Sharon Rocha - For Laci: A Mothers Story of Love, Loss, and Justice

Contents

Part One
Her Mothers Daughter

Part Two
Her Daughters Mother

Part Three
Coming Home

Part Four
Justice for Laci

For Laci and Conner

M OM , S HARE O UR S MILE WITH THE W ORLD

I am embraced in love and light,

And my baby is embraced by me

Gods loving arms, they hold us now

For all eternity

Remember the laughter we shared

Please keep laughing,

I still laugh with you

No more sleepless nights, Mom

Please rest for me

In the morning Ill be there

Rising with the sun

I am in your soul

I am your sunlight

I am the rays that break through

Mom, please understand

I do this now for you

My smile, he could not take from me

My smile that graces the screen

Its your smile, Mom...

Its your smile now they see

For all Ive become

Its because of you

Youve allowed the world to see

Your hope, your tears,

And now,

My spirit soaring free

Its in our smile, Mom

Its yours, its mine

Please, keep smiling for me

Adapted from a poem by Carole Bruzzano and read by Sandy Rickard at Lacis memorial service, on her twenty-eighth birthday, May 4, 2003 2004 Carole Bruzzano

Authors Note

You wake up from most nightmares and theyre over. Mine was different. I was awake when it started, and Ive barely slept since. It was December 24, 2002, a date when life as Id always known it stopped forever. We were expecting my daughter, Laci, and her husband, Scott, for dinner. But about forty-five minutes before they were supposed to arrive, the phone rang and Scott asked if Laci was with me. When I said no, he said she was missing.

Missing? Laci, missing? The word was so wrong in terms of Laci. She was twenty-seven years old, seven and a half months pregnant, and happy and healthy. She was reliable, punctual, and responsible. She and I were on the phone all the time and she was in constant touch with her girlfriends. We called her JJa childhood nickname for Jabber Jawsbecause she talked nonstop. She didnt wander off without telling someone. She didnt go missing.

When Laci and her son, Conner, were found on April 13 and 14, 2003, everything just got worse. Instead of hoping wed get Laci back, we had to come to terms with the permanence of her death. Shed been murdered, and the person who murdered her was the man she loved most in the world, her husband. It shouldnt have happened, and yet I dont know how we could have prevented it.

This has been an intensely personal tragedy played out in public. At the core, my family and I have experienced new depths of anger, pain, fear, confusion, frustration, and grief. We saw Scott convicted for murder, but we were never getting Laci back. This ordeal continues to feel like a horrible sickness for which theres no cure. Laci was my daughter, my best friend, a wonderful person. She added to the world in a positive way. You knew everything you ever needed to know about her the instant she smiled.

I needed to be convinced it was okay to write this book, and that wasnt a quick or easy process. I did a lot of soul searching. I worried it was inappropriate and fretted I was betraying Laci. I had many conversations with her about these issues. Then, one day I recalled a conversation Id had with Det. Craig Grogan during the trial. Id asked him if the dog handlers who were involved in the original search for Laci were still looking for her. He said no, and explained that the handlers expenses are covered through donations or out of their own pockets and basically the police department was out of money.

Recalling that conversation became my deciding factor; Id use money from this book to start a fund for search and rescue in memory of Laci and Conner.

I knew Laci would approve.

In this book, Ive tried to recall some of those everyday moments that will help people know Laci the way her family and friends did. She deserves to be remembered for her life, not her death. Ive also described to the best of my ability what I went through from that first unsuspecting moment when I picked up the phone on December 24, 2002, to the tears I cried when Scott was convicted of murdering Laci and Conner and was sentenced to death.

For the past couple years, I have filled Lacis old bedroom with everything I have from her life and her death. You cant get into the room anymore. Whenever I received a box of letters, I put them in there. When a San Luis Obispo businessman sent me two paintings he found that shed done in high school, I leaned them against her old bed. I saved every newspaper article and put them in boxes. And in the back corner is a cedar chest containing her cheerleader outfits, school awards, letters, and albums, all things I struggled to retrieve from her old house after she was murdered. I saved her belongings so I wouldnt lose her.

On the day I started this book, I opened my cedar chest and some of the boxes for the first time. I found papers shed written in grade school. I reread the holiday cards she made as a child, each one ending with Love, Laci. I watched her wedding video again and cried at how beautiful and happy she was that day. I also went to the house where she lived with Scott, and I walked through the park where wed looked for her in the cold the night Scott called and said she was missing, the night our lives changed forever.

I wanted to put it all in this book, and I tried. By going through all this again, this time on my terms, I hoped to start the healing process and repair some of my hurt and heartbreak. Thus far, that has proved to be unrealistic. I still cry every day. Ive moved forward, but not very far. My wound has remained large and fresh. I dont know if Ill ever heal. I think you learn to live with the pain.

I still talk to Laci. There are so many things I still want to say to her. I tell her that I am so sorry this happened. Im sorry I wasnt there to protect her when she needed to be protected. Im sorry I didnt see Scott for who he really is and get her away from him before he could hurt her. I tell her how much I miss her, how much I wish she was still here, able to stop by or call, and how much I love her.

I cant recall a single day since she disappeared when I havent thought about her and cried. Ill hear a certain song, catch a particular scent, see a sunflower, a ladybug, or a dragonflyher favoritesor pass her junior high school, and Ill be reminded of her.

For a moment, Ill forget shes gone. Then it hits me, cruelly and hard.

About a year after Laci was murdered, I was on my way out of the house, and Id just closed the door behind me when I heard the phone ring. I hurried back inside, thinking it might be Laci because I hadnt spoken to her for a long time. Of course it wasnt Laci. It wont ever be Laci.

These are still tough times. I get by one day at a time. I feel better when Im helping others. I speak out on behalf of victims rights. I am eternally grateful to my family and friendsmy circle of love, as I refer to themwho have been with us from day one of this nightmare.

In times of despair, they offered hope. During times of weakness, they provided strength. In moments of hate, they gave love.