National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Lifers

Several weeks ago, I spoke with Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins of Illinois.victims.org after she commented on a post I’d done that she felt had portrayed murder victims’ families as vengeful.

That hadn’t been my intent, but after speaking with Jennifer, I realized that my reference to victims’ families in the post had been insensitive.

My stated purpose for the creation of this blog is to create a dialogue, but doing so has proven easier said than done.

I realized that with very few exceptions, there was no conduit for meaningful dialogue between the advocates for eliminating the sentence of Juvenile Life without the Possibility of Parole and the living victims of those inmates serving LWOP for crimes committed as juveniles.

A statement on the issue of Juvenile Life Without Parole (JLWOP) from IllinoisVictims.org

All my grown life I have been a passionate advocate for and educator about Human Rights for all human beings. Because of that I respect and understand the questions being raised by some advocates regarding the LWOP sentence for juvenile offenders. We believe a thorough public discussion on this topic could be a positive thing, but only so long as the victims of those horrible crimes are fully notified of such debate, and empowered to participate if they so choose. I am one of those victims – three members of my family were killed by a 16 year old later diagnosed as sociopath. He meticulously plotted and carried out their murders over a period of months. He shot my brother in law, a very good man he did not know and picked at random, and then he turned the gun on my beautiful 25 year old pregnant sister who was begging for the life of her unborn child. He shot her directly in her abdomen where she was trying to protect the baby. He did it for the “thrill” of it, and he planned to kill again months after he did it. He was mature, intelligent, from a good and wealthy family, was a top student, and to this day is unrepentant and still enjoying his mind games with those foolish enough to fall for him. He fits no stereotype of the cases that advocates against JLWOP are concerned about. He is the poster child for those rare few cases where LWOP is actually the appropriate sentence for an offender under 18. He is currently serving three LWOP sentences in the Illinois Department of Corrections. My concerns about the discussion about this sentence are not, however, changed by the facts of my case. They are the concerns I have for all of my fellow murder victims’ family members.