Families of killers say they live with shame

Sherry Cobb of Naugatuck, Conn., still feels the mix of grief, shock and fury that engulfed her eight years ago when her brother Ricky was accused of the murder of Julia Ashe.

So when Cobb heard that Matthew Beck had killed four of his supervisors at the state's lottery headquarters before killing himself, and of the public apology Beck's father, Donald, offered, it summoned painful memories.

She remembers the fear of having her name recognized and the misplaced anger she endured from others at the technical school she was attending at the time.

"They would leave newspapers out with the headlines facing up," said Cobb. "When I walked by, there would be little snickers. It was totally uncalled for."

Cobb eventually dropped out of the technical program - "I didn't need that" - and moved to California. "I wanted to go someplace where no one knew my name," she said.

Often forgotten and almost unmentionable during the aftermath of a murder is the ordeal faced by the killer's family. Cobb and others know the trauma the Becks are just beginning to learn to live with.

Experts say that a murder is often as cataclysmic in the life of a perpetrator's family as in the life of a victim's family.

These families are mired in a confusing mixture of anger and love, of grief over the death of the victim and over the loss of a normal future for their loved one and of guilt that they didn't somehow prevent the crime.

It can be hard for a community to acknowledge the needs or feelings of the offender or that person's family because it's not compatible with the understandable rage it feels about the crime, said Ann Edalist-Estrin, a Pennsylvania expert on family relationships and incarceration.

"It's a double-whammy" for the family of the criminal, Edalist-Estrin said. "They have all these feelings ... but they rarely get any support."

Often everything changes for these families. Even such simple, mundane activities as grocery shopping cause great anxiety.

"From what we see in our work, you never go back to living your normal life again," said Susan Quinlan, who works with offenders and their families as executive director of Families in Crisis Inc. in Hartford, Conn. "From that point forward, that becomes a critical part of your identity. You're always known as the family of or the father of ..."

For Margaret, it was all too debilitating; the sadness and grief resulting from her son's involvement in the murder of two people. She lives in a small Connecticut town and wanted neither her real name nor her residence used in this story.

"I went from being an outgoing person to becoming very withdrawn and afraid to go out," said Margaret. "It was agoraphobia ... I never thought it could happen."

Often families of offenders find that they are shunned by friends and neighbors, who treat them as if they have a communicable disease, according to the Rev. Gordon Bates, former executive director of the Connecticut Prison Association, subsequently renamed Community Partners in Action.

Bates said the families of offenders may feel so shamed and guilty that they withdraw from the world.

"They can become very isolated and depressed," Bates said.

Margaret, whose voice cracked at the memory of the ordeal more than a decade ago, said she finally was forced to overcome her fear of leaving home four years after the murder. Her husband had gone away on a business trip and she needed groceries.

After six tries, she finally got herself to the store. She went inside and caught the eye of some shoppers - who turned away from her as soon as they recognized her.

Despite this incident, Margaret says more people were sympathetic than not in the community and this slowly helped her recover. "I expected to be run out of town on a rail, but it was totally the opposite. People were kind and benevolent and compassionate."

Cobb said that although she withdrew from her technical program, neither she nor her family withdrew from life, perhaps because of all the support they, too, received.

"It was very, very surprising," said Cobb, who since has felt comfortable enough to move back to Connecticut. "People that you don't even think recognize you or know you" wrote to the family. "I heard from teachers I had way back when, people who knew my parents and had worked with them. It was incredible."

Ricky Cobb's crime had been highly publicized. He had raped Julia Ashe and then bound her hands and feet with packing tape before throwing her off a dam into icy water below.

A Beck family member said the family has received expressions of sympathy and support from neighbors and the community. After his public apology and the funerals of his son and his son's victims, Donald Beck declined to talk to a reporter.

In his apology, Beck said that while his son's "murderous act was monstrous ... he was not a monster."

In some cases, families continue close relationships with their offending member, while others are unable to.

Of her own brother, Cobb said, "I think more than any other family member, I'm very upset with my brother. I haven't had any contact with him."

Quinlan said the community's reaction to the family of an offender can depend on the circumstances.

If people "believe that the family somehow contributed to the crime in some way by either protecting or hiding" the perpetrator, the community can react angrily, she said.

04-02-98