Respect After a Tragedy - In Response to a Public Letter

On September 30, 2022, my brother murdered our mother at her home in Massachusetts. He was arrested and jailed.

On October 1, 2022, my brother killed himself in a jail cell between 15-minute checks. He was not on suicide watch.

I am a murder-suicide loss survivor.

For the two days that my brother was in prison I was furious with him.  I didn’t care that he didn’t have a lawyer. I didn’t care that the judge issued a section 12 order, that landed him in prison, instead of a section 18, that would have landed him in a mental health facility. I knew that my brother would kill himself in prison, as he told me he would, and I wanted him to have an easier time fulfilling his promise.

And then he died via asphyxiation using wet toilet paper.

My anger immediately changed to grief. I fell to the floor for the second time in two days, a crumpled, crying mess. My anger was gone; it fell away, leaving me in deep despair for wishing him dead. My grief was for the life of my mother, for the life of my brother, for my own life that was forever changed.

On December 15, 2025, I received text messages throughout the day from people who thought of me after the deaths of a Hollywood couple by their son. I didn’t understand why I was receiving these messages as those losses were not part of a murder-suicide, like mine had been.

I felt awful for hoping that these Hollywood deaths included the perpetrator so that our nation could finally have a reason to discuss murder-suicide loss. I have written a book titled The Final Act, but have yet to find an agent; so my story and my passion for advocacy goes untold and unnoticed.

Then I read Erin McReynolds’ essay Dear Romy Reiner, One Day it Will be Years From Now. I don’t know what it is like to find my mother’s body, but I was on the phone with my brother while he literally added fuel to the fire that consumed her body.  There won’t be a trial where someone is found guilty, or innocent by reason of insanity, because my brother is dead. My brother was severely mentally ill; our mother was a narcissist who used us against each other. I survived them both, and believe they died because of each other.

For the past two years I have been working as a peer-facilitator of support groups for Murder-Suicide Loss survivors. Last year we became The Murder-Suicide Loss Network, a 501c3 non-profit, and I serve on the Board of Directors. I built a website, manage the email account, and do most of our outreach and social media. My world has become heavily focused on helping survivors of suicide - specifically murder-suicide.

I often wonder what it is like for survivors who have lost their family members to murder, in a similar situation to my family, but do not have the peace I have. My mother’s murderer, my brother, is at rest, no longer struggling with his own mind. I have met attempted murder-suicide loss survivors, where the perpetrator is still alive, and they do not seem to have more peace than those whose suicide attempts were successful.

All survivors are left wondering “why?” For some we can’t get an answer because our loved murderer is dead, for some the answer is taken as unreliable due to mental health ailments. For most of the survivors I’ve spoken with, there is no true peace.

As McReynolds says, the loneliest part of loss is when life goes on for everyone else.

When the check-ins end and people begin to forget that just because they, themselves, are healed, the survivor might not yet be. For the survivors of that Hollywood family, the tabloids and social media won’t stop reporting – even three months after the tragedy.  Reporters write for clicks, for money, they don’t care how invasive they are being, they don’t care that their reports are a violation of the privacy of the family. The publications and their reporters don’t care that they might be retraumatizing the family and not allowing them to find some peace in their grieving.

So, I wonder, as an advocate for survivors, and their loved ones, why we can’t change the conversation to mental health care? Why can’t we extend compassion for the families, and the perpetrators, who are, or were, suffering in their own mind? Why do we sell shock and the pain of others instead of understanding, compassion, community, and kindness? We need to do better.