Sunday, August 21, 2016

IN LOVING MEMORY OF ANDREA KRUGER (NOVEMBER 21, 1979 TO AUGUST 21, 2013)



            The last victim of Spree Killer, Nikko Jenkins was Andrea Kruger, who was shot dead on August 21, 2013. We, the comrades of Unit 1012, want Jenkins to face the death penalty for his crimes. That is why we endorse Nebraskans for the Death Penalty and we give our strong support and compassion for the loved ones of Andrea Kruger, so we encourage those who are Nebraskan registered voters to sign the petition. Do learn from how Proposition 34 was defeated on November 6, 2012. 

            Let us not forget Andrea Kruger and also the other 3 victims of Nikko Jenkins.  

    

Death Penalty: A Grandmother's Plea

Whoso sheddeth man's blood,
by man shall his blood be shed:
for in the image of God made he man.

-- Gen. 9:6

                        She's buried in a tiny, windswept cemetery, not far from her home, and not far from the intersection that night in August 2013 when she was shot dead, twice in the head, once in the neck and once in the shoulder.

Andrea Kruger was driving home from work to tend a sick child. She stopped at a northwest Omaha 4-way stop. She was ambushed by Omaha habitual criminal Nikko Jenkins and a carload of accomplices. They wanted her 2012 Chevrolet Traverse in order to carjack and rob people at the upcoming Lil' Wayne concert downtown.

According to trial testimony, Jenkins pulled Mrs. Kruger out of the car and took out his weapon. She screamed, "No! No! Please don't!" but he shot her anyway. He roared off in her car and the accomplices followed. They later quoted him as saying, "That dumb (expletive) just laid down on the ground."

Andrea Kruger was not an expletive.

Andrea Kruger was not just a crime statistic.

Andrea Kruger will never, ever be forgotten. Never!

She is the face of the Nebraska murder victim - the face of innocent, vibrant, caring, creative, positive, constructive, hard-working human life, snatched away by the heinous and evil act of murder.

Look at her face in the photo, with her husband MR, son Jadyn, and daughters Hartley, left, and Ava. Can you imagine going through life, knowing this happened to your wife or your mother?

At the time, Andrea's husband, Michael-Ryan Kruger, said, "My kids had the best life because they got to spend all day with their mom. Go to the pool, the children's museum, the zoo."

The couple had just celebrated their wedding anniversary. "She's generous, she's outgoing, funny," Michael-Ryan said. "When she enters the room it's like okay, 'Andrea is here.'"

A news account put it this way: "He never could have imagined that his family would have to deal with such a nightmare and that he would be left to answer the children's questions. 'Who took Mommy? Why did they take Mommy?'"

At least, it was thought, there's the death penalty. There will be justice.

In Nebraska law, there are "aggravating and mitigating" factors which must be weighed in deciding which murderers get a life sentence or a term of years for their crimes, and which ones get sentenced to death. In this murder, it appeared the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating ones. Jenkins, who also confessed to three other murders just days after his release from prison on other charges, is awaiting sentencing as we speak.

But now the Nebraska Legislature has three times voted to repeal Nebraska's death penalty law. The governor has vowed to veto it, probably this coming Tuesday. But if the senators vote to override his veto, the death penalty will be no more. The 11 men on Nebraska's Death Row would all have their death sentences commuted to life. The worst sentence Jenkins could get would be life in prison.

He gave Andrea Kruger death. But he would get life.

Do you think God's design includes a sympathetic, tolerant, accepting attitude towards evil murder? That we should shrug our shoulders and say, "Oh, well. Poverty . . . substance abuse . . . bad peers . . . he couldn't help becoming a murderer, and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Or do you agree that God's very favorite thing is innocent human life, especially soft-cheeked little children and their gentle, caring mothers, and protecting that innocent life from depraved monsters who would slaughter them without remorse, or at least severely punishing those who do, is Job One in a civilized society?

As soon as I saw there was a good chance the state legislators would vote against the death penalty, I jumped into the fray as a writer/researcher. I have tried to rebut the incredible lies and distortions being spread by the anti-death penalty activists. Oddly, I have yet to meet another Nebraskan who agrees with repealing the death penalty who isn't already a political operative with an agenda or a scheme about this. All the everyday people support it.

YES, the death penalty deters future murders, as established by 28 studies.

YES, a death penalty trial and appeals are more expensive than a similar murder trial in which the defendant gets a life sentence. But after that, the decades of costly incarceration make it much more expensive to house a lifer than to execute a death-sentence defendant.

YES, Nebraska has dropped the ball in not being able to establish a lethal injection regimen once the electric chair was ruled out of bounds. The European Union put an export ban on the chemicals for political reasons, erasing our possible supply. So now, the average length of time our Death Row defendants have been waiting is 15 years, vs. the national average of 11 years. But other states, particularly Texas and Virginia, have handled capital punishment very efficiently in the last 40 years. So can we.

I posted articles on http://oneminuteonmurder.com and have maintained a Facebook page, One Minute On Murder. I've enjoyed making friends with like-minded souls, who realize that the death penalty is the cornerstone of government and was delegated to the civil magistrates in Romans 13:4. Clearly, getting rid of it is the same as shoving God's moral authority right out of our government. After that, it's a slippery slope toward ever-more lenient and unjust punishments, such as the mass murderer in Norway who took 77 lives at a camp but was sentenced to the "max" in that country: 21 years in prison.

That's where we're headed. Norway started by getting rid of their death penalty. See the progression? Innocent life gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

But despite all of the research and discussions, what nails it for me was the phone conversation I was privileged to have with Andrea Kruger's grandmother.

She is Karen Guarino of Fremont, Neb. She had just returned from putting flowers on her granddaughter's grave this Memorial Day weekend.

You might have read about Andrea's mother, Karen's daughter, Teri Roberts, who, in a tragic "piling on," recently lost both arms and both legs after a rare attack of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome. She had miraculously awakened from a coma four hours before they were going to shut off her life support a few months ago. She is now dealing with four new prosthetic limbs, has a good wheelchair, and recently was blessed beyond measure to be given a high-tech van that will get her mobile . . . and able to babysit her three orphaned grandchildren again.

Karen Guarino is proud of her daughter's spunk, and says she has adjusted to the reality of her granddaughter's murder. Not a tinge of bitterness or revenge is in her voice.


But she makes no bones about it: she wants the Legislature to KEEP the death penalty.

Mrs. Guarino puts it this way:


            "If they can prove something like that (murder), without a doubt, then the death penalty is just something that even the Bible says we should do. Justice demands that they execute.

            "I realize that it's not going to bring Andrea back. But if they repeal the death penalty, then others out there will think, 'We're not going to have to pay with our lives if we kill somebody.' The law will be, you can make other people suffer terribly, but YOU won't have to. It's just so unfair to so many loved ones who've lost someone to murder and have to live with the consequences of it for the rest of their lives."

            She said, "My granddaughter is murdered. And he (Jenkins) is in there eating three square meals a day, getting his clothes furnished, having access to exercise and libraries, all the facilities that you and I have.

            "God gave us a brain to use, and a little bit of common sense. We should use them. I don't think those legislators who voted for this are doing their job. Period. Any of them! I just don't think they're out there for anything or anybody but themselves. I don't think they care about the little guys. We don't seem to be able to buck them - contradict them - get them to support us and represent us."

            She's hoping and praying that enough senators will wake up to this, and vote with their conscience to keep the death penalty.

A grandmother's outrage . . . a grandmother's love . . . a grandmother's grief . . . a grandmother's plea for justice.

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