Tulsa World: In Their Memory

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In Their Memory

A tattoo of murder victim Elizabeth Wagoner, as a baby and how she looked at the time of her death, adorns the right calf of her mother, Lindsay Wagoner, as she poses with her husband, Bill Wagoner, in their Tulsa home. MICHAEL WYKE / Tulsa World

By NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer
Published: 7/13/2008 2:04 AM
Last Modified: 7/13/2008 4:15 AM

Families honor lives of their slain loved ones

One year to the day after Elizabeth Wagoner was murdered, her mother got a tattoo in honor of the 10-year-old girl.

The tattoo depicts Elizabeth's first baby picture as well as her last photo, taken at school just hours before she was abducted and killed.

"It is a memorial, but it also gets people to ask, 'Why did you do that?' And then I get to tell them, and they are more aware that, yes, this does happen, and it does happen to people on a daily basis,'' Lindsay Wagoner said.

But it's also a way to keep her daughter close at all times.

"The last time I saw Elizabeth, she was in her casket at the funeral home, and she was so cold, and I will never forget that. So having her face on my leg helps me feel like she is still alive inside me, even though I know she will always be in my heart.''

After Joseph Adetula, 18, was shot to death July 4, 2005, his father, Dayo Adetula, created a nonprofit foundation in his son's name and taught himself about crafting a Web site so he could tell his son's story to the world. Now, pictures and stories about Joseph's unsolved homicide are on 10 different sites.

"When this happened, I didn't know anything about the computer, but learning let me channel the anger into something else,'' Adetula said.

He even posted a picture of his dead son in a casket. Adetula shows it to teenagers when he speaks at schools about violence.

"These kids think, 'It won't

happen to me.' But seeing is believing. You have to show them," Adetula said. "Maybe we can change some kids' minds. It might be graphic, but that is what it is.''

Maggie Zingman has traveled more than 7,800 miles in a pink and purple SUV wrapped in pictures of her daughter, Brittany Phillips.

Making her trips across the country keeps Brittany's memory alive, she said.

"There are probably 30,000 people who now know her and will remember her in some way,'' Zingman said.

But she's also on a mission to catch the rapist who killed her 18-year-old daughter more than three years ago — and to change laws in an effort to save other lives.

"Everyone kept saying what I was doing was unbelievable, but I feel any parent would do the same,'' Zingman said. "If you fall apart, so does their memory.''

Healing factor

Trees and gardens. Candlelight vigils and balloon releases. Statues and charities.

Legislation seeking justice.

Each in their own way, families seek to honor and memorialize homicide victims.

"When you talk about memorializing your loved one, I don't think there is anything you couldn't do,'' said Nancy Ruhe, executive director of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children.

Families contact the group more than 1,000 times a week, often seeking ways to memorialize victims. Those ways include the group's Murder Wall, a traveling tribute honoring the slain.

"It does have a great healing factor," Ruhe said. "And I often saythese loved ones will live long after we are all dead and gone, because there is their name, there is their age and everything about them, and for generations to come, people will come up and see a name and find out who that loved one was.''

Creating memorials

Lindsay and Bill Wagoner honor their daughter's life in many ways.

Elizabeth's bedroom remains the way she left it the day she went for a walk and never came back. Her killer, Daniel Johnson, lived nearby and lured her into his home.

Police captured him within 14 hours, and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The urn with Elizabeth's cremated remains sits in the Wagoners' living room. They still sing her a bedtime song every night and light 10 candles — one for each year of her life — plus one more to represent their bond.

"It is extremely comforting, because as horrible and traumatic as this whole thing was, we don't want that to be what we keep of Elizabeth,'' Bill Wagoner said.

Like Dayo Adetula, the Wagoners use the Internet as a means of honoring Elizabeth's life. Both parents have created their own MySpace pages that tell her story. Lindsay Wagoner even created a page from Elizabeth's perspective.

Thousands of Web sites serve as digital diaries of lives claimed by violence. Families use sites such as MySpace to post pictures and videos, seek killers in unsolved cases and network with others who share the same pain.

"If you Google the word 'murder,' the number of Web sites memorializing loved ones is unbelievable,'' Ruhe said.

A variety of sites memorialize several other Tulsa homicide victims, including Joshua Ray Minton, a 2-year-old boy who was murdered by his day-care provider on May 17, 2007, and Monica Decator, who was killed by her boyfriend in April 1997.

Laws for loved ones

Ruhe said the drive to change or create laws in the names of homicide victims is a powerful means of memorializing a death.

"All those laws we don't even think about on a daily basis get passed to prevent crimes from happening or prevent someone else from going though the same thing that family member has gone through, and they do it in memory of and to pay tribute to their loved one,'' Ruhe said.

She cited Megan's Law as an example. The law is named after 7-year-old Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl who was raped and killed by a child molester who had moved across the street from her family. They were unaware of his criminal past.

After her death, Megan's parents sought to have communities warned about sex offenders in the area, and all states now have a form of Megan's Law.

In Oklahoma, legislators passed the Nik Green Law in honor of a state trooper who was shot to death Dec. 26, 2003, by a man who was operating a methamphetamine lab in a car. The law requires that over-the-counter cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine — meth's primary ingredient — be placed behind pharmacy counters.

Also in 2004, the Mary Rippy Violent Crime Offenders Registration Law was passed. It is named for an 89-year-old Wewoka woman who was strangled by a neighbor who had served time for first-degree manslaughter and felonious possession of a firearm. Neither Rippy nor her daughters were aware of the killer's violent past.

Now anyone who is convicted of or receives a suspended sentence for a violent crime is required to register with the Department of Corrections and a local law enforcement agency.

Zingman describes her cross-country travels as a "caravan to catch a killer,'' but her goal is even larger than that. She also seeks to strengthen rape laws and draw attention to the DNA testing backlog.

"I do believe weak rape laws allowed him to possibly slip through the system," she said of her daughter's killer.

Ruhe said Zingman's travels show the lengths to which parents are willing to go to send a message about violence in the United States.

"When you see mothers out there going across the country trying to get some type of attention to the plight that their daughter suffered, it really does speak to the need to stop the violence,'' she said.

Special days, special names

Most families have one method of memorializing their loved ones in common.

After a homicide, families often pay increased reverence to the victims' birthdays and death dates. Victims' advocates say it isn't unusual for families to have even larger celebrations for homicide victims' birthdays than they do for living family members.

The observances recognize the loss of what could have been.

"The way Bill and I honor Elizabeth's birthday every year is to release balloons at her school,'' Lindsay Wagoner said. "There are balloons for how old she would have been — this year it would have been 13 — and we always have one white one for her being an angel."

The death dates, or "angel dates," as Wagoner calls them, are seared into families' memories by unexpected loss.

"When they are taken — whether it be a car crash or murder or cancer, whatever type of death when it is unexpected or painful — those are days you don't ever forget,'' she said.

Another way victims' memories live on is through namesakes.

Five babies born to one family have been named in honor of Marjonna King, a baby who was killed by her father, Edwin Bell, on Feb. 12, 1999. Bell killed Marjonna along with her two sisters; their mother, Markita King; and his own mother, Linda Farris, before turning the gun on himself.

In the years since the killings, Miracle King, Markita's sister, has had four children and named each a variation of Marjonna. Markita's brother, Maurice King, named his son, who was born exactly one month after the homicides, Marjon.

Miracle King's children sleep in a bedroom decorated with pictures of Markita King and her children. She had planned to tell them about the shootings when they were older, but talk in the community about the mass slayings made its way to her oldest daughter, age 7, before she was ready to tell her.

"She knows her cousins and aunt were killed and that their daddy shot them,'' King said. "She had questions. She wondered why someone would ever do something like that.''

Going their own way

Not everyone can face the pain of making memorials a part of their daily lives, a choice Bill Wagoner said he understands.

"The bond we had with Elizabeth was not something Lindsay and I were willing to let go. At the same time, at times it is really painful. It is a balance that Lindsay and I have chosen to make. We would rather hurt than forget,'' he said.

"But I can easily, easily understand how some people would go the other direction. The pain is just so much. They just cannot go through it. They have to avoid it.

"It is not something anyone can judge. An individual who is going through what we are going through has to go their own way. They have to find a way to make it through it.''

World staff writer Curtis Killman contributed to this story.

Nicole Marshall 581-8459
nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com By NICOLE MARSHALL World Staff Writer

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	Report Comment ddp, (7/13/2008 3:44:21 PM) This is every parents' nightmare. May God bless these families and bring them comfort on a daily basis. Although we can imagine that we think we might know how awful it must be, the Wagoner's are right. We cannot know the pain these families feel. My heart goes out to you.
	Report Comment ThunderPigeon, (7/13/2008 10:43:11 PM) Nicole Marshall, Thank you for writing this article. My brother was the victim of Homicide 1.5 years ago. I created a website in my brothers' memory, and it helped ease some of the pain. I think one of the most difficult parts of dealing with a tragedy like those these families have endured is the feeling of helplessness. There is nothing I could do to help my brother. The website gave me something I could do for my brother's memory. My heart goes out to all of the families changed forever by homicide. I am truly sorry for your loss.
	Report Comment rickyslife, Westville (7/14/2008 6:10:58 AM) My heart as well is with these families who have endured so much tragedy by losing those theylove. Mary rickyslife(.)com
	Report Comment Brittany's mom, Chandler (7/14/2008 10:16:11 AM) I have worked closely with Nicole. She has been a support and a place to vent ever since Brittany's murder. Even as we near the fourth anniversary of what Nicole coined (I think, during the first year) as the most mysterious murder of and since 2004, she, Curtis and the Tulsa World have been there strong as the first few weeks. This is partially what gives me strength to keep on going with the fight to find our murderer and to change laws that I feel impacted Brittany brutal murder. I recently have been talking to Rep Wesselhoft and if elected again he is again gong to push the DNA at arrest of violent crime bill again, possibly this time with Brittany's name (last year they tried under the name of a Nevada murder victim I think). We may have a problem with the fact that Oklahoma does not always see rape as violent (sic!). We cannot forget the Tulsa Police Department. In particular Detective Jeff Felton and Sgt Mike Huff have stood by our side through this iongoing nightmare. I am told many officers, cadets, other police department members volunteer to help on our case. I feel Jeff Felton treats our case as if Brittany was his daughter. I can never repay their kindness. Thank you Tulsa World for the great coverage for all the families of these victims. You have possibly helped the families of these victims to connect even more. Although there is POM I hope to maybe create another local group for the parents, with strong support for those unsolved crimes and issues related to keeping the killers in prison who come up for parole. I hope readers will visit all of the victim's families websites. Thank you Tulsa World for your empathy, kindness, understanding and compassion towards these issues. With Never Ending gratitude Maggie Mother of Brittany Phillips 10/04/85 to 10/04/04 (Please forgive posting the same with each of these homicide stories but I want everyone to know of my gratitude)
	Report Comment nerd57, (7/14/2008 5:44:45 PM) Nicole Marshall, Thank you for writing this article.I hope you win award for this article much love Dayo Adetula I took the pledge to combatting gang violence Have you? Joseph Adetula Foundation
	Report Comment Libby's Mommy, Tulsa (7/14/2008 7:52:48 PM) Nicole, Thank you for such a beautiful article and for taking the time to let us, the surviving victims, share our stories to help ensure that our loved ones will never be forgotten. ~Lindsay Wagoner
	Report Comment Daven, Tulsa (7/14/2008 11:01:44 PM) This whole segment has been done very well. Thanks to all that have worked on it.
	Report Comment okie ridgerunner, small town (11/1/2008 12:17:09 AM) My heart goes out to all the familys. this is so sad and heart breaking.
	Report Comment tweetybird, tulsa (2/14/2009 3:19:35 AM) this is such a awesome page and my thoughts and prayers go out to all of you who lost a loved one to such a auful murder..and my heart cries for all of you..and know there your angels looking down upon you keeping you safe and know again that one day you will be reunited with your loved ones my prayers go out to you all...hugssssssssssssssss to all and gbu and be with you
	Report Comment forkandknife, Tulsa (10/16/2009 11:38:27 AM) Nightmares. The never end. (8 My prayers to every family that has lost a loved one.

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