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A killer is spared in recognition of two who truly lived
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Location: Blogs Now We're Talking |
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| Posted by: Joe Byrnes |
8/1/2007 12:22 PM |
This ran as the Now We're Talking column on Wednesday in the Star-Banner.
It's impossible to fold down into a newspaper column all the heartache and love lost and promise denied that came with the random murders of John Michael Parker and Amber Marie Peck.
I won't even try. I'd like to focus, instead, on the decision their families made - choosing as they believed Parker and Peck would want - to spare the killer a death sentence and spare themselves a dozen years or longer of anguished waiting.
On Monday, citing their wishes, State Attorney Brad King offered Leo L. Boatman, 21, two life sentences without parole if he pleaded guilty. The parents of the victims stood in Judge Willard Pope's courtroom and testified tearfully about them: a kind-hearted father, son and Marine Corps veteran and a caring, fun-loving daughter and sister who had discovered a new career in her passion for animals and the environment.
Back in January 2006, the two 26-year-old Santa Fe Community College students were tent-camping at Hidden Pond in the Ocala National Forest. Parker was showing his friend and fellow nature-lover one of his favorite places.
They were young people of character. Parker had joined the service after high school, had gotten married - and divorced - and had a daughter, Stephanie, with whom he shared his love for the outdoors. He had his eye on a job as a forest ranger. His mother, Vicky Parker, said his Marine Corps buddies were shocked to learn he had survived two tours in Afghanistan only to "end up getting shot in his own back yard."
Peck, too, was born into a loving family. Her mother, Glenda Peck, attempting to speak for Amber at the hearing, said: "When my mom was told to abort me because of her medical condition at the time, she refused, stood her ground and took a chance to give me life." She liked music and dance and, most of all, she loved animals. Amber Peck had just won admission and a grant to study zoology and habitat conservation at James Cook University in Australia. That was her dream come true.
"Given the opportunity," Glenda Peck said, again speaking for her daughter, "who knows what I and John Parker could have accomplished to make a better world for everyone and everything."
They were poised to make good things happen.
Boatman wrecked all that. He crouched behind some bushes on The Florida Trail, tracked the strangers in the sight of his borrowed AK-47 assault rifle and, for no reason, shot them repeatedly from 30 yards away. Then he walked up to them and shot Amber in the head.
The killer would later tell a detective he had changed "into that state of mind" while in juvenile prison. He had been a fatherless boy, born in a mental hospital and orphaned at age 8 when his mother drowned in a ditch.
On Monday, he apologized but could offer no explanation.
With bitter irony, Glenda Peck said her family had rescued two girls from a troubled home who, without their help, might have ended up like Boatman.
"We have a long history," she said, "and he robbed us. I don't think he'll make it in maximum security. I'm hoping and praying he doesn't."
But the twisted youth - who chose death and for no reason - will likely live to be an old man in some Florida prison. Here is why. Despite tears and righteous anger and even though Boatman deserves death, John Parker and Amber Peck, speaking through their parents, have chosen life, as they always did.
Joe Byrnes can be reached at joe@ocala.com and (352) 867-4112. |
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Comments (2)
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Re: A killer is spared in recognition of two who truly lived |
By Scott of Weirsdale on
8/4/2007 8:33 PM |
| Well I guess that is ok, but i would liked for some one like that to have gotten death and quickly. |
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Re: A killer is spared in recognition of two who truly lived |
By Vicky Parker on
8/6/2007 3:46 PM |
| Thank you Joe for the your comments regarding the decisions we had to make regarding Leo Boatman. The road to July 30th has been long and painful. A trial with the 'possibility' of the death penalty does not guarantee what the outcome would have been. At least this way we know where Boatman is and that he can not longer destroy other families. Yes John and Amber chose to live, and for that we are forever grateful to have had them in our lives. Destroying Leo Boatman won't bring our children back. All we have left are memories but they are wonderful ones.<br> |
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