When I got back from Callaway Gardens, I’d called Valerie Stephenson, the arranger, author, conductor, clinician, and composer who had agreed to do the song. We discussed various songs she might be able to use. We decided she would do an arrangement of an existing song, “The Ashgrove,” rather than a new composition. The handbell choir had been such a part of my life for so many years, it was very poignant that they took the time and creativity to honor my family in this way. “In order for it to be officially dedicated,” she had told me, “it has to be performed in public.”
We asked Good Shepherd if we could have a public presentation of the song—something simple, maybe just a prelude or reflection. When the parish found out about our handbell song for Ann, the men’s choir and the children’s choir wanted in on the action. Instead of a simple “performance,” it became a full-blown memorial concert. We scheduled it for a crisp fall night in November. While we were practicing the song for the concert, Deb, one of the ringers, said, “Kate, I never realized that you played the last note in the song.”
“Yes,” I said. “I also play the first.”
When Valerie had selected the music, she had no knowledge of what notes people played. The song began and ended with the G5 chime. One of my notes.
“The song that honors my daughter begins and ends with my hand,” I mused.
We all stood and pondered God’s goodness and his poetic, melodic arrangement of the details of our lives.
CHAPTER 11
I assume he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison, right?” I asked Helene Potlock, the Victim Assistance Program Director at the state attorney’s office.
Florida has tough crime laws, dubbed “10–20–Life.” That means that anyone who uses a gun while committing a crime will be sentenced to ten years; anyone who fires a gun while committing a crime will be sentenced to twenty years; and anyone who injures or kills someone with a gun will get twenty-five years to life. To help citizens remember, the Department of Corrections sums it up like this: “Pull a Gun—Mandatory 10 Years. Pull the Trigger—Mandatory 20 Years. Shoot Someone—25 Years to Life (whether they live or die).”1 We knew Conor was going to be spending the rest of his life in prison. It was a warm Friday in May, and we were at the state attorney’s office to discuss their strategy regarding Conor. We were waiting for the assistant state attorney, Jack Campbell, to arrive.
“No, 10–20–Life only applies if it goes to trial and he’s found guilty. Then the judge must follow the mandatory sentencing guidelines,” Helene explained. “But if it does not go to trial, the judge does not have to follow the mandatory sentencing guidelines.”
That didn’t mean much to me at the moment, but I tucked it away in my mind. Jack Campbell came in, introduced himself, sat down at his desk, and placed a large file there. When he looked up at us, my recognition was immediate. This was the son of Larry Campbell, our county sheriff, who ran the jail where Conor remained incarcerated.
“The first thing I want to tell you is that the death penalty is off the table,” he said. Andy and I sat across the desk from Jack, while the victim’s advocate, Helene, sat in a chair to the side. “But from what I’ve heard, you wouldn’t want to pursue that anyway.”
“You’re right,” Andy said. “We wouldn’t.” If you had asked me ten years ago what my thoughts on the death penalty were, I might have said, “An eye for an eye.” Over the years, I had begun to accept the Church’s teaching that all life is precious from conception to natural death. We live in a country that has the means to keep dangerous criminals away from the public, so we do not need capital punishment. I don’t think Jack encountered many moral or philosophical discussions of the death penalty, though. I think he was used to hearing loved ones protest that the offender wasn’t facing the death penalty. Isn’t the normal reaction one of vengeance and retribution? We even had people who offered to “take care of Conor” for us.
The death penalty in Florida is reserved for capital offenses that include first-degree murder and felony murder. First-degree murder is the most serious homicide charge, because it involves premeditation. Conor would have needed a plan to carry out the homicide in order to be charged this way. In fact, Jack argued that even if Conor thought for a second that he wanted to shoot Ann, it would have been classified as first-degree. A felony murder is when someone commits homicide during the commission of a felony (for example, a burglary) . . . sort of a “felony on top of a felony.” I was relieved to hear these options were off the table.
“I just want to let you know that I will handle everything. You don’t have to worry. We’ll try not to go to trial,” he said. “If we do go to trial, we’ll try not to have you testify. We don’t want you in the room. We’ll spare you as much as we can.” I got the feeling he’d done this a million times, and he was trying to assure us that we didn’t have to participate in the process for justice to be done. In a way his confidence was reassuring. “I’ll represent Ann,” he continued. “I’ll be her advocate.”
Andy, who sat on my left, repositioned himself in his chair. I glanced over at him and noticed he’d become very still. A statue. He later told me he felt as though Jack was trying to take his fatherhood away. Ever since Ann was born, he had been her advocate and caretaker. In her death Andy was not going to relinquish his last real act of advocacy. He would always be her father, and this man could not take that away from him.
“How much time do you think he’s going to spend in prison?” I asked. “Twenty-five to life?”
“I have a lot of leeway in what he’s charged with,” Jack said, leaning back in his chair.
“Really?” I asked. “Doesn’t 10–20–Life pretty much settle it?”
“No . . . I could charge him with manslaughter and recommend five years,” he said, emphasizing the words “five years” to show how preposterously short that would be—a verbal flourish to demonstrate his power in this process.
I sat straight up. “What?”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that in this case,” he said, trying to assuage me. He probably assumed I’d been offended at how little time he could spend in jail. “I could, but I’m not going to.”
“But you could, right?” I said, leaning forward in my chair. “You could charge him with manslaughter, and he’d only get five years?”
Suddenly, he understood that a shorter sentence had piqued my interest, not upset me.
“We’re not talking about that in this case,” he backpedaled. “I mean, that’s not going to happen.”
He quickly focused the rest of the meeting on procedures. He explained that it could take nine months to a year to see if we would go to trial, and that they were in the process of gathering evidence.
“The defense will portray your daughter in a negative light and will portray Conor in a positive light,” he said.
“But he turned himself in,” I said. “He’s admitted to shooting her.”
“Yes, but a trial will bring everything out,” he said. “No matter how Conor feels now, his defense attorney will do whatever is necessary to get him the best sentencing.”
Is this one big game? I thought. The way he described it, we, the McBrides, and Conor were just pawns on a chessboard. Even if Conor didn’t want to assassinate Ann’s character, Jack assured us that basically the defense attorney would do it anyway. I didn’t want to relive all the pain and drama of Ann’s death, especially with a professional defense team aiming to tear down Ann’s good name.
“I don’t want that,” I said. The room grew quiet as we thought about Conor’s sentencing.
“Do you think any of us here in this room have been as angry as Conor was when he shot Ann?” Jack asked.
“Oh no,” I said immediately. “I don’t think any of us have.”
“Definitely not,” Andy said.
Jack paused a moment and announced, “I guarantee every one of us has been as angry as Conor.”
“Well,” I said, “if we’re being honest, then I have been as angry
as Conor.” My mind returned to my dating years, when I tried to run over poor Jake McFarland with my moped. When Jake angered me outside that pizza parlor, I put the pedal to the metal. Of course, he had a chance to simply get out of the way. But what if I’d startled him? What if he’d fallen and hit his head? Then my angry flare-up would look different. A lot more serious.
“What I’m trying to say is this,” Jack said. “We’ve all been that angry, but not one of us has picked up a gun and shot the person closest to us.”
Of course, Jack’s point was made: Conor was different from us civilized folks.
“And,” he added, “Conor didn’t call 911. He got in his car, drove around town, and then turned himself in. If this were truly an accident, he wouldn’t have been afraid to call 911.”
“But here’s a boy who’s barely nineteen years old, and he’s just fired a shotgun at the head of the person he’d wanted to marry. He’d just done—and witnessed—a really horrific thing. He thought he had killed her right then,” I said. Until Jack Campbell talked about it, I hadn’t really thought about why Conor didn’t call for help. “Shooting someone is a very physically violent thing.”
“Yes, that’s what I’m pointing out,” Jack said. “He’s done a very violent thing.”
“But you expect him to just call 911 and say, ‘I shot my girlfriend’?” I asked. “I can forgive him for being so shocked at what happened that he did not immediately pick up the phone. He contemplated killing himself, so he must have been extremely upset and disturbed by what he’d just done.”
“I know you’ve forgiven Conor,” Jack said to me. “And forgiveness is good. I, too, am a Christian. But . . .”
As he let his sentence hang unfinished in the air, I knew exactly what he meant. Forgiveness is generally a good thing, but there are limits. Everyone knows that.
That night I lay down on my side of the bed and listened as Andy’s breathing changed into the cadence of sleep. I pulled the covers up to my neck and relived the conversation with Jack Campbell. It’s one thing to think that Conor was going to have to spend the rest of his life in prison because the law demanded it. It’s quite another to realize that he doesn’t actually have to spend the rest of his life in prison. When Jack told me about the discretion he had over the charge, it was another moment of conviction. What were we willing to do? What were we going to do now that we could make a difference?
“I, too, am a Christian. But . . .”
There was a lot packed into that last syllable. It somehow quantified forgiveness, limited it, made it seem a tad unreasonable. People have described our actions to Conor as “radical forgiveness,” but we thought of it as basic Christianity. Were we doing anything more radical than what Christ did on the cross? “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” he’d said (Luke 23:34).
Yet, as I contemplated it, I got it. In some ways it was easier to forgive Conor, knowing that the state was not going to forgive him and that he’d be locked up forever. But how far was I willing to take my forgiveness now that I knew there were other options? Were we willing to step in or just sit back and let the system go forward? I suddenly felt responsible for what would happen to Conor.
Did we really want him to spend twenty-five years to life in prison?
I turned over on my side and could see the clock: 2:37 a.m.
CHAPTER 12
When Andy was in the process of becoming a deacon, he was assigned a wonderful mentor named Marcus Hepburn. As the emergency manager for the Florida Catholic Conference, Marcus coordinated the state’s seven Catholic dioceses for disaster response and trained rural volunteers to respond effectively during tornadoes, hurricanes, and droughts. His wife, Toni, managed a Ronald McDonald House; and Marcus was a president of the Big Bend Homeless Coalition, a member of Tallahassee Equality Action Ministry (which works on social-justice issues), and an activist in prison ministry. In fact, Governor Jeb Bush gave him a Point of Light Award for social and religious activism in 2004.
“Marcus, what do you know about Wakulla prison?” Andy asked him one day. “Do you think Conor could get in there once he’s sentenced?” We were concerned a regular state prison would not be the best place for Conor and were investigating whether or not we could get him into a faith-based prison. It could only be good for him to be surrounded by people of faith.
“Wakulla Correctional Institution is one of the faith- and character-based residential programs in state,” he said, referring to the facility located just south of Tallahassee. “They offer faith-based programming to inmates to improve their lives so they don’t just sit in jail for years.” The program had fewer correctional issues among the inmates and attempted to reduce recidivism by teaching the prisoners life skills.
“That sounds perfect,” Andy said. He had been visiting with Conor because Andy did not want him to sink into despair or hopelessness. He knew that self-forgiveness would be impossible without God. “Or as perfect as being in jail can be,” he said.
“I know an Episcopal priest named Allison DeFoor, and his assignment is Wakulla prison,” he said. “Do you want me to introduce you?”
“Wait—his assignment?”
“Yes, he’s a man named Allison,” Marcus laughed. “You have to speak to him.”
It had been two months since Ann died.
On Memorial Day weekend we accepted a dinner invitation from Jerry and Margaret Haynes. Jerry was also a deacon at Good Shepherd church. We’d had a little time to adjust to our “new normal” of life without our daughter. In the middle of dinner, Jerry’s phone rang and he excused himself to answer it. I could tell by his tone of voice that something was wrong. When he came back into the room, our fears were confirmed.
“Marcus was moving a mattress in his garage,” he said. “He fell backward and hit his head and is in really bad shape.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
“The Neuro ICU at Tallahassee Memorial,” he said.
This, of course, was exactly where Ann was treated.
We all quickly finished our dinner and drove to the hospital.
“How do you think you’ll feel going back to the hospital?” Andy asked as we rushed to see Marcus.
“At least we’ll know our way around,” I said.
And I was surprised at how relatively easy it was to go back into that place. For some, I can imagine there would be the anxiety of, “I can’t go in. I don’t want to open that door. I don’t want to walk down that hallway.” But once I’d forgiven Conor, I didn’t hold all that anxiety any longer. Marcus’s room was directly across the hall from Ann’s. In fact, we exchanged awkward glances with one of the nurses who had taken care of Ann just eight weeks prior. Wait, I know you, but didn’t you already leave? I made a mental note to catch her on the way out.
“I’m so sorry,” I said as I hugged his wife, Toni. As we stood next to Marcus’s bed, suddenly the roles were reversed. Andy and I were the ones comforting instead of the ones receiving comfort. As we talked to Toni, a man came into the room. He had salt-and-pepper hair framing his dark eyes, and he wore a beard.
“Hey, big guy,” he said to Marcus, who was unconscious. The man was shorter than I was, but his personality seemed to take up the whole room. As we talked to Toni, Marcus would do things that indicated he was still in there somewhere; he moved and opened his eyes, so it looked as though he might have a chance of recovery. But Marcus was on blood thinners for his heart, and they weren’t able stop his internal bleeding. Within a week, he would die of his injuries.
As we waited, Toni said, “Allison, would you mind praying?”
A man named Allison? That’s when it dawned on us. This was the man with whom Marcus promised to connect us, a promise he kept in a most terrible way. As we left, Andy grabbed Allison in the corridor. “I’m Andy Grosmaire. Marcus said you were the one I need to talk to because I have some questions about helping someone get into Wakulla prison.”
“That’ll be tough because I don�
�t really have any influence over that,” he said. “But here’s my card. Give me a call and we’ll talk about it.”
A few days later, Andy and I went to downtown Tallahassee to Allison’s office. It was located in an old redbrick building with a clock tower on one corner, and the inside looked like a movie set for “old Southern lawyer.” The staircase and the floors were crafted from dark, worn wood, and the accents were made of brass. We waited for him to arrive in his small office, which was tucked in the upstairs corner.
Had Allison shown up matching his stately law office, he would’ve appeared in a seersucker suit and a bow tie. In fact, his family has been in Florida for seven generations—a rarity, especially in this part of Florida. Before becoming an Episcopal priest, he was a judge and the sheriff of Monroe County, a public defender, a prosecutor, Republican Governor Bob Martinez’s running mate nominee for lieutenant governor in 1990, and Governor Jeb Bush’s “Everglades Czar.” He came to the ministry later in life, when he traded his political aspirations for spiritual ones. Though he’s been known to wear bow ties, he showed up that day in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and sandals.
“Hey guys, come on in and sit down,” he said. “Push those papers off the desk. How can I help you?”
Andy and I told him our story. “The grand jury came back and has charged him with first-degree murder, so we just know he’s going to prison for life. It’d be great if he would be able to go to Wakulla.”
“Sadly, there’s not a lot I can do about getting Conor into Wakulla, because there’s a waiting list that’s two or three years long. It’s a very popular place because there’s much less violence and a lot of accountability,” Allison said. “It sounds like what you really want is restorative justice.”
Forgiving My Daughter's Killer Page 12