VICTIMS: NPR Features Story of a Father Who Forgave His Daughter’s Murderer

National Public Radio (NPR) recent­ly fea­tured a seg­ment in its StoryCorps series in which a father describes how he came to for­give the man who mur­dered his daugh­ter. Patricia Nuckles was mur­dered by Ivan Simpson in 2001 when she caught him rob­bing her home. Though dev­as­tat­ed by his daughter’s mur­der, Hector Black want­ed to learn more about his daughter’s killer. He learned that Simpson was born in a men­tal hos­pi­tal to a woman who lat­er attempt­ed to drown him and his sib­lings. Simpson and his broth­er escaped, but his moth­er suc­ceed­ed in killing his sis­ter.

After learn­ing this, Mr. Black and his wife asked the dis­trict attor­ney not to seek the death penal­ty against Ivan Simpson. At his sen­tenc­ing, Simpson apol­o­gized to Nuckles’ fam­i­ly.

The link below has both the audio and text of Hector Black’s state­ment.
(“Father Finds Peace in Forgiveness,” NPR, Feb. 8, 2008). See Victims, New Voices, and Multi-media.