Murder, Motherhood, and Miraculous Grace

by Debra Moerke

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Did you tell Karen Bower about these beliefs that your religion holds?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you discuss those with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you prayed with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you advised her to ask for forgiveness?”

  “Yes.”

  I got the distinct impression that the attorney was trying to compare forgiveness of sins with pardoning of a crime. Surely he didn’t think I would tell Karen she could be pardoned if she confessed everything to me? The forgiveness of sins doesn’t mean we escape consequences. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. The judge stopped the questioning with his own question. I found it curious that the judge would want me to clarify what I had just said. Was it for the court or for himself?

  “Let me interrupt you, if I might—and I hate to interrupt—but let me be specific. Is it the belief of your church that the ordained pastor may not grant forgiveness?” He leaned over the dais and looked into my eyes with sincerity.

  “That’s true,” I answered, smiling back at him. I was finally feeling a sense of relief and excitement over sharing my faith. But what came next blindsided me.

  The defense attorney then said, “Do you have interest in seeing Karen go to prison for a long time?”

  “Do I have any interest?” What is he getting at? Afraid of what his intentions were, I felt manipulated by his question and shot up a quick prayer.

  The lawyer raised his voice a little. “Now, if my client’s in prison, she doesn’t have any chance of getting Courtney back, is that correct?”

  My heart started to hammer. Does he really think I was manipulating the adoption, using Karen’s confession as a bargaining tool to adopt Courtney? Fire burned in my chest. He had no understanding of what really went on inside of me, and court was not the place for me to share my heart—especially with an attorney who was trying to discredit me. I had to remember his position. He was just doing his job, but in doing so, the truth was being distorted.

  “In May of this year, the adoption of Courtney went through?”

  “Yes,” I said, working my jaw a bit to make sure I didn’t speak through clenched teeth.

  “And at that time, you wrote Karen and said that the adoption was final, and that she didn’t have to worry about anything anymore, correct?”

  Confused as to what information he thought he had that could be detrimental, I felt my body stiffen at what he might twist or turn into wrong actions on my part. “I could have. I don’t recall that particular time, but I could have said that.”

  “I can tell you your exact words. Let me get the letter.” Reaching for two papers that lay on the corner of the table where Karen and her other attorney sat, he handed them to me and asked me to read specific paragraphs. I looked up at the attorney and nodded when I finished. It took every ounce of strength to suppress a grin. This was almost humorous. There wasn’t anything questionable in the letter. I gave simple information about how the adoption was going and told Karen that I had contacted the attorney who agreed to help with that process. I handed the letter back to him.

  His voice was stern. “Did you write those letters?’

  “I believe so.”

  “You do know that one of Karen Bower’s goals and her focus in life is getting her children back. Is that correct?”

  What is the point of this? “Yes.”

  “Now, if she’s in prison, she doesn’t have any chance of getting Courtney back, is that correct?”

  “I would assume that is correct.”

  I was confused. The questioning ping-ponged from forgiveness to the adoption. All I could glean from it was that the defense wanted to discredit me as a potential witness—making me look manipulative—using my status as a jail chaplain to adopt Karen’s baby. With five of my own children, I was not someone desperate to adopt another baby. The call to do so came from God. But I wasn’t given an opportunity to correct the misconception of me that he had just insinuated.

  The attorney, apparently frustrated, returned to his chair. “Thank you. That’s all my questions.”

  Once again, I was handed over to the prosecutor for a brief recross examination.

  Then suddenly, the questioning was over.

  And with that, the hearing was apparently over.

  Or at least my part in it. I was stunned with the abrupt end.

  The court officer escorted Karen out the same door they had entered over an hour ago. The prosecutor asked the judge to allow me to be dismissed from the courtroom and released from the subpoena. I stepped down from the stand, walked across the courtroom, and rejoined Charlene.

  The judge would decide later regarding whether or not I’d be called to testify at the trial. I couldn’t help but feel cheated somehow—as if I were owed some kind of explanation or conclusion. But clearly, that was not to be.

  “I hope I did what God wanted me to do,” I whispered to Charlene.

  “You spoke the truth. Now it’s up to the judge to make his decision.”

  As I drove home after the proceedings, I wrestled with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I felt battered, bruised, and misused. All I’d done from the beginning was try to follow God’s call to minister to Karen in spite of the fact that she’d murdered precious Hannah. For that, I’d just been dragged through a hearing where my character was smeared with innuendo. On the other hand, I’d stood steadfast in spite of my jangled nerves and had even shared the gospel in a court of law. God had proven himself trustworthy once again.

  Several days after the hearing, I went to the jail to visit Karen. She had been held over in Casper for more meetings with her attorneys. When I told her I didn’t understand why I might be called to testify at the trial, she told me that the quality of the tape with her confession to the police was poor. It wasn’t clear enough to be admissible in court.

  In that moment I knew why I was either the prosecutor’s best hope . . . or the defense attorney’s biggest fear. But I still had no idea if I’d be called to testify at Karen’s trial. All I could do was hope that I would not. The thought of Karen’s life or death hinging on my words was unthinkable.

  Chapter 23New Territories

  MOVING FROM OUR GOOSE EGG ROAD home to Arizona left our family torn. On the one hand, it was good to be far away from court hearings and news coverage of Hannah’s death and Karen’s pending trial. On the other hand, Casper was our home, and saying good-bye to the hometown and house that held so many good memories of our own family and the many children we’d fostered tugged at our hearts.

  In October of 1999, we arrived in Arizona and the six of us moved into a two-bedroom apartment near Phoenix until the house we were buying was finished being built. Charles slept on the couch. Sadie and Helen shared one bedroom, and Al, Courtney, and I shared the second. It was cozy but not ideal. The only perk was the pool that the kids enjoyed. It seemed odd to enjoy swimming in October. I missed the crisp fall air and brilliant colors back home.

  Arizona plunged us into a different lifestyle. We knew to expect seasonal rainy monsoons instead of freezing snowy blizzards, and we began adapting to scorching heat instead of extreme cold. Navigating traffic across town could take an hour rather than ten minutes. Instead of cruising quiet Highway 220 along the flowing North Platte River to Casper, we listened each morning for car accident reports so we would know which detours to take into Phoenix.

  Our house, completed just before Christmas, was located in a town named Surprise. What an appropriate place to live given all that was to come.

  The house was beautiful, and everyone settled into his or her own room. Sadie left for Casper to live with some friends and complete her senior year with her class.

  During the holiday season, I missed the grand fir we usually brought home to decorate. However, we learned that one could string lights on a saguaro cactus, if you do it very carefully. The holiday without snow, our church family, and
our friends dampened our spirits, but the services at The Church at Arrowhead, the church we found when we first arrived, fed our family with God’s Word and new friendships.

  Then one day in December we received a tremendous Christmas surprise. A letter arrived from Karen. In it she told us that the judge had ruled that there was no premeditation in Hannah’s death; therefore, Karen would not be given the death penalty! Karen agreed to a plea bargain to avoid putting her family through a long trial that would only cause more hurt and pain for all of them. So finally, it was decided. Karen would serve a life sentence.

  I was relieved she wouldn’t be put to death. By this time, I was seeing evidence of her slow yet steady spiritual growth. With the prison’s permission, I had given her a leather Bible with her name engraved on it a few months before. She’d been reading it and was asking me more and more questions about God through our letters.

  I also appreciated that one day our precious Courtney would not have to be told her birth mother had been executed. I had no idea, of course, at what age Courtney would learn the events behind her adoption, nor how she would respond to the horrific truth of her sister’s murder, but somehow it seemed to me that with Karen still alive there might be more hope for a positive outcome of the story—a story God was still writing. When he is the author, there is always hope.

  Finally, I was relieved to know that I would not be called to testify in a trial. Ever since learning that the taped confession was not presentable as evidence, I’d worried that Karen’s detailed confession to me might be the evidence that would send her to her death. With that weight now lifted, I celebrated in prayer and thanksgiving.

  As the new year began, I decided to register for college classes at Wayland Baptist University, a few miles from our home. I was excited to go back to school to get a degree so I could enter the prison system as a fully employed chaplain. My connection with Karen further spurred me on in my desire for this line of work as it made me realize more than ever how God could use prison time to work in a prisoner’s heart. I wanted to be a part of what God was doing behind the razor wire. I would attend evening classes when the family was home so Courtney, a year old, could be cared for by Al and the kids.

  By this time in my life I felt I’d earned a master’s degree in the practice of surrender. Foster parenting had been a lifestyle of surrender—surrendering self to meet the needs of children. Over the years I’d found a sense of beautiful spiritual growth in investing myself in the needs of young impressionable hearts and participating in their discoveries of obedience, trust, discipline, and love. My own obedience and trust in God had grown, an appreciation of the Lord’s discipline and grace had developed, and my love for him had deepened.

  The day I’d had to peel Hannah’s terrified grasp away and leave her at her mother’s home had nearly undone me. Driving away from her that day had been an unparalleled milestone on my surrender journey, for I’d been obedient and clung to the Lord—surrender lesson learned. What I had discovered in the months that followed was that my powerlessness over seeing and confirming Hannah’s well-being took me to deeper degrees of surrender—a continual painful surrender over the long haul. Surely, I’d learned all that the Lord had to teach me about surrender.

  But not so. God had then called me to endure Hannah’s death and submit to his will by visiting her mother and murderer, sharing the gospel with her, and demonstrating God’s unconditional love, while fighting bitterness and suffering heartrending grief. This was an ongoing surrender I was still working out through my growing relationship with Karen. Grief, I was discovering, when entrusted to God, was another form of surrender. I could choose to rail against God for the atrocity of Hannah’s murder or entrust my broken heart to the God who gave his own Son to suffer and die for me. I’d chosen the latter and was discovering a tenderness from the Lord unlike any I’d known.

  I’ve got this surrender principle conquered, I thought with confidence. I can handle an unwanted move.

  But then began a series of events that demanded an even deeper surrender.

  First, only weeks after Sadie returned to Casper, Helen was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. The cancerous tumor in her leg needed chemotherapy and eventually surgery. Helen had survived leukemia when she was a little girl, and we always knew she was susceptible to another cancer. Still, we’d hoped and prayed we would never hear the word cancer linked to her name again. The evening the doctor called with the report, we all wept.

  On her first day in the hospital, I smiled at Helen and said, “Well, it looks like we’re back in the hospital ministry!” She remembered well her leukemia days, and we knew another tough road lay ahead. Together, however, we filled our days with sharing our faith with other struggling children and their parents.

  Al was working at the Peoria Sports Complex, the spring training home of the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners baseball teams. His days were long, and he found it a different world going to work in Bermuda shorts and a golf shirt instead of a shirt and tie each morning. I stayed home with Courtney during the day and went to my night classes after our family finished dinner.

  Life was full in our new surroundings during our first few months of 2000. Adjusting to a new home, Al’s new job, chemotherapy for Helen, two teenagers at home, a year-old baby, and me in college made for a significant challenge. Then, just days after I returned to school, a medical procedure for Helen that was supposed to be a four-hour outpatient procedure ended up requiring an emergency airlift to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where she was admitted to the ICU for ten days.

  I had to face the question: Would my faith survive if Helen were taken from me? Fortunately, faith is a gift, given by God, and he gave it to me generously. Yes, I could and would trust God through this ordeal, no matter the outcome.

  Once out of the ICU, it would be weeks before she would be able to go home. I wrestled with continuing my classes at the university, but Helen argued that I should stay in school. She would be fine with me not being at the hospital all the time.

  God, in his glorious grace, then gave us an unexpected gift in a woman named Sandy Meyerson. We met her at the high school. She was the counselor for Helen and Charles, and as soon as she realized the challenges we were facing she stepped in at every turn. She called us, checking on our needs. She took care of all the homeschooling for Helen during the long bouts in and out of the hospital. She took Courtney for afternoons of fun and entertainment and met me for lunch monthly so she could be a support and a friend. Every hospital stay, chemo treatment, and surgery, Sandy was nearby. She was Jewish and I would lovingly call her my Jewish mother. She was a constant reminder to me that God was with us, meeting our needs.

  Al and I soon realized that juggling life with a sick child in the hospital meant more than a drain on our time and energy. It hit our finances hard. I needed to go back to work because our health insurance would not cover all of Helen’s medical expenses. Thankfully, I found a wonderful woman at our church who cared for Courtney while I waitressed at a local restaurant. But as Helen insisted, I kept up with my classes.

  Helen’s surgery had to be delayed until she was strong enough. We were troubled that the tumor in her leg continued to grow, compromising her chances of a successful surgery. We didn’t want her leg to be amputated. Our family, friends, and church members prayed that the surgeon would be able to save her leg. Our close friends, John and Chris, drove from Wyoming and joined us the day of Helen’s operation—evidence that the body of Christ was alive and well and ministering God’s grace. We were tremendously relieved and grateful when Helen came out of surgery with both legs, minus a tumor.

  Since Helen would be homebound for months, her best friend in Wyoming, Tricia, asked if she could come live with us and be with Helen until the end of the school year. What a blessing she brought to our family. She attended our local high school during the day, and she and Helen would giggle every night, sometimes all night. Tricia, only fifteen years old, saved Helen from a season of
depression and isolation and was a daily reminder of God’s provision.

  May arrived, and our family, along with Tricia, traveled home to celebrate Sadie’s high school graduation in Casper. Springtime weather in the Rockies was a welcome relief from 115-degree temperatures. We would stay only a few days, but we were all aware that we didn’t want to return to Arizona. Though grateful that living in the desert removed us from the reminders of Hannah’s death as well as providing the best medical care for Helen, we were fish out of water. We wanted to move back “home” to Casper. Al and I constantly looked for opportunities to transfer back to Wyoming, but none opened up. We had to surrender to the fact that God knew best.

  While in Casper, I visited Karen at the prison. I was genuinely looking forward to seeing her. She and I had continued to exchange letters, and I had been sending her pictures of Courtney, along with Christian books to keep her growing in her newfound faith.

  During the visit, Karen and I talked about the judge’s decision regarding her sentence. I found her depressed at the thought of living in prison for the rest of her life, and there was little I could do to give her hope. I prayed silently as we chatted during the visit that day, and the Lord had me remind her of how important the prayers of a mother are for her children.

  “Your prayers asking God to intervene in your children’s lives will be heard. Your journey will require that you trust God for their future as well as for your own. Your life still has value. God isn’t finished with you yet. As long as you have breath, there is hope.”

  The visit was emotional for both of us. We cried together, though perhaps for different reasons. As always, we didn’t talk about Hannah, though my memories of her were heavy on my heart. I still grieved, but I was learning to allow the Holy Spirit to use it to draw me closer to the Father.

  In the fall of 2000, Sadie packed up for college, and after hugs all around, she and Al drove to Wyoming where she’d attend Wyoming University. Helen returned to Cactus High School with Charles, and I resumed my evening classes. Courtney, two years old, and I took Helen to clinic visits and checkups, and she and Charles loved to wrestle each evening when the family was at home. A two-year-old and a six-foot-tall teenage boy wrestling kept us well entertained.