Victims’ Joint Statement before Sentencing

A tragedy of the first magnitude has occurred:
A young woman, who will never be an old woman,
is dead—
not by the vagaries of illness or accident—
but by the wanton maliciousness
of another human who consciously chose
to pump four bullets
from a nine millimeter pistol
into her head!

Not only did he commit murder
but also he committed the worse sort
of child abuse.
A three year old child
will never know her mama
as other children do.

This child will know
only by fading photographs
who gave her birth.

An entire family is devastated by her loss,
and two years later, her killer
still can breathe the air, see the sun, and walk upon the earth,
while our judicial system defends his right to a fair trial.

Who, may we ask, defended his victim’s right to live?

Our country guarantees us the rights
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This man’s maliciousness and callous disregard
for this young woman’s life and liberty
has totally disregarded her child’s and our happiness.

Everyone who was touched by her presence
has been irretrievably and irrevocably altered
by the heinousness of his decision
to make himself happy by killing her.

Justice is often portrayed as blind.
In this instance, we hope
that Justice lifts her blindfold
and looks with sympathetic eyes
upon all of those touched
by this animal’s viciousness.

We also pray that Justice will demand
the severest punishment available
within our judicial system of law.

This man forfeited his rights
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
when he made the choice to murder someone else.
He should never be allowed
to walk or to breathe as a free man again.

Society should be spared
the threat presented to all of us
should this man ever be released
to wreck the lives of others
with the violence that follows his displeasure.

It is a pity that his fate
could not be the same
as that which he chose
to inflict on someone else.

Therefore, we respectfully request
that this man be given whatever
is the severest penalty possible
in this jurisdiction.
We do not want revenge;
we just want justice.