Petitioners Say More Names Needed to Keep Wacker in Prison

September 25, 2009

by Rebecca Gannon (WICHITA, Kan.)

The Parents of Murdered Children meet every year on September 25th to remember their sons and daughters. This year, the killer of one of those children is up for parole.

Family friends worry they don't have enough public support to keep Nancy Shoemaker's killer behind bars.

"And so we want to keep him in prison. And the way to do that is we need to collect signatures on petitions," said Sherri Donovan.

More than 5,000 signatures fill the pages Donovan carries. She needs two hands to handle the packet.

"It takes a whole lot of counting; trust me, I counted them. But I'd love to count a whole lot more," she said Friday night.

The 5,000 are far fewer than the 27,000 signatures friends and family collected five years ago, when Donald Wacker was last up for parole. He killed nine year old Nancy Shoemaker almost 20 years ago.

Sitting in the room with Donovan were dozens more people. Each there for the National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims. Driven indoors by the rain, sitting in folding chairs, the people assembled shared their grief, and their memories.

But people here wish there never had to be an event like this. "We shouldn't have to," said the co-founder of Wichita's Parents of Murdered Children chapter. "But you know," continued Corinne Radke, "there's not going to be a way that we're ever going to stop someone from murdering somebody else. We just have to remember those that we lost and loved, and go on, the best we can."

And for Donovan -- remembering comes from each signature on each petition page.

Wacker's parole hearing will take place in Wichita October 19th.

Copies of the petition are at Davis-Moore auto dealerships in Wichita and at the Presto Phillips 66 station at 2356 S. Seneca. It also is available on the Parents of Murdered Children Web site, www.pomc.com. Select "petitions" in the top navigation bar. A link to the site in on the top left-hand corner of your screen.

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