The Lord said to Cain: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” (Gen 4:10). The voice of the blood shed by men continues to cry out, from generation to generation, in ever new and different ways.– Evangelium Vitae“Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed; for man was made to the image of God.”– Genesis 9:6
Last May in Tucson, Arizona, two young men named Armando Estrada and Rosendo C. Valenzuela were working for Mamie Gong, an elderly Chinese woman. Mamie, who owned a trailer park and some land outside the city, had hired the men to help her clean up some trash that had accumulated on the vacant parcel.
According to their confessions, an argument developed between the young men and Mamie, most likely over money. Valenzuela got angry and hit her in the head with a baseball bat, or something like it. Then, not yet satisfied, he hit her again with a brick. How many times he hit her, or with precisely what, is unclear.
The two men loaded her into the back of her pickup truck and drove her to an abandoned trailer home she was storing on the land. They then took her inside and dropped her into the bathtub, leaving her for dead. They took her pickup truck and drove it back into town, abandoning it in the parking lot of a shoe store while she lay dying, or already dead, alone in the sweltering heat of the desert.
Mamie was my mother-in-law.
Unaware of any of this, I got the call a few weeks later, on June 18. It was an Arizona number, and one I didn’t recognize. I can’t say why, but I had an odd feeling about that call. I was in a meeting and couldn’t answer, but there was a voicemail. When I went to check it, it was my wife’s eldest brother, who had never called me in the four years Jamie and I had been married. The message was simple, understated. Mamie, who lived alone, was missing, and probably had been for at least a couple weeks. Nobody knew where to look. They were calling me because they couldn’t reach my wife.
Mamie was, to an extent, estranged from her immediate family. She spoke to my wife at least once a month, but far less frequently with her two sons in Phoenix or my wife’s father, from whom she had long ago been divorced. The one family member she did have regular contact with, her aunt, was in China at the time of her disappearance, and knew nothing until she came back weeks later and alerted the rest of the family.
Out of necessity, we got involved in the investigation. Stuck in Virginia while events unfolded in Tucson, we did our best to help the police over the phone while I peppered friends, family, and blog readers with requests for prayers. Suspicious individuals, knowledge of Mamie’s habits, and probably no small amount of Divine assistance helped us to lead the police down the right track. On June 19, we told them where to look. The next morning, I arrived to work and immediately ran a Google News search, as I had since I first heard she was missing. This time, I got a hit:
Detectives suspect a homicide victim whose badly decomposed body was found west of the city Tuesday could be a 64-year-old woman reported missing Monday.Neither Tucson police nor Pima County sheriff’s deputies would release the name of the missing woman.The body, found about 2:30 p.m., was so badly decomposed detectives could not immediately determine the gender . . . .
I had read enough. Maybe they couldn’t ID the body, but I knew. I made the call home, thinking my wife had heard from the police by then. She hadn’t. It was not the way she should have found out.
My boss graciously granted me extra leave time, and I was with my family on a flight to Arizona by the end of the week. My wife, having grown up in the rough area of south Tucson where her mother had lived, worked, and eventually been murdered, was oddly stoic. I’ll never forget leaving Phoenix on I-10 in our rental car, the sun pushing the temperature close to 100 degrees as we sped quietly into what felt for all the harsh sunlight like the heart of darkness.
We received the autopsy report in a voicemail during our flight, and it confirmed our suspicions. Head trauma. Broken ribs. She had been beaten to death. If the heat of the desert is unforgiving to the living, it is more so to the dead. The medical examiner couldn’t make a positive ID initially, not even with standard DNA procedures. To confirm the identity of the body, they needed dental records, which — unlike on television — are not something that can be simply pulled from a database. We had to sort through stacks of old mail, looking for a bill, until we finally figured out who her dentist was so we could obtain the records ourselves.
And so we spent the next week seeing to her affairs: Tracking down insurance policies, handling funeral arrangements, trying to piece together the last weeks of her life and pass on whatever relevant information we could find to the homicide detectives. Closure, however, wasn’t forthcoming. The funeral was held, but no one was arrested. When we left two weeks later, we still didn’t know what had happened, or why.
Months passed. We were back home, moving forward with our lives and had all but given up hope that the investigation could go any further. Forensic evidence needs to be collected in the immediate aftermath of a crime, not weeks later after time and nature have done their work. We tried to resign ourselves to the fact that we might never know, that justice might never be served.
Then, the week of Christmas, we got the call from police: They had apprehended two men, and better still, had gotten confessions. Shortly thereafter, we got another update — the prosecutors would be seeking the death penalty:
Two men accused of beating a 64-year-old Three Points woman to death in June could be sentenced to death if they are convicted.The Pima County Attorney’s Office filed documents last week announcing its intention to seek the death penalty for Armando Estrada, 26, and Rosendo C. Valenzuela, 24.Prosecutors cited four statutory reasons the men should be executed in the death of Mamie Lim Gong. They allege the slaying was especially cruel, heinous and depraved, and was committed for financial gain and in a cold, calculated manner without pretense of moral or legal justification. They also allege it took place during another serious offense, kidnapping.
I know all the Catholic arguments against capital punishment. But in that moment, knowing that the voice of my family could weigh against the state’s desire to execute two criminals who surely deserved it, I found myself unwilling to say anything. Any inclination I had toward the arguments ofEvangelium Vitae against capital punishment left me in an instant. I was not opposed to these men being allowed to live, but neither was I opposed to their execution.
The state was going to pursue what has always been considered by the Catholic Church to be legitimate recourse against the worst sorts of criminals, and my wife and I had no intentions of stopping it.
As Cardinal Avery Dulles pointed out in his letter titled “Seven Reasons America Shouldn’t Execute” — a letter in which he agrees with the notion that capital punishment should be severely restricted:
If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millenia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture (notably in Genesis 9:5-6 and Romans 13:1-4).I doubt whether the tradition is reversible at all, but even if it were, the reversal could hardly be accomplished by an incidental section in a long encyclical focused primarily on the defense of innocent human life. If the Pope were contradicting the tradition, one could legitimately question whether his statement outweighed the established teaching of so many past centuries.I believe that the Pope, without contradicting the tradition, is exercising his prudential judgment that in our time adequate punishment, including the moral and physical defense of society, can generally be accomplished by bloodless means, which are always to be preferred.
The fact that this is likely a prudential judgment throws cold water on the idea that Catholics must assent to a revised teaching on capital punishment that finds almost no cases in which it is acceptable.
I don’t hate the men who killed Mamie, nor do I want revenge. I have prayed for not only their capture but their conversion from the beginning. If they are sentenced to death, I am committed to praying for the repose of their souls. I do believe, however, that they should face justice in this life, with the hope of God’s mercy in the next.
Praying for those who killed my wife’s elderly mother is one of the bitter ironies of Catholicism that I am willing to accept. But wringing my hands and lobbying for their lives is not.
Editor’s note: this article originally appeared in Crisis Magazine in 2008. It has been reprinted with permission.
I agree with Justice Antonin Scalia: “I am… happy to learn from the canonical experts I have consulted that the position set forth in ‘Evangelium Vitae’ and in the latest version of the Catholic catechism does not purport to be binding teaching—that is, it need not be accepted by practicing Catholics, though they must give it thoughtful and respectful consideration. It would be remarkable to think otherwise—that a couple of paragraphs in an encyclical almost entirely devoted not to crime and punishment but to abortion and euthanasia was intended authoritatively to sweep aside (if one could) two thousand years of Christian teaching. So I have given this new position thoughtful and careful consideration—and I disagree. That is not to say I favor the death penalty (I am judicially and judiciously neutral on that point); it is only to say that I do not find the death penalty immoral.”
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/05/gods-justice-and-ours
I’m with you Father. To compare killing of the unrepresented defenseless innocent in the womb without trail is clearly “murder by mommy”. To conflate it with executing cold blooded killers who commit heinous crimes after having the benefits of legal representation, jury trail, appeals etc…is sophistic nonsense and more pc mind fog from Rome. It takes years to execute anyone in this country. However, IMO, there is maybe one valid reason not to execute. Namely, there are/have been innocent men in prisons or on death row. “Project Innocence” has proven that repeatedly through DNA. The other side is prisoners have been released who kill again. In cases where there is no doubt whatsoever execution is warranted.
Sorry, not on board with this. Our stance on abortion is based on the fact that all life is sacred, and that it is not for us to decide who lives and who dies. If these men can be prevented from doing further harm without killing them, the death penalty is immoral, for the same reason that abortion is immoral.
And yes, if it was my mother, I would still believe this, and would beg the judge for clemency; Mom would expect no less of me.
I will pray for you and your family, for the peaceful repose of your mother-in-law, and for the souls of the men who committed this terrible act. We are all so broken.
Our stance on abortion is not based the fact that it is not for us to decide who lives and who dies; rather, it is based on the fact that the innocent have a postive right to life. Moreover, the Church, as Steve has clearly documented, teaches that there are certain species of guilty criminals who can indeed forfeit that right to legitimate authority. I’ve also always found the faith that death penalty opponents place in modern penal systems to be grossly misplaced. A life in prison is certainly no guarantor of preventing future harm. Murderers and rapists often continue their crimes in prison, at times even with impunity.
You wrote, “it is not for us to decide who lives and who dies.” It is certainly not for citizens to decide this, as we lack that authority. A sovereign, however, does have that authority, and can exercise it for the sake of the common good. It does so not only with capital punishment, but in the waging of just wars and, in fact, in any punishment, including those short of capital punishment. This is the consistent Catholic tradition.
All life is not sacred. Animal life and plant life is not sacred. With the human person, only innocent human life is sacred. Human persons can forfeit their life. Through the crime of murder, in war, and attempted murder. They are not innocent. Their life is guilty. Guilty human life can be killed.
In a Crisis magazine article (“Hanging Concentrates the Mind” 02/08/2013), Fr. George Rutler gives an overview of recent papal history (19th-20th century) with the death penalty: http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/hanging-concentrates-the-mind
Almost two years ago, a horrific murder happened less than 1 1/2 miles from my house. A young mother was killed by her husband in cold blood on Valentine’s Day. The husband, a Baptist missionary, wanted her out of the way so he could hook up with a younger woman that he brought home from a mission trip to Lithuania. She was brought over here to further her education. She got educated all right! He was found guilty and given life without parole. He should have gotten death, but thanks to two idiotic ex-governors, we don’t have one right now. And in spite of all the hard evidence against him, he’s totally unrepentant. What good is it to keep a soul dead murderer alive for the rest of his life? If he faced the death penalty coming down on him, he would a 50/50 chance of developing Godly sorrow for his sins and doing penance for his sins to avoid hellfire.
It is right for the Church to be skeptical of the death penalty. But it can only be skeptical. Without the death penalty given to Jesus, the Church would not exist. If the death penalty is sin, then it was forever sin, and Pius IX bore ultimate responsibility for the Papal States guillotine.
I am sorry for your loss….that is horrific. I hope the murderers get the justice they truly deserve.
Horrible story. I am so sorry.
The consistent teaching of the Catholic Church is that killing in self-defense is acceptable. Capital punishment is therefore acceptable as a protection to society. [Yes, our screwy system can put the innocent to death – that is wrong – I’m speaking of those who are really guilty]
The death penalty is also expiatory – this offers to God justice for society and for the culpable, so ironically the death penalty is also a form of mercy. Imagine how being put to death could actually save one from Hell, lessen one’s time in Purgatory? But this is not a well-known concept today and is puzzling to most.