THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409180034
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: PAUL SOUTH
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Defense attorney Kenneth Wills walked to the back of the courtroom in Manteo, where two reporters were waiting.
Minutes before, he watched as his client, Craig Schaefer, entered a guilty plea in the shooting death of Dwan Feary.
``I really don't have anything to say,'' Wills said. ``I realize you guys have a job to do, and I wish I could help you do your job, but I can't.
A teardrop appeared in the corner of his eye. He left the reporters, and walked a few paces to clasp the hands of Dwan Feary's mother, Joy Bagley.
``I'm sorry,'' he said.
She apologized for ``not being able to keep a straight face,'' and she burst into tears.
``I miss my son so much,'' she said. ``Thank you for coming to speak to me.'' The two clasped hands again and then went their separate ways, he to another battle, she to her grief.
American courtrooms witness this scene day after day, week after week. And there is no one, not a reporter, not a lawyer, not a judge who takes pleasure in these moments. Victims' and assailants' families are left to mend shattered hearts.
Much is said these days about crime, and punishment, and what to do about the American home being more of a bunker than a castle.
And everyone from Bill Clinton to Donna Shalala to Pat Buchanan and Dan Quayle is talking about the same root cause of all of this madness: Values, or the lack of them.
And it is true. There is a crisis of the spirit in this land, a vacancy in the human heart that goes unfilled. Witness all the 900 numbers for psychic hot lines, all the televangelists, all the gospels according to L. Ron Hubbard, Tony Robbins and the disciples of the infomercials.
There too, are the followers of a doctrine that says government is the answer. All we need, they say, is one more program, one more grant, one more catchy slogan, 100,000 police officers, and on and on and on.
But it is the heart where the problem lies. And the mystery that no politician can solve is how to restore hope to the hopeless, and give value to those who feel such a lack of self-worth that they turn on society, and ultimately upon themselves, leaving broken hearts and dreams strewn in their wake.
In the coming months, we will hear lots of rhetoric from politicians, about how they voted for this bill or against that bill, all to make our streets safer.
But the plain fact is, no bill is going to protect us from the possibility that we will have to endure our day in court, like Joy Bagley, who listened to lawyers recount how a son she loved was shot three times, twice at close range, while he slept.
Surely there is an answer to the madness. But until it is found, all we are left to do is pray that we will not be the next to endure Joy Bagley's nightmare. by CNB