Please Visit :
Voices From
Victims of Grief
I am so alone. There is no compassion or sympathy for people who have lost a loved one to incarceration. I know this first hand. I lost my husband on August 3, 1999. He had been a financial advisor. Me, a stay at home mom. We had been married for 11 years. I had just given birth to our 2nd child in April 1999. Things seem great but they were not.
My husband, a man constantly battling depression and low self esteem, became addicted to gambling in 1998 and began embezzeling money from one of his client. The stealing got out of control along with his gambling habits. None of this I knew of. Its amazing how people can keep secrets. As the client's money ran down, so did my husband's grasp on reality. He became completely depressed and despondent and I had no idea why. In a moment of what could only be labeled as insanity, there was a confrontation between the client and my husband and 15 seconds later, my husband had taken a life.
Oh he is guilty . . . but that doesn't mean that I don't still love him. I haven't touched my husband since August 4, 1999. He is still incarcerated at the Madison Street Jail in Phoenix Arizona. He was going to recently go to trial but he couldn't drag the victim's family or me and the kids through it and pled guilty to 1st degree murder. It WASN'T 1st degree . . . not planned at all . . . it happened in a flash but in AZ it just doesn't matter. Even after he pled guilty, the State still won't take away the death penalty. We have a mitigation hearing in September 2001.
I'm so confused and afraid. I can't believe that a man with absolutely no record at all until this could be sentenced to death. I know what he did was wrong and he is paying the price. Never seeing the kids grow up . . . living apart from us . . . the terrible care he received in jail . . . he's at a jail overseen by Sheriff Joe Arpaio "the toughest sheriff in the country." The meals are dogslop and he is treated like less than human. But he is still a man . . . he is still my husband . . . the father of my children . . . Oh God . . no one understands this pain and I can't tell people. None of my friends know.
The reaction in Phoenix where this happened and where I use to live was horrible. None of my "friends" ever called to check on me or anything after this hit the papers. I lost everything . . . my marriage, my husband, my home, my stability, everything. I know I am rambling now but I just wanted to ask that whoever happens to read this, please pray for my family - my two children and most of all, their father, Walter. I love him still so very much. good-bye.
