![]() ![]() Throughout the country hundreds of support groups like the one in Kansas City meet every month. As a result, the victims' survivors must seek comfort from one another. America's fascination with murder has not yet extended to its aftermath. But in reality they are far more likely to feel isolated, fearful, and ashamed, overwhelmed by grief and guilt, angry at the criminal-justice system, and shunned by their old friends. One might expect that the families of murder victims would be showered with sympathy and support, embraced by their communities. The fear of murder has grown so enormous in the United States that it leaves a taint, like the mark of Cain, on everyone murder touches. The quilt seems as American in its own way as the violence that brought these families to this room. ![]() A hand-stitched quilt on the wall has the photographic image of a different face in every square-mostly young men and women, innocent, full of promise, unaware of their impending fate. This is the monthly gathering of Parents of Murdered Children, Kansas City chapter, a support group for the relatives and friends of homicide victims. Each story seems more poignant and more horrific than the last. The meeting opens with everybody explaining, one by one, why he or she has come. From all appearances this could be a session of the local PTA or of a church group planning its next book fair. ![]() They are white, African-American, and Latino, middle-class and working-class, a cross-section of midwesterners. They sit in folding chairs around two large banquet tables. ![]() They bring cookies and sodas, newsletters, notebooks, and photographs of their children. They meet in the parish hall, a low modern building not far from the headquarters of the Hallmark Cards corporation. On the first Friday evening of every month thirty to forty men and women gather at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Kansas City, Missouri. ![]()
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