Kathryn Gaines, Rita Shoulders, Ruth Lowe and Victoria Cox all had some­one in their fam­i­ly mur­dered but all believe that a death sen­tence for the killers would only deep­en their per­son­al wounds. Shoulders lost her sis­ter to mur­der; Cox lost her broth­er; Lowe also lost her broth­er; and Gaines expe­ri­enced the death of her eldest grand­child a year ago. All four women are mem­bers of St. Martin de Porres Church in West Louisville, Kentucky, and have par­tic­i­pat­ed in videos to relate their expe­rienes. Ruth Lowe said of the man who killed her broth­er, ​“I’m learn­ing to for­give. And even if I had the chance I wouldn’t want him exe­cut­ed. It would do noth­ing for me; it would do noth­ing for the rest of my fam­i­ly. To take his life would make no sense.” Kathryn Gaines said, ​“You can­not bring a life back by tak­ing away anoth­er life. It hurts a whole fam­i­ly.” The videos of the four wom­en’s sto­ries can be found here. The wom­en’s sto­ries are also being told in a series of arti­cles in The Record, a Catholic news­pa­per pub­lished in central Kentucky.

(M. McAllister, ​“Four women work against the death penal­ty,” July 28, 2011; ​“Women cling to faith despite tragedy,” August 4, 2011; and ​“Women see val­ues as cure for vio­lence,” August 11, 2011 in The Record; pho­to from the Archdiocese of Louisville). See Victims, New Voices, and Religion. The videos were pro­duced by Rev. Patrick Delahanty, the sacra­men­tal coor­di­na­tor at St. Martin’s.

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