NCJ Number
158898
Date Published
1995
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This video interview of Marietta Jaeger, a mother whose daughter was murdered after she was kidnapped while on a family outing, focuses on her spiritual journey that brought her from anger and vengeance to forgiveness toward the killer.
Abstract
For just over a year, Marietta did not know whether her daughter was alive or dead. During this time she engaged in a spiritual struggle that pitted her anger and desire for vengeance against the knowledge that her Christian faith required her to forgive those who had injured her. Through her faith, prayer, and Christian support groups she had reached a state of forgiveness over the course of a year. After that year, her daughter's kidnapper called the mother for a ransom and also to taunt her. Her forgiving and caring attitude led him to share many feelings and information about himself, which eventually led to his capture. She learned that her daughter had been killed a short time after she was taken. Marietta's view of capital punishment is that it is a reaction in the primitive, vengeance stage of the victim's spiritual journey and does not reflect the higher spiritual values of a society. It demeans the values of a victim who believes that all of life has value.