William Petit, Vicky Coward.
As Connecticut moves to abolish the death penalty, one survivor and victim voice is again being heard above all others’ combined: that of Dr. William Petit, whose family was the object of the horrific, brutal, deadly attacks in Cheshire.
Petit singlehandedly convinced legislators and the former governor to block repeal the past few years. This year looks like repeal will prevail. Though Petit and Republican legislators are doing their best to stop it. As Republican legislators and reporters focus on him, and pretty much only him, during last week’s state Senate votes to repeal the death penalty and this week’s upcoming state House vote, another survivor named Elizabeth Brancato, whose mother was raped and murdered penned this piece on behalf of family members of murder victims who in fact want to see repeal pass — in memory of their lost loved ones. The piece describes what it has felt like for those victims and survivors to try to make their voices heard at the Capitol:
“Every victim family member I have ever met has gone to great lengths to be absolutely clear that they cannot speak for any other victim family member, nor can we even think of judging the thoughts, feelings, and actions of anyone else who has suffered such a loss of loved-ones. We are acutely aware that the grief and the resolution of that grief is an intensely personal process and that one’s grief can never be judged or compared to the grief of another.
“However, to suggest that as abolitionists, we who have lost family members to murder, never talk about the victims and that the victims have no voice, is cruel, insensitive and just plain untrue.”
The group of pro-repeal survivors working the Capitol also includes New Haven’s Vicky Coward. This isn’t her first year up in Hartford trying to make her voice count as much as Dr. Petit’s. Click here, here, and here and for her story.
Mrs. Coward has anointing upon herself and should be an inspirations to the rest of us. Dr. Petit, yes it has been really tragic for you and your family, But so has it been for many others. I hurt just as much for the Robeson family where the house was set fire to.
She, her eight year old son and her teen age niece parished, but it is never reminded of, like it never happened and/or does not matter. Why is this? Can anyone explain to me and the family and extended family for that matter, WHY?