Hidden Victims: The Effects of the Death Penalty on Families of the Accused

Chapter 8: Double Losers: Being Both a Victim’s Family Member and an Offender’s Family Member

Chapter 8 Double Losers Being Both a Victim’s Family Member and an Offender’s Family Member The policy of focusing on the“needs”of victims’family members for some kind of resolution ignores the fact that many of the victims’ families are also family members of the offender. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, nearly 13 percent of murders that occurred in the United States in 2002 were murders of family members.1 Actually, this number minimizes the relationship between victims and offenders because the relationship is not included in the data in over 40 percent of the cases. Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that in the 8,039 cases where the relationships between victim and offender were reported, over 22 percent of the murders were committed by family members. In other words, close to one in four homicides occur in families.These statistics relate to homicides overall, and only a small fraction of homicides result in a death sentence. However, many families may find themselves related to both victim and offender. Indeed, I found this relationship in several of my interviews. Those who are related to both victim and offender find themselves in an appalling situation. While they maybe bitter and angry toward the perpetrator for killing their loved one, they also may have vestiges of affection for the perpetrator as well. A death sentence, then, could add to their losses. Family members reacted to this situation in varied ways. In some cases, they wanted nothing to do with the offender. In others, they found themselves fighting to prevent his or her execution. In both situations , the family member’s pain was increased by the potential of yet another death. 131 To Forgive or Not Forgive: Murder in the Family One of the people that I interviewed had a cousin on death row for the murder of his mother. Martha lives in a medium size city more than a thousand miles from where her aunt was brutally murdered by her cousin. He actually was an adoptive cousin, but she considered him to be like a blood relation until the murder. Martha said that initially she was full of rage and hatred. She felt that her aunt had tried to help this young man and he had repaid her kindness with murder. She wrote her cousin off and had no contact with him for many years. She reflected, “For a long time I made a big deal that this man was adopted, that he was not genetically related to them.” When I arrived for the interview Martha was prepared. She had a large box full of letters, documents, and newspaper clippings about her cousin and the case sitting in her living room. As we talked, she went through the box looking for relevant papers. Martha told me,“When the people started sending these clippings and copies of clippings to me, I just picked up a box and started sticking them in there. And when I ran across anything that seemed to pertain to it, like those letters, I just stuck them in there.” The story Martha related was a sad one. Her aunt and uncle did not have children, so after ten years of marriage they adopted her cousin. They were an active couple, enjoying the outdoors. They hunted, and they took their young son with them. From his parents, he learned not only how to kill but also how to butcher the kill. Years later he would use that skill to dispose of his mother’s body. Martha’s aunt, uncle, and cousin lived in Arizona. By the time of her aunt’s murder, her uncle had already passed away, leaving mother and son closer to each other and dependent on each other. Her cousin had a troubled childhood, with frequent skirmishes with the law, but at the time Martha did not think he would become violent. He had learning disabilities in addition to his emotional problems. He attended a school for disabled children, but he was expelled from that school. Martha said she thought it had something to do with molesting another student, although she wondered if it had been consensual sex. Martha described her cousin as inept in social situations and a bully while growing up. He H i d d e n Vi c t i m s 132 picked on other children and put his hands inappropriately on...