Support group assists families who have had loved ones slain

Birusk Tugan

Thursday, June 29, 2000 | 11:19 a.m.

Les Sharp has turned his personal trauma into his personal mission.

His 15-year-old son was murdered in 1992, and the emotional scars remain. He has no second thoughts about the death penalty for killers. He's all for it, as is his wife, Sandy.

He's president of "Families of Murder Victims," a Las Vegas group with 500 people on its mailing list. Sandy is executive director.

While many states are now engaged in soul searching about the death penalty, there is little sympathy for that position among members of this group.

In fact, the members lean the other way, saying that death-row inmates have too many rights.

"The system sucks, and we have to deal with it," Sharp said. Sandy added, "I don't think you should have all these appeals if you take another person's life."

On Nov. 8, 1992, police found the body of the Sharps' son, Rory, who had been beaten and shot to death. He had been missing for two weeks. Rory, the Sharps said, made the mistake of stealing from fellow gang members. Four young men pleaded guilty to murdering Rory and are now serving life sentences. The Sharps say the killers deserved death.

"They didn't just take a life," Sandy Sharp said. "They changed the lives of our whole family. We serve a life sentence."

The potential in Clark County for membership in Families of Murder Victims grows by at least three families each week. As of Monday, Metro Police alone had 52 ongoing homicide investigations -- up by three compared to a year ago. That doesn't include homicides in Henderson and North Las Vegas.

While some members attend one or two meetings and move on, others, like the Sharps, stay with the group "to support newly bereaved survivors."

"Adjacent to professional counseling, such groups are useful," said Thomas Sexton, a family psychologist and professor at UNLV's Greenspun College of Urban Affairs.

Sexton said that while some people cope with the loss and eventually heal, some never put it behind them.

"The trauma becomes a part of their life mission," Sexton said. "That's not a bad thing, because these folks go out and advocate important social changes."

At a recent meeting, in a back room of the Stop DUI headquarters near Charleston Boulevard and Pecos Road, members tossed about such words as "prelim," or "hung-jury" as often as an attorney might. Part of what the group does is to announce the dates and locations of new trials and follow murder cases start to finish.

When the death penalty comes up, emotions run high.

Marlo Cole, whose mother, Tamara Lee Thiros, was killed last August by her mother's boyfriend, said she "strongly believes in it." She said she wishes the man, who is now serving life in prison for manslaughter, had turned down a plea bargain and had gone to trial on the original charge of murder.

The group's vice president, Ron Cornell, said he thinks that the victim's statement should always be the last thing heard by the jury before sentencing.

"It's not fair" for defendants to have the last word, Cornell said. His son, Joey, 16, was killed two years ago, and the killer remains at large.

Not all victims' support groups are so intransigent on the death penalty.

"Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation," a 4,000-member national support group based in Cambridge, Mass., maintains "revenge is not the answer." Executive Director Renny Cushing said about one-fifth of the members have lost family members to homicides.

"We oppose the death penalty not because of what it does to the murderer, but because of what it does to us," he said. "It's a barrier to healing. It replicates violence, and makes us murderers."

A local death penalty opponent agrees. Michael Pescetta, a federal public defender in Clark County, said that while he has a lot of sympathy for the families of murder victims, he thinks that death sentences ultimately do not provide the closure the families need.

While individual members of Families of Murder Victims support the death penalty, this issue is not the group's driving purpose. The group helps with all aspects of healing, from working through the legal system to just plain listening.

Sandy Sharp pointed to the meeting's 18 participants, who, from early evening until midnight, recounted their stories, shared their pain and vented their feelings of anger and hatred.

"It doesn't get any easier," said Kenneth Rainey, who is going to spend the fifth Christmas without his son, Michael, who left his house after arguing with his mother, Susan, in August 1996.

Michael Rainey, who had attention deficit disorder, had run away before but had always come back. This time, he didn't return.

The body of a shooting victim found near Lake Mead Boulevard in November 1996 was finally, in August 1999, determined to be that of Michael Rainey.

"Michael was into girls. He was just discovering all that good stuff," Rainey said, with tears in his eyes.

Metro Police Homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen said Families of Murder Victims is a good way for people to work through their personal tragedies.

"It's a group in which I wouldn't want to be eligible for membership," Petersen said. "Nobody would. All of us should hope that we never qualify for it."

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