January 28, 2010 4:49 PM
MARIA ST.LOUIS-SANCHEZ
THE GAZETTE
The son and ex-wife of a man shot to death last June in Palmer Park are asking for leniency for the 15-year-old girl accused of killing him.
Michelle Hazard Henderson said Thursday the girl should be considered a victim, too, because she was sexually molested for three years by Jon Hazard.
“She isn’t a cold-blooded killer,” Henderson said of the girl. “She was abused pretty bad by him.”
Henderson and the couple’s oldest son sent letters to the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office asking that prosecutors seek counseling for her instead of time behind bars.
“We both came to the conclusion that somehow it was self-defense and she did what she needed to do,” she said. “We forgive her.”
The Gazette, which does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, is withholding the girl’s identity.
Hazard, 43, was found shot to death in his car at a picnic area in Palmer Park on June 1 — just a few days before he was set to stand trial for repeatedly sexually assaulting the 15-year-old. On his home computer, investigators found sexually explicit images of the girl.
The girl was arrested July 13 and her case remains in juvenile court, where she has had several hearings. Prosecutors have held off making a decision on whether to charge her as an adult while she has undergone psychological evaluations. Both sides have said they hope to have a disposition of the case in March. Meanwhile, the girl has been transferred to a residential treatment center in Denver.
Henderson said Hazard had a long-time addiction to child pornography and she divorced him in 2001 when she found out. She has since remarried and moved to Texas with their two sons, now ages 13 and 11. Hazard told her he had gotten treatment and had been cured. Believing him, she let her sons spend time with him in Colorado.
But her suspicions returned when she met the girl about a year before her ex-husband was killed when she accompanied Hazard on a trip to Texas to drop the sons off.
“I’ve had periods where I felt guilty because I could have done something,” she said. “I couldn’t have been the only one who suspected that something was going on. Somebody should have blown the whistle on this. Somebody should have stepped up.”
She said that she and her sons were shocked when they found out what happened to Hazard. She said the boys have been dealing with it, but they’re ashamed of what he was accused of doing. When asked, they tell their friends that their father died in Iraq.
Gazette reporter John Ensslin contributed to this story.
No comments:
Post a Comment