Drew Peterson: A View From Two Perspectives

by Susan Murphy-Milano

Part 2: "The Violence Expert's Perspective" (Read Part 1: "The Prosecutor's Perspective," here.)

Twenty years as a violence expert was never an intended career choice. It did not evolve from sitting behind a desk, researching the subject, blogging or reading journals from a crime periodical. It was harvested like a crop in the fields. Like adding another candle on a birthday cake every year, the violence escalated in my home and the screams for help turned into an important lesson in survival.

My own Mother died on my watch, so to speak. After years of violence by my father, a Chicago police detective, they finally divorced. Within 6 months of my mother’s false belief she was safe, I discovered her dead body in the kitchen of the former marital home she and my father once shared.

Similar to Drew Peterson and other perpetrators of violence in the home, my father was not going to allow my mother to benefit in any way from the divorce. This included her own personal freedom which he owned like the title to a car, until the day she died.

We have not heard much about Kathleen Savio other than she died of an accidental drowning in a bathtub. Her body exhumed 4 years later only because Stacy Peterson had vanished after a botched investigation.

In 1992, Kathleen Savio was an accountant in her late twenties when a mutual acquaintance who happened to be a police officer’s wife set up a blind date for her to meet Drew Peterson. Friends and family members recall how happy Kathleen was with Drew. A few short months after the couple began dating Drew popped the question. Kathleen felt safe and secure knowing she was marrying a man who made her feel safe and secure. Shortly after the couple’s second child was born, the marriage began to crumble. Drew was beginning to shout the national anthem, a theme used among most abusers maintaining power and control. “Bitch,”, you “whore.” "You look like a dog." You f..king slob.” When that did not have the affect Drew was looking for, with his open hand he punched and slapped her as evidenced by medical reports and photo’s taken after a violent outburst.

Similar to other abusers Peterson began setting the stage with his fellow officers in his department, and later on, under his command. Carefully strategizing how “crazy” Kathleen had become in an effort to minimize police response just in case she called and tried to report him for threatening and physically harming her. Obviously his plan worked because when officers from the Bolingbrook police department responded to the 19 documented calls and another 78 calls magically removed from the police log as responding officers did nothing more than as if someone was trying to "band aid a boo boo.” This case is just one example of the clear reluctance on the part of responding officers to use their police powers in the homes of fellow officers. The hesitation to deal professionally with this crime in my opinion increased the danger to Kathleen’s life. Looking the other way enabled Drew Peterson to increase his threats and violence to his then wife.

Once the couple filed for divorce, Drew continued his threats of violence and terrorism. Kathleen took out an order protection and was pressured into dropping it. And she did write in her own words on more than one occasion that Drew had “threatened to kill her.” He was furious at the thought of splitting his hard earned assets with Kathleen. This included the bar jointly owned in Montgomery, IL, sold for $325,000 and the martial residence sold at $287,000, half of his pension and shelling out monthly child support payments for his children.

Peterson had a history of abuse from undocumented allegations from Vicki Connely, wife #2 to a serious relationship with a girlfriend who claimed Peterson was stalking her. It is a fact, many officer related cases where violence erupts during the marriage dies with the victim similar to Kathleeen Savio.

Drew Peterson’s motive in 2004 for murder fell on deaf ears after the coroner’s inquest ruled “accidental death,” silencing, Savio’s family members from providing information or ever speaking out. Or the facts of the bogus hand written Will emerging after this healthy mother of 2 “accidently” drowned in a tub she never used when she was alive.

Silence behind the blue wall is also a common theme across the country. Back in 1989, had I not been spared by fate or divine intervention, I too, would have been killed that night. In working to solve cases where a woman has been murdered by an ex-lover or husband each case has characteristics specific to the relationship and the alleged crime. In creating a detailed work- up on a case, often I am able to pin point a direction not considered by police or a Prosecuting attorney to determine motive. And not every case has intent or motive. Each time a woman is murdered I do not assume anything about anyone until information and documents are provided to me. Sometimes relatives or police ask me to review a file on a missing person or murder case and I do not always have the answers.

I take what I do very seriously and it has saved many lives. My training and expertise began with a teacher with whom I studied under and feared for many years. As a seasoned veteran Chicago police detective, my father had two professional career’s one as Police detective, the other as a serial abuser.

Over the years of studying and working these types of cases, I have been able to develop specific procedures that work well to take a woman safely from a violent situation and to help get her abuser behind bars. My success rate has been phenomenal.

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Seeking Truth and Justice . . . 25 Years Later

by Donna Weaver

Twenty-five years ago this month, my husband Gary suddenly vanished without a trace. This year, just as I have every year before, I find myself reliving the moments I last saw his face and heard his voice. And I become more determined than ever to find his remains and bring his killer to justice.

I met Gary in December of 1981. One year later we were married and the following spring we were blessed with the birth of our twin daughters. I was the luckiest girl in the world—I was in love and married to my best friend, and I had two beautiful, healthy, and happy babies. Like many new families just starting out, money was a little tight and when Gary was offered an opportunity to make some extra money fixing diesel engines in the Bahamas, I encouraged him to take the job, assuring him the girls and I would be fine for the 2 or 3 days he would be gone.

I last spoke to Gary on the morning of December 9, 1983 when he called to say he was almost finished with his work and had just purchased his plane ticket at the airport in Nassau to return home the next day. We happily talked of the plans we had for after I picked him up at the airport. We were going straight to my Mothers of Twins club Christmas party where the babies would sit on Santa's lap for the first time—something Gary was excited about as he had been eagerly anticipating the girls’ first Christmas almost since the day they were born. The following day, December 11th, was to be our first wedding anniversary. We were laughing on the phone about the prospect of eating the top of our wedding cake with the babies—all of us with our fingers! And I had a surprise for him—one of the babies had started to say Da-Da while he was away, and I couldn’t wait to see his face when he heard it for the first time. So many happy days ahead!

On December 10th, I stood eagerly waiting at the airport gate with the babies next to me in their double stroller. Gary didn't come home on the plane that day, and I never saw him again. He disappeared without a trace, and the last time anyone saw him was 45 minutes after I last spoke with him on the telephone the day before. I had very little information about who Gary was working for and where he was staying in the Bahamas.

It wasn't until the year 1999 that I learned Gary disappeared and was most likely murdered somewhere on Andros Island as a result of FBI Operation Airlift.

I learned of Airlift and its dirty little secrets by an amazing stroke of luck. I was working as a part-time bartender in Fort Lauderdale when I happened to see a copy of the weekly news magazine New Times laying on the empty bar when I arrived at work. Staring up at me from the cover was a full page photograph of an elderly man with the caption "Oldfella." I'm not sure why, but that face captivated me. I brought the paper home with me that night, but didn't pick it up again until two days later. After reading the feature article by Bob Norman, the circumstances of Gary's disappearance seemed to fit. Although I didn't recognize any of the names mentioned in the article, I felt certain that I would at last discover what had happened to my husband. I contacted Norman and asked him about other names he may have learned that were not included in his article, which told a tale of drug smuggling, murder, and a corrupt FBI agent. The first name he gave me was Randy Krugh. "Oh my God" I replied. "Randy Krugh was Best Man at my wedding!"

The corrupt former FBI agent in the story, Dan Mitrione Jr. went bad while heading Operation Airlift, a major undercover drug smuggling investigation. Immediately after resigning from the FBI in June 1983, Mitrione became business partners with his murderous confidential informant, Hilmer Sandini. Their business partnership dissolved when a plastic explosive was found under Sandini's car in 1984. Fortunately, the bomb was discovered before it went off, potentially killing many innocent people. Although it kept its findings secret at the time, the FBI issued an internal memo stating their belief that it was Mitrione who planted the bomb:

"This investigation, which is being conducted by a special FBIHQ [headquarters] investigative team, has been severely hampered by recent developments indicating a strong likelihood that Mitrione is culpable in the attempted murder of Sandini."

In March 1985, the former agent was convicted of violations of the bribery statute and drug trafficking. The special FBIHQ investigative team was headed by agent John Morris of the FBI's Boston office. At the time, Morris also supervised agent John J. Connolly who was recently convicted of murder in Miami, Florida. It was also discovered that Morris took bribes from his confidential informants just weeks before coming to Florida to head the Mitrione investigation.

Gary was not the only person to disappear and be murdered during the Airlift debacle. After Bob Norman's four part New Times series, "Finding Gary", I was contacted by the family of Jairo Sanchez (pictured right) who said their loved one disappeared the same day as my husband, and they did recognize the names, dates, and places in the articles. After meeting with them, Norman wrote a fifth installment to the series—"Finding Jairo."

Twenty-five years later we have almost all of our answers, and I believe that soon, those responsible for the murders of Gary Weaver and Jairo Sanchez will answer for what they have done.

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Freedom Behind Bars

by Vanessa Leggett

We all remember where we were on 9/11. I’ve often wished I could forget. I was in jail—Day 53 of an open-ended incarceration. That summer, a federal judge had found me in contempt of court for my refusal to give a grand jury confidential source material gathered for a book. Surrendering my research would have meant burning sources. I could not do it. And so the judge ordered me jailed for as long as the grand jury was in session. That turned into a 168-day stay at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Houston. When I rejoined society a few months after September eleventh, we were a nation at war and the world I had known was not the same place.

The morning the world changed, I was in my cell, nursing a cold and reading Omerta by Mario Puzo. It was my third day back in general population after a night in solitary. I had made the mistake of questioning the enforceability of a jail policy. Guards made sure I understood what enforcement was all about. The Bureau of Prisons calls segregation blocks the Special Housing Unit, or "SHU" (pronounced shew), fedspeak for what inmates know as "The Hole."

The day I emerged from The Hole was the freest I’d felt during my incarceration. A night in solitary showed me that I'd taken for granted simple freedoms allowed the general population in jail.

For example, outside of SHU, I was free to roam the common area during designated hours. From the dayroom and library, I had several windows with views to the streets below. I considered this privilege a kind of glass-partition visitation with the outside world.

Every day until 9/11, I had watched Houstonians talk on their cell phones, check their watches and PDAs, and sip coffee from Starbucks. (I could spot the cardboard-sleeved cups from blocks away.) By day's end on 9/11, there was little sign of life in downtown Houston, the fourth largest city in the nation.

Another window to the world unavailable to those in solitary was the television. The morning of 9/11, a fellow inmate summoned me to the lower recreation room minutes before the second jet hit the World Trade Center. The north tower was smoking from the impact of the first aircraft. We watched in stunned silence.

Later, I held hands with a group of women in a circle as a chaplain led us in prayer. I remember the inmate to my right squeezing my hand and not letting go immediately. Her home was in another country.

I did not need to speak her language to understand. Each of us wanted to connect with family, with those we loved, and with the people who loved us, to make sure they were safe, and to tell them we were okay. But visitation would be out of the question. For security, the entire detention center went into lockdown mode. My world shrunk to the size of my cell.

I've often thought of how my day on 9/11 would have been no different from my day on the tenth had I remained in solitary confinement. I would not have had access to television. Guards who checked on me would have had no obligation to tell me America was under attack. For my own safety, jail staff might have been ordered not to inform segregated inmates of the national disaster; it didn't take much to lose it in solitary.

Though I was in jail, separated from the world, at least I had been released from The Hole, and was able to see, however horrific, history unfold in real time. My only conduit to the outside world that day was the TV screen, which gave me a sense of connection to other Americans.

That connection was broken once the detention center went into lockdown. All I knew of what was going on in the world was what I had seen through the celluloid window that day: The World Trade Center, our twin trophies of commerce, had disintegrated. Our seat of military might, the Pentagon, had been hit. And another aircraft appeared to have been headed for the Capitol. When I saw members of Congress join hands and sing "God Bless America,” I must admit I feared the end was near.

It wasn't. My incarceration felt like it would never come to an end . . . but it did, eventually, when the grand jury disbanded in early January. For months I'd lived under fluorescent lights, without a single trip outside. As I emerged from the jail, the transition felt as disorienting as walking out of a matinée.

Over the next few weeks, I saw evidence of how the world had changed: metal detectors and pat-downs, building barricades, Middle Eastern cabbies whose well-worn taxis sported crisp, new American flags. Fear was everywhere.

It did not take long for me to realize I was about as free as I had been when I rejoined general population from solitary. Though I was part of the free world again, among my fellow Americans, none of us was truly free. Not like we used to be.

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The Ripper Murders

by Susan Murphy-Milano

The old case file had been tucked away for over twenty years in the rafters of an attic. On the case file jacket in bold, handwritten letters was the name Robin Gecht. It was the original police file containing the names of twenty women connected with one of the most notorious gangs of serial killers in history.

The Chicago Rippers were a group of four hoodlums—Andrew Kokoraleis, Tommy Kokoraleis, Robin Gecht, and Edward Spreitzer (pictured below, left to right)—who practiced satanic worship. The men had journeyed into a trend of sorts that swept through the country in the late 1970's and into the early '80s, especially among teenagers: practicing satanic worship.

"The Ripper Crew," as they would come to be known, had taken their rituals much further than most who believed they could somehow make contact with evil from the dark side.

The case file revealed how the killers saved the flesh they had removed from their victims. According to the signed confession of Thomas Kokoraleis, he "cut up the breasts," and consumed them as a form of satanic communion in front of a makeshift altar.

Robin Gecht, the group's leader, had an altar in the attic of his Northwest Side home, where the young men gathered during the evening hours after Gecht's wife had left for work. Gecht had painted six twelve-inch red-and-black crosses on the walls and draped the altar with a red cloth.

Detectives from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs worked together to solve these horrific murders. Each case began as an abduction or a missing persons report. The first known case was Linda Sutton, 28, abducted from a Chicago suburb. Her severely mutilated body found with the left breast cut out from her chest was left naked in a field.

Each of the twenty victims were gang-raped and then forced to endure having their breasts sliced open and cut off using piano wire, ice picks, can openers, and hunting knives. The men would then use the cut body parts for a satanic sacrifice by eating the women's breasts. All but two of the victims died.

After several months, police hit a dead end. Nearly another year would pass before the next victim would be reported.

A break in the case finally came on October 7, 1982. A twenty-year-old woman by the name of Beverly Washington was discovered nude beside railroad tracks in Chicago. Barely alive and naked, with her left breast severed and the right badly mutilated, she survived the brutal attack.

Two Chicago Police Detectives from Area Four Violent Crimes were called into the case. They interviewed Beverly Washington from her hospital bed. She provided details of the van and a description of the four men who had abducted her.

A directive in the form of a memo from the Mayor's office stated this case was a priority. Specific case details of the victims' murders were withheld from the public. The detectives worked around the clock.

DNA testing had yet to be developed. The solving of the serial murders would be done using pure instinct and good old-fashioned police work.

On November 7, 1982, all four men were arrested. They were placed in separate interrogation rooms. Andrew Kokorakeis was the first to break, confessing to at least seven of eighteen known murders. The case notes included a hand-drawn map of a cemetery in a nearby suburb of Chicago. The badly decomposed body of a victim murderd five months earlier would be recovered by police based on the map.

The two detectives who would eventually solve the murders, Thomas Flynn and Phillip Murphy, had been partners for over twenty years. On January 6, 1984, during a ceremony at the police academy—with the Attorney General, Mayor, and Superintendent present—the detectives were honored and presented with a special plaque for solving the serial murders.

This would be their career case. One that the City of Chicago and this police detective's daughter would never forget.

In the strange twist of events that would follow, the detective, Philip Murphy, would no longer be known for solving the worst serial murder case in Chicago's history. Instead, five years later, his legacy would be for the murder of his wife, my mother, in 1989, before he took his own life.

My father was one hell of a detective, loved and revered by so many. He would be a man I never really knew. A man who brought terror and violence into our home on a regular basis.

And yet, a man who made the streets of Chicago a safer place to live. Much safer with the Ripper Crew off the streets. What became of them? Andrew Kokoralesis was executed in March of 1999; Thomas Kokoralesis is serving 470 years; Edward Sprietzer received a life sentence; and Robin Gecht is serving 120 years.

Susan Murphy-Milano is a nonfiction author and violence expert—a defender of victims' rights. Susan has appeared on Oprah, 20/20, American Justice, and CNN. As a nationally recognized women's advocate, she was intrumental in the passage of the Illinois Stalking Law and the Lautenberg Act. Susan's third book, It’s Him or Me, will be available soon.

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How a Predator Stalked Me on a Dark Interstate

Hunt for Justice by Cynthia Hunt

He wanted to kill me that night on the interstate.

That’s why the disappearance of Jessica Cain is something I still ponder a decade later. I was a 26-year-old reporter at KTRK-TV, the ABC affiliate in Houston, when Jessica vanished. The year was 1997.

How Could Jessica Vanish from the Shoulder of a Busy Texas Interstate?

The beautiful 17-year-old performed in a musical that night and afterward went with her fellow cast members to a restaurant. Proud parents C.H. and Susie Cain left their daughter and headed home. Jessica (pictured left) promised she would be a few minutes behind them.

When Jessica didn’t show up a short time later, her dad became worried. He drove down I-45 and found Jessica’s 1992 Ford Pickup on the shoulder of the interstate. Her wallet, license, and keys were still inside the truck. That was the last night anyone saw Jessica.

No Witnesses. No Real Leads. Nothing.

The F.B.I searched for witnesses but none materialized. Investigators believe someone either tricked or forced her to pull over on that major interstate, abducted her, and got away.

I covered the intensive search for Jessica. I covered the growing reward for her safe return. I covered the teenagers who could not believe that the president of their high school drama club could become another tragedy leading the ten o’clock news. I also covered the investigators and their theories of how the predator got her onto the shoulder of the interstate. We may never know, but my experience says the victim doesn’t always react the way we expect.

The Night an Interstate Predator Stalked Me

I was a 19-year-old college sophomore at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I was interning at the ABC affiliate in Birmingham to get a taste of the big city. I would work through the ten o’clock news and drive an hour back to campus.

One night, I left the TV station and stopped at a well-lighted gas station located by a new McDonald's to get some gas. My parents had instructed me to never stop for gas at night but I thought I was a young invincible journalist. As I was putting gas in my car, I thought I saw someone out of the corner of my eye staring at me. I glanced over in that direction to see if I saw correctly. I did.

His Chilling Stare

The bearded man was in his truck about fifteen yards away giving me a cold, dead stare. He wasn’t trying to hide it. He was fixated on me. I pretended I didn’t notice. As I finished, he drove between the gas station’s building and me, yelled something unintelligible, and drove away.

What a weirdo, I thought.

The Predator Watches for Sign

My little sister Angelia, then 11, needed some help with her homework so I pulled to the phone booth right by the gas station and called home. I didn’t want to make her wait until I was back on campus. I still had forty-five minutes to drive, and it was almost eleven o’clock.

We talked for a half hour. I got in my car and pulled back onto I-459. Immediately, a vehicle pulled behind me and started flashing its headlights.

My first thought was that it was one of my girlfriends from Birmingham on her way back to campus. I was like many naïve college students and had put a University of Alabama sticker on my back window. Anybody from campus would have known my distinctive big car. I thought for a second about pulling over.

Then I worried that something could be wrong with my car. Maybe the driver was trying to warn me. The headlights were still flashing.

A minute later the interstate emptied onto I-59 and the flashing grew desperate. I then knew this wasn't someone with the intention of helping me. That instinctive feeling didn't frighten me. It made me angry.

How the Predator Tried to Force Me to Pull Over

Interstate 59 is the dark, forest-lined highway that runs from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa. In many places, trees even grow in the median between the eastbound and westbound sections.

I sped up. The flashing vehicle tailing me sped up.

The vehicle pulled into the other lane and I hit the brakes. It hit the brakes.

I sped up again. He sped up.

I suddenly hit the brakes again. Finally, the vehicle was right beside mine in the fast lane. I could clearly see into the truck—that cold stare focused on me again.

I know—you crime buffs knew it was him by now, but I hadn’t even thought about the gas station weirdo. Remember, I had spent a half hour on the pay phone. I thought he was long gone.

The Surprise the Predator Didn’t Expect

The second I recognized him, I was angry and took my 1990 model cell phone and held it up in front of my Pontiac’s bright dashboard and shook it in the air. Remember this was years before everyone had cell phones. My portable cell phone was huge.

The second he saw my phone, he blew up and started driving all over the road. He got back behind my car. I sped up to 80-90 mph. He closed in on my bumper.

I’ll never forget seeing his headlights disappear in my rearview mirror. He was inches from hitting me.

I thought about calling police—but was uncertain of what mile marker was I near.

He weaved erratically from side to side. The odd thing was I still wasn’t scared. I was furious. I changed lanes, hit the brakes, and tried to get this predator’s license plate. No luck. He was too fast and I couldn’t get behind him to see the plate.

After harassing me for another mile or so he took the next exit and disappeared.

My brush with a predator was over in less than ten minutes.

Bad Reaction

Did I act like we would’ve guessed? No. I never called police. I didn't even call the newsroom for help. It makes no sense to me now.

I was a college honors student working as a journalist. My parents had given me countless speeches on how to protect myself. I knew better than to stop and get gas at night. I knew how to use that cell phone.

We all know that predator studied me as I talked on the pay phone to my sister. He thought I didn’t have a cell phone. Little did he know my retired Marine father had put a portable cell phone pack in my car for just this kind of emergency. I was too cheap to use the minutes to call home. It was 1991. Minutes were expensive.

There is little doubt in my mind that monster went on to abduct and kill other young women. I wish I could do it all over again and do a better job of reacting. I wish I could’ve just done the logical thing and called police. For Jessica and all the others—how I wish.

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A Double Life, A Single Mission: A True Believing Prosecutor

by Robin Sax

OK, I’ll admit it. My kids know that they can’t pull any of the usual tricks when it comes to their Mom. Why? Because I happen to be a D.A. At the end of the day when I arrive home, my briefcase stuffed with cases of wayward children and adults, I have to shift gears from “Robin Sax, D.A.” to become, simply, “Mom” to three kids, ages 5 through 17.

Except that in some ways, I don’t shift gears.

I guess the force that drives me to be the best I can be at what I do –seeking justice for my clients, L.A. County’s residents—also drives me to be the best (but not perfect, 'cause there is no such thing) parent I can be. After fifteen years on the job, I’ve seen enough examples of flawed parenting and its consequences to have a good idea of what works, and what doesn’t when it comes to kids.

But these flaws don’t just pop up in court—I’ve seen the same mistakes and their outcomes in every community I traverse, regardless of income bracket. And I traverse a lot!

If you follow me after I drop off my kids each morning, you’ll understand why they toe the line –even when they don’t necessarily want to—and show me the love and respect that, as a parent, I deserve, just as you do.

After I leave the kids at school, I head east to L.A.’s Criminal Court Building (the CCB). As I drive, the landscape changes dramatically--Starbucks is replaced by bail bonds shops; billboards shift from English to Korean, to Spanish, to Japanese; people go from waiting at bus stops to being passed out at bus stops. During this ride, I think about how lucky I am that my kids have no concept of the life I am about to enter—that is, assuming I get to court on time!

Few people can wrap their minds around how a Los Angeles west side mom can go downtown, work in the trenches of the Los Angeles crime scene, and come back to “safe territory,” then go back out and do the same thing the next day.

My “co-madres” (other moms) in my personal life cannot picture my court life and my colleagues cannot fathom the details of my private life. And yet, in both of these environments, I find myself dealing with complaints about the growing problems adults are having with kids today. I’ve come to realize that there are far more similarities between these seemingly “polar opposite” worlds than one might imagine.

If you were to take a peek into my kids’ classrooms, you would find that they attend school with the offspring of celebrities, agents, athletes, and other influential folks, including a state senator, a football team owner, and a few highfliers from the Fortune Top 100.

To many of you, this will seem pretty impressive. But parenting these more privileged kids involves dealing with the same types of problems that confront other parents--low self-image, family problems, academic pressures, student rivalries, to name just a few. Walk into my courtroom on any day and you’ll find that these themes—so familiar to every parent--come up in the children’s cases I handle.

Because I work so closely with kids, my family is convinced that somehow I have superpowers that allow me to see things and know things that other parents can’t possibly see or know. They assume I have night vision, surveillance skills--even a built-in lie detector.

The fact is, I don’t have super powers or secret information. Nor do I have night vision or a built-in lie detector--but I love the fact that my kids think I do. My powers come in the form of skills and techniques learned from living in the trenches of the real world of conflict and crime.

As Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County, California, it’s my job to uncover the truth in some of the meanest and messiest situations conceivable and to try to ensure that justice is done. In order to protect the most vulnerable of victims--kids--I interview, investigate, uncover facts, and evaluate evidence.

Sometimes I prosecute, argue, and convict. Sometimes I cut people a break, offering alternatives to jail or fines. Sometimes I simply wait for further developments.

In brief, I live and thrive in a world of investigation, conflict, and resolution. My world is the world of discipline, fairness, and making sure that the best interests of children come first.

When I tell people that I spend my days prosecuting child molesters, a barrage of questions ensues: “How do you do it?” . . . “How do you sleep at night?” . . . “How do you trust anybody with your own kids?” . . . And finally, “I could never do your job.”

But the fact is, I believe that being a D.A. is the greatest job in the world. I love my work and I love that I never need to compromise my values.

So how do I merge both of my worlds? Since I’ve made a career of assessing what is in the best interest of society, It’s only logical that I would extend this theory to how I raise my own children.

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No Two Days Are the Same

by Connie Park

As an investigator in Homicide, it didn't take me very long to realize that no two days are the same. I have been proud to serve as a police officer with the Houston Police Department, having spent time in Patrol, Major Offenders, and for the past seven years or so as an investigator in the Homicide Division.

In 2001, I was one of two investigators in a case involving a very dangerous man named Kenneth Headley. In Southwest Houston one afternoon, I arrived on a scene to see a man laying in the street. He had been shot, his brains blown through the back of his head.

With the exception of one brave woman (I will call her "Roxanne"), any witnesses to this awful crime opted to leave this victim dead in the street. Roxanne told us that she was in the car with Kenneth Headley and the victim, and at some point they began to argue over a petty drug dispute. Headley resolved the dispute by ordering the victim out of the car and then shooting him in the head.

Afterward, Roxanne said that Headley threatened her, along the lines of "If you say anything about this, I will do the same thing to you." She was terrified but had the guts to remain at the scene to tell her story.

Roxanne was shown a lineup. She identified Headley as the man who shot the victim in the head. We presented the case to the Harris County District Attorney's Office and filed a charge of Murder on Headley. The case was assigned to the 228th District Court. We soon met with prosecutors. We all knew that Roxanne was a drug addict. Then the problems we had hope to avoid, started. Roxanne disappeared. Without her, a murderer would walk free and be given the opportunity to kill again. But, like I said, no two days are the same.

As the case wound through the customary court settings, we looked long and hard for Roxanne, without success. The case was set for trial and we were hoping for a miracle, that Roxanne would reappear. A few weeks before trial, she did. I found out that she had been arrested under a bridge with a small amount of crack cocaine. I knew that we had to talk to her. The prosecutor and I met with her on many occasions, trying to persuade her to continue to do the right thing and not to be afraid. As we expected, she was upset and not very cooperative.

I knew that we had to have her to see that justice was served for this victim who had been executed in the middle of a public street. I reminded Roxanne of that and asked her, "What if that victim had been someone in your family? Does this monster who did this deserve to be out in the free world?" At last, Roxanne saw where I was coming from. It took an empathetic approach from us, an approach without threats and warnings. I wanted Roxanne to know that we cared about her, not just as a witness on one of our cases, but as a human being. She appreciated that, and the case went to trial.

I learned more about Kenneth Headley. I learned that he was a suspect in another violent offense in Baltimore, Maryland and that he had lied in order to convince a prosecutor up there to foolishly recommend probation for a hardened criminal.

But I had faith that we would reach the right result in the Houston case. Roxanne and I and many other HPD officers testified and we told the truth. Throughout the case, we worked hand in hand with the prosecutor, who is now a district court judge. The jury found Kenneth Headley guilty of Murder and gave him the life sentence he deserved. As a result of our perseverance and desire to seek the truth, Headley will not get the opportunity to kill again. And that is what makes what we do so rewarding.

We in the criminal justice fields have the opportunity to affect people's lives in a positive way, people who have had to sort through the wreckage of witnessing a horrible crime or ease the pain of a relative of a defenseless victim who fell prey to a criminal like Kenneth Headley. I have seen people murdered because they refused to agree to a man's request to have an abortion. I have seen people murdered over a $20 crack cocaine. I have seen people murdered over gang turf and for looking at someone the wrong way. But all I have to do is to remind myself about what I learned when I met Roxanne and had the misforutne of meeting Kenneth Headley, to know that I will be ready for it. After all, no two days are the same, and that is why I do what I do.

Note: Connie Park was recently added as a regular contributor for Women in Crime Ink. Because her bio was not posted on launch day, we are printing it here:

Connie Park is a homicide detective. Eight of Connie's 13 years with the Houston Police Department have been spent investigating murders and kidnappings. She is presently assigned to the Cold Case Unit. Ten years ago, Connie was selected to work in the Major Offenders Division, assigned to the Asian Gang Task Force, where she was able to utilize her language skills to translate Korean. During her work with the Task Force, Connie received training from various Federal Agencies. Connie obtained her business degree from Texas A&M University.

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