Ellington

My name is Howard Klerk, and I am the president of the National Board of Trustees of The National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children Inc. based in Cincinnati, Ohio. I am a homicide survivor, and I represent more than 100,000 homicide survivors in the United States and Canada. We are a support group for homicide survivors by homicide survivors.

We wish to express our outrage over the recent pardons and release of a number of convicted murderers by former Gov. Haley Barbour. We find this to be an absolute outrage and an act causing additional pain and anguish to people whose life has already been torn apart by the murders of their loved ones by these vicious criminals.

Mr. Barbour states that these murders were  "crimes of passion." There is no passion in committing a murder. Murder is an act of violence, rage, hate and evil committed by sociopaths and batterers. Batterers are rarely rehabilitated; sociopaths cannot be rehabilitated.  What makes anyone think that these released criminals will not strike again? The only willing participant in a murder is the murderer and any accomplices.

We applaud the efforts of the attorney general in attempting block the release of these murderers. We hope the effort is successful and these criminals are not released into society where they clearly do not belong and where they would be free to take other innocent lives.

Howard S. Klerk Jr.
President, POMC National Board of Trustees