Bereft parents try to fill the holes in their hearts

Here is the woman whose daughter-in-law stabbed her son to death and smothered her two grandchildren in their beds. And there is the mother who discovered her daughter’s limp body inside the family van. The timid couple who have thought about taking their own lives since their son was knifed in the back — they come here too.

At the Santa Anita Church in Arcadia, they gather for a monthly meeting of a club no one aspires to join. They are the San Gabriel Valley chapter of Parents Of Murdered Children.

It begins like any reunion, with hugs and laughter and doughnuts and coffee. But when the cups are set aside, when the green vinyl-covered chairs are pulled into a circle, when the overhead lights brighten against the slowly dimming sky, members talk about unspeakable events and haunting dreams.

The only agenda here is to share. Share what it’s like to wait for a break in the case, for a killer to be arrested, for a trial to begin, for a parole board to meet. Share whatever you want.

“A lot of times you get the feeling that people think you should’ve done something to protect them in some way,” offers Jan Williams, her voice quiet but steady. “You should have seen something, you should’ve stepped in.”

Williams’ son Neal, 27, was stabbed more than 90 times inside his Rowland Heights home in 2007. His sons Devon, 7, and Ian, 3, were suffocated with a pillow, detectives said. Awaiting trial for all three homicides is Neal’s wife, Manling Williams, 30.

People have often callously asked Williams: “What did he do to make her mad?”

Since the killings, stress drove her to take a medical leave from her job at Whittier College, during which she learned her position had been eliminated. She has wrestled with depression and endured vivid descriptions of the murders during court hearings.

“I’ve noticed she looks to see if I’m there,” Williams, 52, says of her daughter-in-law, who is being held without bail. “Being a stubborn person, I’m always there. But you have to key yourself up to go to these. I think they’ll go on long enough until it kills me bit by bit.”

“You’ve gotta be strong,” says Rozanna Lindorfer, 56, as she taps the table with a manicured finger. “Fight till the end. Fight for them.”

It’s been nearly four years since Lindorfer’s son Orlando was shot in Lynwood. The 24-year-old construction worker was walking to a friend’s house after his car broke down on the 105 Freeway. Someone shot him twice in the back of the head. Police have no suspects.

Lindorfer and her husband, Steve — Orlando’s stepfather — are tired of people telling them to be grateful they have one son left.

“They love you differently, they speak your name differently,” Lindorfer says, her voice quivering. “I never knew the difference until one was gone.”

Tracy Ponce nods. She and her husband have felt something similar about the granddaughter they’ve been raising since Eileen, 22, disappeared one February night with the family van. The next day, Pomona police found the vehicle but failed to look inside. The Ponces slid open the door and discovered their daughter’s body beneath a pile of blankets. She had been stabbed in the neck.

Caring for a 4-year-old who reminds them of Eileen has been a blessing and a burden.

“I could be the best grandma ever and she’s still going to want her mom,” says Ponce, 41.

Across the room, Sharon Gentile listens longingly. The years without her son have been an indistinct blur. Bobby, 38, was shot near Lake Elsinore, allegedly by a distant relative who was trying to claim what remained of a $365,000 family trust. It was shortly after cancer had stolen Gentile’s mother and her husband had died of heart and kidney failure.

“My son didn’t have kids. I’m not a mom or a grandma,” says Gentile, 62. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”

::

Murder, this group has learned, is a special kind of death. Murder means there was no illness, no accident, no forces beyond anyone’s control. It means there is someone to blame, although no promise of punishment. With murder, mourning mingles cruelly with calls from reporters, funerals delayed by autopsies and glacial legal processes.

Justice, if it ever comes, will never be enough. It won’t change the unnatural order of things that keeps them up on lonely nights.

After the shock, after the funeral, after the memorials, people around them want to hear that things have gotten better. Friends want to hear they have moved on.

“It wasn’t a subject people could easily be around,” recalls Robert Hullinger, a retired minister who founded Parents Of Murdered Children with his wife, Charlotte, in their hometown of Cincinnati. The couple’s daughter was beaten to death with a hammer by an ex-boyfriend in 1978. Their need to talk about it seemed to make people uncomfortable, even family members.

The Hullingers attended a support group for parents whose children had died, but they discovered that murder led to heartache of a different shade. So they started a separate discussion group. Today, Parents Of Murdered Children has dozens of chapters across the country, about 100,000 members and an annual conference.

Participants are united by grief but not necessarily by politics. In the San Gabriel Valley chapter, some champion the death penalty; others have softened in their views.

“I was raised in Mississippi and, coming from a staunch Christian background, I thought ‘I’ll push the button, I’ll allow poison,’ ” says chapter president Ann Kennedy, 62, of Arcadia, whose 33-year-old son Bryan was shot eight years ago by an acquaintance. “But when they asked me about going with the death penalty, I couldn’t do it. I felt for the parents.”

The group is a source of information on how to deal with authorities and attorneys and how to exercise rights as a victim. Members attend one another’s hearings, and e-mail reminders are circulated when a member is dealing with the anniversary of a death or a child’s birthday or facing a trial.

“It makes me feel good that I’m not alone,” says Luz Ruiz, whose 23-year-old son was shot at a party in West Covina in 2005.

A single mother, she adopted the grandson left behind. Seven-year-old Robert sees a therapist but still cries in bed. Quiero a mi papi. Ruiz, 54, weeps when she hears the words.

I miss my daddy.

Ruiz recently threw a birthday party for both Robert and his father, who would have been 27. Throughout the day, group members stopped by the house or texted her encouraging messages. She calls the members her family, the meetings her oasis.

“It’s the only place I feel safe to say and do whatever I want without worrying I’m going to hurt someone,” she says.

Withholding judgment is part of the chapter’s motto. How you feel is how you feel. No need to be diplomatic.

Yet in finding solidarity with others who have suffered the same loss, grieving parents sometimes become estranged from friends and relatives. Survivors say they’re sometimes told that such groups are unhealthy, causing them to get trapped in the past. “Find closure” is the oft-repeated advice.

The meetings, members say, help them find freedom.

::

Danny and Sandra Zebaneh of El Monte have never been to a meeting, never spoken to others about their son or how he died. They’re both 42, together since their teenage years. But since Matthew, 20, was stabbed in El Monte on a January night, they’ve found themselves saying hateful things to each other, even contemplating suicide.

A woman they met during a visit to Matthew’s grave pointed them to this church in Arcadia. Maybe it would help, they thought.

So tonight the couple sits with a group of strangers to find out how it feels to join others in grief. And now, it’s their turn to speak.

Danny’s eyes dart nervously from the reassuring smiles to the green carpet to the T-shirts that serve as billboards for photos of sons and daughters. He tugs at his black hoodie, shakes his head, then opens his mouth.

“My son —” He stops. His mouth twists. He tries again.

“My son, Matt —”

He stops again.

Finally Sandra speaks, a tissue clenched in one fist. “Our son, Matt, was killed two years ago. Saturday was his birthday.” Murmurs go around the room. Birthdays are hard.

Danny sucks in a deep breath. He opens his mouth again, only this time it’s as if a door has opened and all the thoughts he’s kept inside come tumbling out in a jumble.

“We wait for him to come home, but he’s not coming home,” he says, trembling. “I live confused. I wanna take my life. How do you raise someone to 20 years old and then they take him from you? . . . I taught him ball, taught him football. He graduated. Where did I go wrong? The thing that hurts me the most is we had an argument the night he got killed. I wish. . . . Now some piece of crap took my son, and I want justice.”

Danny’s cheeks glisten and his face is flushed, but he doesn’t stop. He gets louder.

“I couldn’t work. I’d drive to my job and circle the lot and turn around and leave. . . . He died in the hospital and we had only 30 minutes with him. They said they would call security if we didn’t leave. I had to drag my wife from the room. I just want my son. I just want help. . . . I want to clear this from my mind. . . . We don’t have anyone to talk to. I just need some kind of . . . I just need. . . .”

His momentum finally breaks, and his words hang in the air.

“Peace,” someone offers gently.

And for a moment, Danny’s weathered face softens in the room’s glowing light.

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