Tag Archives: Father

Father of Sandy Hook victim found dead in apparent suicide: police

FILE PHOTO: Jennifer Hensel (L) and Jeremy Richman, the parents of Avielle Richman, 6, and David Wheeler (R), the father of Benjamin Wheeler, 6, victims of the December 14, 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, attend the launch of The Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit created in response to the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut January 14, 2013. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin/File Photo

(Reuters) – The father of one of the children killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was found dead of an apparent suicide on Monday morning at his office in Newtown, Connecticut, police said.

Jeremy Richman, 49, was the father of Avielle Richman, one of 20 children, all 6 or 7 years old, killed along with six adult staff members by a man with a semi-automatic rifle at the school in Newtown. It stands as one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

Richman’s body was found shortly after 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) at his office, police said.

“The death appears to be a suicide, but police will not disclose the method or any other details of the death, only to state the death does not appear to be suspicious,” the Newtown Police Department said in a statement. Connecticut’s Chief Medical Examiner’s office is expected to confirm the cause of death later on Monday, police said.

After his daughter’s murder, Richman and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, created a foundation in her name that focuses on preventing violence by funding research on mental health and increasing access to treatment.

Richman, who was a neuropharmacologist, had written in a mission statement published on the Avielle Foundation’s website that his daughter’s death had left him “infinitely heart broken.”

In a statement, the foundation said that while its staff and directors were “crushed to pieces” at Richman’s death, it would continue its work of supporting research into brain abnormalities and promoting brain health.

“Tragically, his death speaks to how insidious and formidable a challenge brain health can be and how critical it is for all of us to seek help for ourselves, our loved ones and anyone who we suspect may be in need,” the foundation said.

U.S. Representative Jahana Hayes, who represents a congressional district that includes Newtown, said in a statement she was struck by how “optimistic” Richman had seemed about his foundation’s work at a recent meeting.

“These tragedies show that the trauma of gun violence extends far beyond the initial tragedy,” her statement said.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called Richman a “good friend, a dedicated father, an esteemed researcher.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Paul Simao and Bill Berkrot)

Father who forgave son for family’s murder asks Texas to spare his life

Thomas Whitaker appears in a booking photo by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, Texas, U.S., obtained by Reuters on February 16, 2018. Texas Department of Criminal Justice/Handout via REUTERS

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A Texas man who survived a deadly domestic attack hatched by his son is pushing the state to grant clemency to the condemned man, although it has never spared a death row inmate solely at the formal request of the victim’s family.

Thomas “Bart” Whitaker is set to be put to death by lethal injection on Feb. 22 for masterminding a 2003 plot near Houston that left his mother Tricia, 51, and brother Keith, 19, dead and his father Kent with a bullet wound near his heart.

In the 31 states with capital punishment, district attorneys make the decision whether to seek death, balancing the punishment that they consider best serves society with the wishes of the victim’s family. In this case, the local Texas prosecutors pursued death and jurors decided Bart Whitaker, 38, deserved to be executed.

His father, a 69-year-old devout Christian and retired executive, says if that penalty is implemented, it will only intensify his pain.

“I am going to be thrown into a deeper grief at the hands of the state of Texas, in the name of justice,” Kent Whitaker said last week, after a 30-minute meeting with the chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in Austin.

Whitaker says his son has been a model inmate and has provided letters from death row prison guards to back him up. According to the clemency petition, Kent Whitaker, his relatives and his wife’s family do not want Texas to execute Bart.

The panel’s decision is due on Tuesday, two days before the execution. If it recommends commuting the death sentence to life in prison, Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, would make the final decision.

Tim Cole, an assistant professor of law at the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law and a former Texas district attorney, said the case points to a major flaw in the U.S. capital punishment system.

With no consistent criteria for prosecutors on whether they should seek execution, he said, the system is arbitrary.

“It is completely up to that one person, the district attorney, to seek death or not,” he said.

The Whitaker case is an outlier, however. In many cases, family members want the district attorney to seek the maximum punishment, Cole said.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, clemency at the request of a forgiving victim’s family has been almost unheard of, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors U.S. capital punishment. It did happen in Georgia in 1990, the group said.

It is far more common for courts to halt executions for reasons ranging from doubts over guilt to procedural problems with prosecutions than it is for a governor to grant clemency.

Money may have motivated Bart Whitaker to plan to murder his family with the help of two other men, court documents showed. One of those men, his roommate Chris Brashear, shot the father, mother and brother after the family returned from a dinner out.

He shot Bart in the bicep to make it look he had also been attacked, court documents said. The two other men helped prosecutors pin the crime on Whitaker and were not sentenced to death.

Local prosecutors said they considered the family’s views but stood by Whitaker’s sentence as appropriate for such a brutal crime.

“We represent all of the community. It is not just one person we represent,” said Fred Felcman, first assistant district attorney for the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office. “Legally, justice says that he should be executed.”

Felcman believes Bart Whitaker is a sociopath and a master manipulator.

In the clemency petition, Kent Whitaker recalled lying in his hospital bed and facing the choice of slipping into despair or offering his son forgiveness. He said his faith led him to the latter option, which he hopes will sway Texas officials.

“We are not asking them to forgive him, or to let him go,” he added. “We just want them to let him live.”

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Rosalba O’Brien)

Victims’ father charges at ex-U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor in court

Randall Margraves (L) lunges at Larry Nassar,(wearing orange) a former team USA Gymnastics doctor who pleaded guilty in November 2017 to sexual assault charges, during victim statements of his sentencing in the Eaton County Circuit Court in Charlotte, Michigan, U.S., February 2, 2018.

(Editor’s Note: Please be advised that this story contains language in fifth paragraph that may offend some readers)

By Steve Friess

(Reuters) – The enraged father of three daughters sexually abused by Larry Nassar charged toward the former USA Gymnastics national team doctor and tried to attack him during a sentencing hearing in a Michigan courtroom on Friday.

He was nearly within striking distance of Nassar before court guards tackled him roughly to the ground in front of his shocked daughters.

The chaotic scene began after sisters Lauren and Madison Margraves had finished tearfully reading their victim statements on the second day of hearings at a court in Eaton County, much as nearly 200 women have done before them at earlier hearings. Standing alongside his daughters and wife, Randall Margraves, a tall man with an intense gaze dressed in an electricians’ union sweatshirt, then asked to speak.

“I would ask you as part of the sentencing to grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon,” he said to the judge, gesturing toward Nassar, who has already been sentenced to up to 175 years in prison at an earlier hearing after pleading guilty to molesting young women under the guise of medical treatment.

Judge Janice Cunningham told him he knew she could not do that, and chastised him after he called Nassar a son of a bitch. He asked for one minute alone instead. The judge demurred as some in the courtroom laughed uncomfortably.

Margraves then bolted toward Nassar, seated in an orange jump suit behind a nearby table. His daughters’ hands flew to their mouths, and one of Nassar’s lawyers moved to shield his client.

Gasps, cries and shouts filled the courtroom as Margraves was wrestled to the ground, knocking things off a desk on the way down, and put in handcuffs while Nassar was taken out to safety.

“One minute!” he demanded repeatedly, his head pinned to the floor. As court officers pulled him from the room, he implored them, “What if this happened to you guys?” Some victims fled the room in tears.

Looking distressed, the lead prosecutor, Angela Povilaitis, turned to the victims and relatives in the courtroom and tried to restore calm, saying she did not want to see anyone else end up in handcuffs.

“I understand Mr. Margraves’ frustration but you cannot do this,” she said. “This is not helping your children.”

The hearing resumed after a short break, with the judge addressing what she called a “scary” scene.

“My heart started beating fast and my legs started shaking,” Cunningham said. “We cannot react by using physical violence,” she told the courtroom, noting she could not imagine Margraves’ pain as a father. Nassar was back in his seat, looking downcast.

The hearing then reverted to the ritual established at earlier sessions: woman after woman rising to confront Nassar with accounts of a revered doctor they trusted making them strip naked and penetrating them with ungloved hands, and affirmations that they are no longer victims but survivors.

Margraves was being held in a cell at the courthouse, according to a corrections officer, but it was not immediately clear whether he would face any charges.

People reacted on social media with empathy for Margraves, with some offering to help cover any legal costs he faces.

Views were more mixed at the courthouse.

“If he had gotten some licks in, I wouldn’t have cried over it,” Lavonda Simon, whose daughter was among Nassar’s victims, said. “I totally understand the feeling of wanting to hurt him. You bet.”

Mariah McClain, who testified about Nassar’s abuse of her after the break, said she had to leave when Margraves erupted.

“It was very upsetting,” she said. “It was just too much for me.”

Nassar, who is also serving a 60-year federal term for child pornography convictions, has sparked broader outrage after numerous victims accused USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body, and Michigan State University, where Nassar worked, of failing to investigate complaints about him going back years.

U.S. Olympic officials have also been criticized by some of the sport’s biggest stars, including gold medalists Aly Raisman, Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney. Multiple investigations, including at least two by members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, are ongoing into how Nassar was able to abuse women for so long.

(Reporting by Steve Friess; Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Hay)