For this 2016
Tree of Angels Ceremony, Unit 1012 will remember
and honor 35 murdered victims + victims of war crimes from the United States
and around the world. This is similar to the 2016 National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims,
where we remembered more than 188 murdered victims.
 |
|
Adorned Tree of Angels
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.treeofangels.org/index.html]
|
"So long as we live, they too shall live and love for they are a part of us as we remember them."- Gates of Prayer
1. William McKinley (January 29, 1843 –
September 14, 1901), the 25th President of the United States.
2. Janusz Korczak, the pen
name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – August 1942), was a
Polish-Jewish educator, children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan
Doktor ("Mr. Doctor") or Stary Doktor ("Old
Doctor"). After spending many years working as director of an orphanage in
Warsaw, he refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when the institution was
sent from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp,
during the Grossaktion Warsaw of 1942.
3. Anne Frank
A.K.A Annelies Marie "Anne"
Frank (Dutch pronunciation: [ɑnəˈlis ˈɑnə maˈri frɑŋk], German
pronunciation: [anəliːs ˈanə maˈʁiː fʁaŋk], pronunciation (help·info); 12 June 1929 – early
March 1945) is one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her
wartime diary The Diary of a Young Girl has been the basis for several
plays and films. Born in the city of Frankfurt in Weimar Germany, she lived
most of her life in or near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Born a German
national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941. She gained international fame
posthumously after her diary was published. It documents her experiences hiding
during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
Do not forget
the victims of the Holocaust during World War II:
On
this date, August 12, 1952, 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in
Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union. This case is also known as The Night of The Murdered Poets. Let us
remember them and never forget the injustice they suffered under Joseph Stalin.
4. Emmett Louis Till (July 25,
1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American boy who was murdered in
Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till
was from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in Money, Mississippi, in
the Mississippi Delta region, when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the
married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Several nights later,
Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam went to Till's
great-uncle's house. They took Till away to a barn, where they beat him and
gouged out one of his eyes, before shooting him through the head and disposing
of his body in the Tallahatchie River, weighting it with a 70-pound (32 kg)
cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. Three days later, Till's
body was discovered and retrieved from the river.
5. John F. Kennedy A.K.A John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917
– November 22, 1963), commonly known as "Jack" or by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the
United States, serving from January 1961 until he was assassinated in November
1963.
6. Terri Winchell (April 10, 1963 to January 8, 1981)
7. Daniel J. Faulkner
(December 21, 1955 – December 9, 1981): Faulkner was the youngest of seven
children in an Irish Catholic family from Southwest Philadelphia. Faulkner's
father, who drove a trolley car, died of a heart attack when Faulkner was five.
Faulkner's mother went to work and relied on her older children to help raise
him. Faulkner dropped out of high school, but earned his diploma and an
associate's degree in criminal justice while serving in the United States Army.
In 1975, he left the army, worked briefly as a corrections officer, and then
joined the Philadelphia Police Department. Aspiring to be a city prosecutor,
Faulkner enrolled in college to earn his bachelor's degree in criminal justice.
He married in 1979.
8-11. Kermit Alexander’s mother, sister and two nephews, ages 8 and 13,
were murdered in South Central Los Angeles during
a home invasion by members of the Rollin 60’s Neighborhood Crips, whose
intended victims lived two doors away.
12. Polly Hannah Klaas (January 3, 1981 – October 1, 1993) is an American murder victim
whose case gained national attention. At the age of twelve, she was kidnapped
at knife point from her mother's home during a slumber party in Petaluma,
California, on October 1, 1993. She was later strangled. Richard Allen
Davis was convicted of her murder in 1996 and sentenced to death.
13. Brandon Duane
Baugh (October 16, 1993 to January 21, 1994)
15. Private Tracie Joy McBride was murdered by Louis Jones,
Jr on February18, 1995. He was executed by lethal injection in Texas on March
18, 2003. We, the comrades of Unit 1012, will remember how Tracie live and not
remember how she died. We encourage people to donate money to the Tracie
Joy McBride Scholarship Fund.
16. Michael Lyons (September 28, 1987 to May 17, 1996)
17. JonBenét Patricia Ramsey
(August 6, 1990 – December 25, 1996) was an American child beauty pageant queen
who was murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado, in 1996. The six-year-old's
body was found in the basement of the family home about eight hours after she
was reported missing during a police search of her home. She had been struck on
the head and strangled. The case remains unsolved, even after
several grand jury hearings, and continues to generate public and media
interest.
18. Melissa
Trotter (November 26, 1979 to December 8, 1998)
19. Teresa Del Rio (November 8, 1978 to June 7, 1999)
Teresa Del
Rio was a student at Glendale Community College and born in Los Angeles to
parents Anna Soto Del Rio and Fernando Del Rio. She attended Eagle Rock Montessori
Pre-School; Glendale Lutheran School; 32nd Street Middle School and Eagle Rock
High School. Teresa performed in the Eagle Rock Recreation Center’s ballet
Folklorico, sang in the Glendale Lutheran Children’s Choir and played piano.
She worked as an extra in television and motion pictures. Among her credits
were the “New Munster TV series”, The Music Video for “The Faculty,” KHJ-TV
“Children’s Christmas specials,” Public affairs special “Instant Crib Death
Syndrome” and others. Her major extra film credits included “Terminator II,”
“American Me,” and “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me.” From the age of two Teresa
traveled every year with her parents and had visited most of the leading
museums in Europe, Mexico, Canada and others in the United States. Teresa
recently completed a 16 week course in Computer Science at the Mexican American
opportunity foundation and worked for Centro De Ninos in Los Angeles. Ms. Del
Rio was currently enrolled in Glendale Community College to attain an AA degree
and later planned to attend UCLA or San Diego State University to major in
Sociology. Teresa was the only child of Anna and Fernando Del Rio.
20. Huang Na
(simplified Chinese: 黄娜; traditional Chinese: 黃娜;
pinyin: Huáng Nà) (26 September 1996 – 10 October 2004) was an eight-year-old
Chinese national living at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre in Singapore, who
disappeared on 10 October 2004. Her mother, the police and the community
conducted a three-week-long nationwide search for her. After her body was
found, many Singaporeans attended her wake and funeral, giving bai jin (帛金
bójīn, contributions towards funeral expenses) and gifts. In a high-profile
14-day trial, Malaysian-born Took Leng How (Chinese: 卓良豪;
pinyin: Zhuó Liángháo), a vegetable packer at the wholesale centre, was found
guilty of murdering her and hanged after an appeal and a request for
presidential clemency failed.
21. Police Officer Larry Elwood Lasater Jr. (End of Watch: Sunday, April
24, 2005)
22-23. On
this date, June 20, 2005, a couple, Javad Jay Marshall Fields and Vivian Wolfe
were both gunned down in Aurora, Colorado.
24-25. Channon Gail Christian, 21, and Hugh
Christopher Newsom, Jr., 23, were an
unmarried couple from Knoxville, Tennessee. They were kidnapped the evening of
January 6, 2007 when Christian's vehicle was carjacked, and taken to a rental
house, where they were raped, tortured, and murdered. Five people were arrested
and charged in the case. The grand jury indicted four of the suspects on counts
of capital murder, robbery, kidnapping, rape, and theft, while a fifth was
indicted on federal charges of carjacking.
Of the four
charged at the state level, three (Letalvis D. Cobbins, Lemaricus Davidson, and
George Thomas) had multiple prior felony convictions. After a jury trial,
Lemaricus Davidson was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
Letalvis Cobbins and George Thomas were convicted and sentenced to life in
prison without the possibility of parole. Vanessa Coleman was convicted and
sentenced to 53 years in prison for facilitating the crimes, and Eric Dewayne
Boyd was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for being an
accessory after the fact to carjacking.
The state
convictions were all initially set aside because of misconduct by the presiding
judge, who has since been disbarred. Retrials were originally slated for the
summer and fall of 2012. The orders for retrials of Davidson and Cobbins were
subsequently overturned by the Tennessee State Supreme Court, and their
convictions and sentences stand. The Coleman and Thomas retrials resulted in
convictions, but with reduced sentences. Coleman's sentence was reduced to 35
years, and Thomas' sentence was reduced to life in prison with the possibility
of parole.
26. Jamiel Shaw II (December 22, 1990 to March 2, 2008)
27. Elizabeth Bipsy Amiran
(January 20, 1982 to February 12, 2009)
29. Correctional Officer Jayme Biendl
(February 6, 1976 to January 29, 2011)
30. Kelli O’Laughlin (April 2, 1997 to October
27, 2011)
31. Saskia Burke (November 6,
1993 to December 20, 2011)
32. Autumn Pasquale (October 29, 1999 to October 20, 2012)
33. American Sniper - Christopher Scott "Chris" Kyle (April 8, 1974 − February 2, 2013) was a United
States Navy SEAL and the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history with 160
confirmed kills. Kyle served four tours in the Iraq War and was awarded several
commendations for acts of heroism and meritorious service in combat. He
received two Silver Star Medals, five Bronze Star Medals, one Navy and Marine
Corps Commendation Medal, two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals and
numerous other unit and personal awards.
Kyle was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in
2009 and wrote a bestselling autobiography, American Sniper, which was
published in January 2012. A film adaptation of Kyle's autobiography, directed
by Clint Eastwood, was released in December 2014. On February 2, 2013, Kyle was
shot and killed at a shooting range near Chalk Mountain, Texas, with his
friend, Chad Littlefield. The man accused of killing them, Eddie Ray Routh, was
found guilty of both murders and later sentenced to life in prison without
parole.
35-36. Arjen Ryder (April 23, 1960 to July 17, 2014) & Yvonne Ryder (October 20, 1960 to July
17, 2014). Mr Arjen Ryder, 54, and his wife Yvonne, 53, were two of the West
Australians who lost their lives on flight MH17 in the Ukraine plane disaster on July 17, 2014.
38-39. Mayci Breaux (September 25, 1993 to July 23, 2015) and Jillian Johnson (March 4, 1982 to July 23,
2015).
There are times when those who grieved cannot be pleased. They can only be loved.- Paula D'Arcy, in When Your Friend is Grieving
No comments:
Post a Comment