TERRI WINCHELL (APRIL 10, 1963 TO JANUARY 8, 1981)

  

Terri Winchell

            Unit 1012 sends our utmost condolences and sympathy to the loved ones of Terri Winchell. She was murdered by Michael Morales on this date, January 8, 1981. Morales is currently on San Quentin Death Row, California. We will make Terri Winchell one of the Christian Martyrs of Unit 1012 and not forget her in our prayers.

            We will remember her on her birthday every year on April 10 and also on the following observances every year:

1. National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims (September 25) (See the 2014 & 2015 event)

2. Tree of Angels (December) (See the 2014 & 2015 event)

Precious in the sight of the Lord

Is the death of His saints.

- Psalm 116:15 (NKJV)

PRECIOUS MEMORIES:

Pictures of Terri Winchell show an attractive young woman with olive-toned skin and thick brown hair that fell past her shoulders. She had a bright smile and friendly eyes.

In a letter last month to state officials, David Winchell - one of Terri's four brothers - described his younger sister as having ``a beautiful heart ... filled with God's love and compassion.''

Mother and daughter enjoyed a close and loving relationship. In a family of boys, Terri was Barbara Christian's little girl.

``Terri had been such a caring and obedient daughter that it was unlike her not to let her mother know where she was,'' Terri's father, Mack Winchell, wrote in his letter to Schwarzenegger.

  

In this undated photo released by the California Attorney General's Office Terri Winchell is shown. (AP Photo/California Attorney General's Office)

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3523547]

That's just the way she was, friends and family said. Good-hearted. A devout believer in turning the other cheek, in giving people a second chance. 

 

Seventeen year-old Terri Lynn Winchell

That's how classmates at Lodi's Tokay High School described Winchell after she was killed halfway through her senior year. And the memories are fresh today, even after nearly three decades. 

"She wasn't just beautiful, she had this beautiful alto voice," said Jodie Bluhm, who sang in the Tokay A Cappella Choir with Winchell. "Everybody liked her. She would sit down at the piano and start to sing, and everybody stopped what they were doing just to listen." 

Winchell was a straight-A student, excelled at tennis and swimming, and sang everywhere she could -- in churches all over the Stockton-Lodi area, at school, at parties. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was one of her signature tunes; cassettes preserved by the family reveal a gentle, crystalline vocal talent. 

She had just become lead singer of a rock band called Hit and taken a part-time job at an El Torito restaurant to raise money for college. Her mother, Barbara Christian, had retired in 1980 as a dispatcher for the Stockton Police Department, and with her newfound time she laughed and shopped with her only daughter like a fellow schoolgirl. 

"Terri had everything going for her," Chalk said. "She was my mom's best friend. Every girl wanted to be her, and if they were boys they wanted to be near her."

  

Young Terri Winchell

[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.iacj.org/BarbaraChristian.htm]

A Prayer for Brianna

Dearest Mother Father God, we know and acknowledge you as Source.

We hold ourselves as one with you, in a unity which flows through us and all creation. In our faith of this holy union, we step up to our declaration that Terri is whole, healed, and complete. We connect with that which is Divine in all of us and jointly extend our compassion to Terri and all those who love her, and whom she loves.

We assert that there is nothing in creation that can succeed in assaulting the Divine, and that our faith lives in the invisible realm of Spirit, bringing forth physical manifestation all around us. In this faith, for those of us who believe in Jesus, we ask in His name. For those of us otherwise connected, we call upon our love of God to sustain us all in a unity of Light and compassion.

We deliver her into your divine hands, for there is nowhere else with greater healing and compassion. Having delivered her to Your care, we release our prayer and intention to Your vast heart, and align ourselves with Divine Highest Good. Knowing that it is now done, we enter into gratitude, giving thanks for all now being well.

We borrowed this prayer from A Prayer for Brianna Dennison.

INTERNET SOURCE: http://bringbriback.blogspot.com.au/2008/02/prayer-for-brianna.html