2016 TREE OF ANGELS CEREMONY

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 25^th 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) 

14. Carmen Gayheart (September 2, 1970 to April 27, 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. Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens were both sentenced to death.

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)

28. Eloy Conrad Duran III (November 10, 1984 to January 3, 2010)

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.

34. Jolissa Rangel (October 29, 1992 to October 25, 2013)

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.

37. Engeline Megawe, Bali’s Missing Child (May 19, 2007 to May 16, 2015)

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