Memorials to Murder Victims

It seems like there's a trend for the murder of a young woman or child to result in the establishment of memorial funds that support a variety of public activities. The foremost purpose of the memorial may be grief therapy for the family and friends of the victim, because it is a tribute to a victim whose promising life was tragically ended. Another purpose of the memorial effort is the attendant publicity that helps maintain public interest in the crime, which translates into continued police effort to arrest a suspect or focuses public attention on an upcoming or ongoing trial. Through public awareness and educational activities, prevention of similar future crimes is also a goal of the memorial. By creating a popular base, the memorial provides a lobbying force to strengthen existing laws that family and friends feel may have enabled the perpetrator to commit the crime affecting their loved one. Finally, these memorial events give politicians who participate an opportunity to ride their coat-tails for positive media exposure.

Overall, the memorial for a murder victim seems to have only positive outcomes. But, is there a point when the memorial efforts become counter-productive? Grief for the loss of a loved one is usually considered a private matter, respected and not intruded upon, but the public aspect of the memorial could lessen the expected privacy and expose the grieving survivor to unwelcome public scrutiny of their recover from their loss. The sympathetic publicity for the victim could indirectly affect the rights of the accused to a fair trial, if jurors were influenced to reach an unjustified verdict. Also, the creation of memorials for some special victims and not for others raises the question of whether some victims are more important than others and how the value of victim-hood is to be measured?

Bad things happen to good people, so it is said. Each of us must deal with this fact of life in our own way. Memorials are the way some people deal with a loss. Others are entitled to observe the privacy of a loss. I guess I'm in the latter column.