April 21, 1999
Two mothers found grace to
forgive the men who killed their daughters
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--Restorative justice ministry is incomplete if it extends hope to offenders but fails to touch crime victims and their families, two mothers of murdered daughters told a statewide conference.
___"You owe it to yourself as ministers to find out what the other half is like. Your job is just halfway done if you don't consider the victims," said Paula Kurland of Houston, whose 21-year-old daughter Mitzi was stabbed 28 times by a stalker in 1986. "If you're only hearing one side, how can you feel the job is complete?"
___Kurland and Pat Stonestreetparticipated in a victim impact panel discussion at the sixth annual Statewide Restorative Justice Ministry Conference in Dallas, April 9-10. The conference was sponsored in part by the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Texas Baptist Men.
PAT STONESTREET describes her experiences following the rape and murder of her 28-year-old daughter, Lisa, whose picture she wears. Sitting next to her is Raven Kazen, director of Victims Services with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. (Photo by Ken Camp)
___Stonestreet never had the opportunity to talk directly with Kenneth Harris, the man who repeatedly raped, stabbed, choked and drowned her 28-year-old daughter, Lisa.
___But on the day after Lisa's funeral, as the family gathered in Stonestreet's living room, they made a commitment.
___"My husband said, 'You know, we have to forgive that man.' I didn't want to, but that night, my family made that decision. It took me three years to get there, but that early decision short-circuited a lot of bitterness, anger and hatred that could have developed," she said.
___"The highest form of obedience (to God) is forgiveness," she concluded.
___Kurland came to that same conclusion, but her journey was different than Stonestreet's. Kurland, who was brought up in a home with one Baptist and one Catholic parent, described her own spiritual pilgrimage of restoration which eventually led to a face-to-face meeting with her daughter's killer on death row.
___Driving to Houston one night from Baton Rouge, La., Kurland heard a message on Christian radio about forgiveness. She realized she would be sentenced to a life of bitterness unless she forgave the man who killed her daughter and placed him in God's hands.
___"You forgive because it frees you," she said. "Hopefully, one day, it will free the offender, but that's not the reason you do it. You do it because it frees you."
___Kurland became convinced that her faith demanded that she forgive the person who murdered her daughter, even though she never could forgive his actions.
___"You don't have to forgive what he did. You have to forgive him," she realized. "It became important for me to visit him to tell him he was forgiven."
___Kurland ultimately was able to meet her daughter's killer through Victim Offender Mediation/Dialogue, a program of the Victim Services Division in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
___The mediation and dialogue program provides victims of violent crime the opportunity to have structured, face-to-face meetings with their offenders in a safe and secure environment.
___The goal, according to Director Raven Kazen, is to help the victim heal and to allow the offender to take responsibility for his behavior and face the full impact of his crime.
___Some victims need to ask questions and receive answers that only the offender can provide, Kazen said.
___That wasn't the case for Kurland, though. "I never wanted to ask him why. That was never important to me. What was important was that I have the opportunity to give him back the responsibility for the devastation and pain and destruction that he brought into a lot of people's lives," she said.
___Even though her family did not support the decision, Kurland met Jonathan Wayne Nobles, the man who killed Mitzi and her roommate.
___"Meeting with him was the hardest thing I ever did, second only to burying my child," she said.
___In the process of preparing for the mediation dialogue, Kurland learned that Nobles had become a Roman Catholic while in prison, an idea she initially resisted.
___"I had shared the last 12 years with him. Now I had to share my God with him? No way!" she said.
___In their face-to-face meeting, Kurland recognized the depth of Nobles' remorse for his crime, and she believed his new-found faith was genuine.
___But for Kurland, Nobles' repentance was primarily a matter between him and God. Her role was to offer forgiveness unconditionally.
___"I went against my whole family, but I knew that if I didn't tell Jonathan I had forgiven him, I would be a prisoner for the rest of my life," she said. "And I couldn't live with that."
___Some time later, Kurland saw Nobles again. It was on the day of his execution by lethal injection. Kurland recalled the scene as they brought the convicted killer into the death chamber, strapped to a gurney.
___"Jonathan blew me a kiss and told me he loved me," she said. "He addressed each of us (the victims' families) individually. He died singing 'Silent Night.' And I know that my daughter ... greeted him."
___Kurland remains convinced that her own restoration could not have been achieved without the opportunity to meet personally with the man who committed the crime against her family.
___That commitment led her recently to become involved in the Sycamore Tree Project, a program that facilitates mediations and leads offenders to take responsibility for their actions.
___"You're only doing half the job if you don't find the victim. See if you can bring this all together," she urged. "There is no victimless crime. There is always a victim."
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