Even as an adult I feel a strange sense to try to "protect" my little sister and it breaks my heart that this isn't possible. Dru Sjodin was my sister's best friend. I couldn't protect her from the evil in the world and all the hurt that was caused through the evil that is Alfonso Rodriguiez, Jr. I still can't, and it frustrates me when I do something that ends up causing her pain even if it is indirectly.
The other day I shared a link on facebook to an article about AR. A friend of my sister's had initially beeh the one to share it so I didn't even stop to think about whether or not my sister had read it or how she would handle it. The next morning I saw a message from her and I could tell that reading that article had opened old wounds. It hurt me to know that I had inadvertantly hurt her.
What's worse is the knowledge that this monster is still out there causing pain to those who knew and loved Dru. The news article about his latest appeal both shocked and angered me. There was a statement that he "didn't mean to kill Dru." To me, that's a moot point. He did it. He was tried. He was convicted. He was sentenced. And the time has come for that sentence to be carried out. In my opinion the time is long overdue.
Being such a high profile case there is no way to stop worrying about when the next article will appear showing sympathy to a killer until the sentence is carried out and that killer is put to death. Somehow the killer is trying to come across as the victim and there are some in society who are actually buying into that. It makes me sick. We can't allow for Dru's voice to be drowned out by her killer's. I am thankful for all the people out there working to make sure that doesn't happen.
Losing someone so tragically is something you can never truly recover from. I am still haunted by my uncle's suicide over 15 years ago. I cannot imagine how much worse it must be for those close to Dru.
