Journey of Hope: From Violence to Healing

The Journey of Hope presenters place a human face on the issue of the death penalty. Led by murder victim family members joined by death row families, the exonerated and other impacted by the failed promises of a broken system. The personal stories of the presenters touch people’s hearts and change people’s minds on this vitally important issue. The Journey of Hope advocates for alternatives to the death penalty, encourages forgiveness as a way of healing and endorses restorative justice as a way of life.

Journey speakers will be joined by singer-songwriter Charlie King.

The Journey of Hope…From Violence to Healing is led by murder victim family members who oppose the death penalty, joined by the families of prisoners on death row and exonerated death row survivors who share their voices of experience with the aftermath of murder. This will be the sixth time the Journey of Hope will tour Texas since 1998.

“We can be safe from dangerous offenders and hold them accountable without killing them,” said Ami Lyn White, whose pregnant mother was murdered in Alvin in 1986. “I can’t speak for everyone who struggles with the aftermath of murder, but our experience is that having to wait a decade or more for an execution that may never come is not conducive to healing. I have no problem with a sentence of death by incarceration, which is what most killers get these days anyway.”

In addition to Texans, the two week series of public events features speakers with compelling stories from across the United States.

“We feel that our message that the death penalty prevents healing and only creates more victims has helped reduce the desire for executions in Texas,” said Bill Pelke, founder of the Journey of Hope …From Violence to Healing. “The first time we came here in 1998, executions we’re at an all-time high, with nearly 100 each year. Now, the vast majority of killers in Texas get the alternative sentence of life without parole. One thing we know from experience is that when there is no death sentence in your case, the healing process begins a lot sooner.”

“The death penalty is a distraction from the real needs of victim families,” continued Pelke. “Most cases are not eligible for execution, but anyone with a relative who has been murdered wants the right person to be caught and held accountable. We include exonerated death row survivors on our tours because wrongful convictions are a real problem. It hurts victim family members even more when we learn that all this time we were focusing our anger on the wrong person. And to think they might have been killed in our names? That’s unacceptable.”

Pelke supported the death penalty for the girl who killed his grandmother, but then he came to understand the healing power of forgiveness. This experience and that of others on the Journey of Hope tour provide the opportunity for the public to look at crime and punishment from different perspectives, including that of the families of killers.

“I also recognize that those in prison or on death row and those who have been executed have families too,” said White. “Those family members, especially those who were children when their loved one was arrested, experience pain and devastation similar to that which I felt. They, like me, didn’t do anything wrong, but society need not make it worse by making them homicide survivors too.”

Three speakers on the tour have brothers who faced execution, including David Kaczynski who helped the FBI determine his brother Ted Kaczynski was the Unibomber, resulting in his apprehension. The juxtaposition of Kaczynski with Bill Babbitt is exposes issues of racism in the system which remain pervasive. Babbitt realized his brother Manny, a Vietnam veteran with diagnosed mental illnesses including PTSD, had killed a woman. He helped the police apprehend Manny on the promise of treatment. Instead, Manny was executed. The Babbitts are African American. Also on the tour is Randy Gardner, whose brother was the most recent person executed by firing squad in the United States.