Change of heart

Everyday it seems we hear about victims of crimes or murders and after a day or so, we completely forget about them.  But if you grew up near Boston like I did there is one murder victim that you will never forgot - Jeffrey Curley.  Jeffrey was a 10-year old boy from Cambridge who was kidnapped, murdered, and sexually abused (after he was dead) by two men from Massachusetts (one of whom had an apartment in Manchester) back in 1997.

Today, Jeffrey's father Bob came to Trinity High School to speak about his son but also to speak about his views on the death penalty.  Following Jeffrey's murder, Mr. Curley became a very fierce advocate for restoring the death penalty to Massachusetts and was essentially the face of that movement (it did not pass the state legislature).  But as time went on, Mr. Curley began to realize that there were inequalities in the criminal justice system after one of his son's murderers got life without parole and the other got a sentence with parole (one had a court appointed attorney, the other had a high priced one).  He also noticed that black men were more likely to be executed than white men (few are women).  

So slowly but surely Mr. Curley began to change his views on the death penalty and one year (on Jeffrey's birthday) he attended an anti-death penalty conference at Boston College and spoke on how his views had changed.  He now spends time traveling to tell his story and to encourage people to rethink their views and to teach about the dangers of child sexual abuse.  He admits that he does not forgive the men who killed his son but he has tried in some way to make peace with everything and to find some good from this horrible tragedy.

Mr. Curley spoke for about 15 minutes and then took questions from the students.  Following the questions, Mr. Ray Bilodeau of the New Hampshire Coalition for the Abolishment of the Death Penalty spoke of the possibility of the death penalty being repealed in New Hampshire.  There has not been an execution in New Hampshire since 1939 but there is a person on death row - Michael Addison, the man who killed Manchester police officer Michael Briggs in 2006 (not far from Trinity).

It was a powerful assembly and as Mr. Curley spoke, you could have heard a pin drop and no one moved an inch.  Those of us who are parents were amazed by Mr. Curley's demeanor and peace considering what happened to his boy.  

Thanks to Mr. Bilodeau and the Diocese of Manchester for making this presentation possible.