals, and decades of being shackled to the murderer. We were finally able to stop the cycle of violence by finding the most compassionate solution for all concerned including the murderer and his family. Looking back on that first year, I see that could barely breathe and was kept alive by the sheer grace of love that was showered on me by my friends, family, and strangers. That’s all I remember besides the nightmares that plagued my sleep and waking hours; those small gifts of love that somehow permeated the dense layer of numbness and pain. I was a zombie, the world around me was pale, flat, and barren; I likened it to a nuclear winter. I had to remind myself to breathe. I couldn’t concentrate, much less read the many books people gave to me that might offer a word of comfort or “the wisdom of grief.” One book did provide the hope that I could indeed survive when I certain I wouldn’t. That book was called, A Broken Heart Still Beats, by Annie McCracken. The title alone brought me comfort. When Sister Helen Prejean graciously offered to meet with me, she was a voice of sanity in the wilderness, "Of course your sons want the ultimate punishment for their sister’s murderer". Sister Helen helped me understand their need to seek revenge. She said that until we become a more compassionate nation and abandon the barbaric and cruel practice of the death penalty, people will continue to falsely believe that revenge will somehow bring relief. She poked a hole in my darkness when she told me the story of how people treated the murderer’s mother in the case that became known as Dead Man Walking. People cut up dead animals and threw them on her porch; they ridiculed her and spewed hatred at her when she tried to buy groceries. I learned that there is one thing worse than being the mother of a murdered child; it is to become the mother of a murderer. My heart was pierced with a measure of compassion. A pinhole of light began to illuminate my path and gradually my eyes began to adjust to the new landscape that was to be the rest of my life. The words of friends that were survivors of murdered children began to ring true: You never get over it, Cathy, you just get used to it. Your life is now divided in two, before November 1, 2004 and after November 1, 2004. What I have learned is that when we are held hostage by a judicial system that offers the false hope that relief will come the day that the murderer is murdered, we are doomed to exist in purgatory. When my daughter’s murderer accepted the plea agreement that we, her family, participated in crafting, the oxygen available to us increased in great measure. When we were given the opportunity to give our impact statements in the courtroom, in front of the murderer, the judge, the community, and the media, we were given our lives back. Nothing could give us Leslie back, but slowly, after that day, the capacity to remember her with joy returned. We were given the chance, finally, to grieve without having to protect and defend ourselves at every turn. The judicial process was complete, finished with no threat of appeal, no threat that the murderer would be martyred or turned into a celebrity by our “roman circus” entertainment industry. We could move on with the process of grief and trying to make meaning out of such a senseless tragedy. What I have learned from grief and tragedy is that life is a precious and sacred gift that shouldn’t squandered. We mustn’t give our lives away to hatred or revenge, and we mustn’t linger too long in sorrow, either. The present judicial process keeps the wounds of grief fresh and raw for the duration of the investigation and trial which could take months or years. The death penalty guarantees that wounds of grief will be ripped open again and again as the false hope of closure and relief is placed at risk each time the offender files an appeal; and when the offender becomes the victim as he awaits his state sanctioned murder on death row and goodhearted people abhor and protest the absurdity of it all. There is a higher path that makes much more sense. Life is sacred and when we participate in the murder of another human being for any reason, it diminishes our own lives. Truthfully, it was tempting to want the murderer of my child to suffer, to be forced to sit day after day on death row in terror, waiting and wondering when they would come and kill him. I’m a minister, but I don’t claim to be a saint. I cannot say that I will ever forgive Eric Copple, but I have found compassion in my heart for the small boy that grew up to be a murderer; the boy that was betrayed by the very people who were supposed to love him and protect him. I am walking on the path toward forgiveness and I pray that one day I will arrive, but in the meantime I am still convinced that if we are to change our broken and hurting world, we must begin with the children. I’ve promised myself to remember Eric, the wounded child, every time I see a neglected or hurting child and offer that child love in whatever why I can. Our nation incarcerates 1 out of 100 of its citizens. Children born in poverty, abuse, and neglect have little hope of becoming whole and healthy adults. Children that attend schools where the library shelves are bare due to the lack of tax money while an affluent school less than a mile away has the advantage of state of the art technology. It is no wonder that prisons have become one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. We taxpayers pay more per year to incarcerate people than we do to educate children. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what’s going on here, but it will require love and determination to change it. I am hopeful. Surprisingly, my faith has deepened over the past three and one half years and I have confidence in the basic goodness of humanity. Leslie’s brothers and friends are working hard to build a cottage for abused and abandoned kids in South Carolina. Leslie’s Cottage will be home to ten children from grade school through high school and then each child will receive the opportunity of a four-year college education at Anderson University for free. This is how we will change the world! Not by building more prisons, but by creating loving and safe homes, by loving our neighbor. By loving one child at a time, we can dare to dream that one day no mother’s child will grow up to be a murderer. It is up to each one of us to make that dream come true. The next time you see a child at risk, ask yourself how you can help. Your love will save more than one life, of this I am certain, and here’s why: When the sentencing hearing came to a close and the court room had cleared, the defense attorney introduced me to Eric’s mother at my request: From the depths of my aching soul forever changed by tragedy, I looked into the red and raw grief-stricken eyes of the other mother and much to my surprise, I saw myself. It was then that I understood the pain of the world, while at the same time witnessed a glimpsed of a deep abiding hope lying at core of that pain. A hope born of compassion, a hope that can overcome all fear, terror, pain, and loss, a hope that can wash our world clean, leading us toward the promise of resurrection, not in the afterlife but here and now. It is up to us to choose love over hate. May it be so.