None of Us Will Ever Forget |
None of Us Will Ever Forget |
"It's to help the people keep in mind and have some awareness that we don't want to keep glorifying the criminals and some of the journalists ... who want to profit in their own lives by the crimes of others," George Paules, father of Gainesville murder victim Tracy Paules explained as he installed a plaster frame onto the memorial which had been spontaneously created on a wall on SW 34th street in the wake of the Gainesville murders. The memorial is comprised of a painted list of five names and a small white heart. "This is a sort of Father's Day gift for the survivors of victims of such-type crimes all over the world. None of us are ever going to forget the kids whose names are on this wall." The media circus that had enveloped Gainesville was nothing new. Only a year and a half earlier, it had convened outside the walls of Florida State Prison to pay homage to their dear departing favorite among monsters, Ted Bundy. Gulfport, Florida police chief James Sewell said of that spectacle "the victims ... deserve more than that. Theatrics don't belong here." But despite the best efforts of Paules and others we, as a society, no longer seem to be in the victim remembering business. The modern day killer not only takes the life of his victims, he takes their memory as well. The diabolical mechanics of his crimes, his court room antics, prison romances, Death Row interviews, and, ultimately, his execution overwhelm our ability to remember those who we should not forget. This proposition is an easy one to test. Devise a list of names of killers and victims such as: |
Kitty Genovese |
| Show the list to people and
ask which names they recognize. Given the above list, a standard response soon makes
itself evident. Bundy and Dahmer have almost universal recognition. Genovese and
Gacy shadow closely with about three-quarters recognizing their names. The rest are
virtually unknown. We remember three recent killers, but only one victim, a victim
from so long ago. Things have changed over the years. The list of those we
have forgotten has grown too long: Christa Hoyt was a student at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida when she returned home one August evening and realized too late that she was not alone. When her decapitated and posed body was found, she joined Sonja Larsen, Christina Powell, Manny Taboada, and Tracy Paules in a struggle with their killer to be remembered. Rob Piest picked up a pair of handcuffs and started fiddling with them. He was in the home of John Wayne Gacy, a Chicago area contractor, pestering Gacy for a job. "What are these for," he asked. Gacy showed him. An hour later Piest was dead, another of Gacy's 36 all but forgotten victims. Konerak Sinthasomphone was the "intoxicated, Asian, naked male" who we gave over to Jeffery Dahmer that balmy May night in Milwaukee. Although his was a fate comparable to that of Kitty Genovese, who among us remembers his name as well as we do hers? Melanie Cooley was a young woman from Golden, Colorado who, through her moving drawings and paintings showed a rare sensitivity and compassion until Ted Bundy smashed her head in with a rock. Her art now stands as a memorial to what she might have become. Denise Marie Naslaund died with Janice Ott in July, 1974 when she offered to assist a friendly man in a sling. That man was Ted Bundy. Her mother, Eleanor Rose, devastated by the loss, dogged Bundy for years, hoping to learn why her daughter had to die. The final name from among the forgotten ones is Winston Moseley. |
