
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 28, 1991                   TAG: 9103280431
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-15   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JUNE R. FLOWERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VICTIMS' FRIENDS WON'T PARDON JOE GIARRATANO

THE BLEEDING hearts were out to save Joseph Giarratano. Poor boy, always a loner, so misunderstood, and with a violent temper leaning on drugs and booze.

Befriended by (yes she had a name and so did her daughter) Barbara Klein and 16-year-old Michelle, he said of Barbara, "She was so much like my mother!"

I was a friend of the victims. I wanted to see justice served, and what I read about in this newspaper was not justice. This man is guilty! He bought cocaine and alcohol, and used both. No one forced them on him. He suffered from paranoia just as anyone does who is a habitual user, and it was his own free will to do so.

Tell the other daughter and sister of the victims that he's innocent! I think not!

This family was out of town when Giarratano came to Norfolk and was extremely angry upon finding "his friends" out. He broke into their apartment and was "waiting" for them on their return.

Barbara was dropped off at a 7-Eleven and Michelle at home. He raped Michelle. She bled profusely, and when she would not stop crying, he strangled her. He then locked five dogs in the room with her.

When Barbara came home from work, he stabbed her repeatedly while she tried to defend herself, supposedly "because she would know it was he who had raped and murdered her daughter."

The following day when Barbara did not show up for work, her landlord was called to check on her. He found Barbara in a pool of blood and could not check the bedroom because of the dogs.

The police were called, and they had to kill the dogs to get to Michelle. The police found a terrible scene. Michelle would have bled to death had he not strangled her!

Afterward, this "innocent" man cleaned the knife in the kitchen sink, and himself in the bathroom - having to step over Barbara. (She was lying partly in the bathroom, partly in the hall).

This man was convicted on hard, not circumstantial evidence. He deserved his death sentence due to the heinous crime he committed. Society would have been a safer place if he had finally been executed after 11 years of appeals.

by CNB