In 2003 Lacy Jo Miller was kidnapped, brutalized, sexually assaulted, and murdered. She was 20 years old.

 

Victim’s mother Wendy Cohen: Lacy was realistic and funny and shy and not competitive at all. She was very princess-like, very kind and compassionate to other people. Or everybody tell her their problems, she would do very thoughtful things. Like if it were her birthday, she would make me a little special gift. She would have a tea party for her girl friends. She would make name tags. She was just sweet and thoughtful and very strong in her beliefs. She was sweet. I think sweet would be a good description of her.

 

Her Murderer was 23 years old Jason, Who was getting ready to deploy for the army.

 

Victim’s mother: He had guns, and police batons, and all that stuff, handcuffs and everything. And he has the history of behavior where he was bulling people. All he was pretending to be were bills bondsmen and police officers.

 

They found Lacy’s body 10 days after her disappearance.

 

Victims’ mother: I am really good friends of two women from Danvers, who one’s daughter was killed in a combat, and the other one’s son was murdered at the front porch on the graduation night by a random gangster. And we spent a weekend up until the bright morn and to both of them I said, “I do not what to do. I have this opportunity to meet with this family. Do you think I should? ” The one for the daughter of the combat, she said, “I am not allowed to meet the other family by law. I signed the deposition that I will not bother them. I will give up anything to sit down with one of the mothers and find out why.”

 

Wendy & James, the brother, continued to meet. I need him to see that and feel that. I decided to meet them.

 

Victim’s mother Wendy Cohen: I really wanted her to see who he killed. I wanted her to see who he took. She was so valuable to all of us. And I needed her to see that and feel that. Against all opposition from my family, mostly because they did not understand, I decided to meet with them. And we all sat down at my house with his mother, Jason’s mother, his brother, my husband and I. And they were skeptical. We were skeptical. We just hugged and cried, and cried and hugged, and cried some more. And then I just said “what was it like for you?” And then she talked, in my felt, like an exploding, and in her felt, like an imploding. You know we both had the same thing. And she talked about how awful it was, how she just did not understand how she could raise in a Christian home, raise two children, and they turned out to be differently, how she could look at his pictures from he’s a little one, yet she still loved him. She was struggling like I was struggling the way, on the other side of it.

 

Wendy & James, the brother, continued to meet. They now speak to victims, offenders & their families about restorative justice.

 

Victim’s mother Wendy Cohen: For me, the restorative justice is his family has totally validated my lost and helps me healed. And what heals me is knowing that if we work together, we can prevent this from happening to somebody else, or we can help another family who really need to get together like we did, so that they can get healed. Most of it is about answering my question. What happened? How did he go from being in Christian school to murdering my daughter? Somebody draw the line there. Somebody take me through that. There is something that the court can not do. They put him in jail. Great! He is in jail, he is not going to hurt everybody else. But how about all of us who were grieving and lost and questioning our faith and all of that? Even for his family too. The same is with them. Some people do not have the money to pay for their therapy. But you know both of you can work together and help each other get through it. It is free and it works. I think the system needs a change. I think this should be offered on every level of crime because I think we will be a better society. We have a punitive justice system. Restorative justice is what we need to have, because restorative includes everyone. Punitive just includes the person who offended. I will tell you what. Restorative justice is not for the weak. It is not for the pansy. It is a tough thing to go through. It is much easier to hate. You close yourself off. It is much easier. This has been a tough project for me to get healed. It destroyed you physically. It destroyed you spiritually. It destroyed you emotionally. The anger and hate ends with the bitterness. And it will kill you and steal you life. The other way, the restorative way, the healing way, it is difficult. But the end reward is peaceful and physically you are healthier, your relationship with your children and your love ones are healthier, you do no lose your marriage. You know, you are able to laugh again, and enjoy your life again, and have hopes again.

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