"Where the death penalty is an option, the victim's family is apt to be drawn into the spirit of vengeance with the promise that an execution will give them 'justice'. This prolongs their grief and pain through the years of court proceedings. We are grateful that Michigan does not have the death penalty, and did not give us a sentence of prolonged grief or hold out a false promise that an execution would make it all better. Holding on to hate and vengeance will not help us heal.

We are thankful that our mother raised us to believe in forgiveness, because if hatred had been added to our burden of pain, loss, and grief after her brutal murder, it would have destroyed us."

SALLY PECK
LIVONIA, MICHIGAN

Sally and Carol's mother, Bernice O'Connor, was 82 years old when she was raped, beaten, strangled and stabbed to death in her Detroit home. Sally and Carol do not believe the death penalty would have deterred the murder because it was a crime of rage. "Killers either act in passion or they believe they will not be caught," they say. The sisters remember their mother as "always cheerful and positive, seeing and seeking good in everything...the kind of person who brought people together, reconciling differences." Killing her killer, in their view, would desecrate their mother's memory.

Reprinted with permission from "Not In Our Name: Murder Victims Families Speak Out Against the Death Penalty," a publication of Murder Victims Families For Reconciliation, Barbara Hood & Rachel King, Editors.  MVFR

SALLY ON THE EUROPEAN JOURNEY