Twenty years have passed since Helen Norton's life was taken from her so cruelly, but the passage of time hasn't diminished the deep affection others had for this charismatic woman.
She is missed greatly because she was one of a kind. She was the consummate volunteer, signing up for every cause. She was the perfect day care founder, because she loved children. She would wipe away their tears and make them laugh.
She was easy to spot. She was 6 feet tall, beautiful, and when she breezed into a room, she filled it immediately with her charming presence and comedic flair. She was a combination of "Funny Girl" and "Auntie Mame," a magnetic force who drew others to her easily.
But more than anything, she was a great mother to her two sons, Tim and Greg, and a devoted wife to her husband of 27 years, Jerry. They had a beautiful marriage on the surface, holding hands in public. But just below the surface loomed a dangerous undercurrent.
On May 6, 1989, Helen Norton was found murdered in the bedroom of her Oakland home, discovered by youngest son, Greg, as he was leaving to take his college SAT exam. He saw his mother on the floor, strangled, with a tie around her neck that belonged to her husband — a tie she had picked out for him because he is color blind.
The crime scene was made to look like there had been a break-in. The front door was ajar and Helen's jewelry drawers were pulled out. And Jerry
Norton was at his Oakland office — he was an auditor for the Carpenter Funds Administration Office of Northern California — when Oakland police arrived at his home early that Saturday morning.
In domestic crime cases, the spouse usually is the prime suspect. And in the Norton case, ultimately the only suspect. In February 1992, Jerry Norton, charged with first-degree murder, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
His sons hoped for 16 years that he was wrongly convicted. Then, in December, the father finally admitted his guilt to Tim. About the same time, his parole was denied and he learned that he would spend at least five more years in a California penitentiary.
The father's confession wasn't made public until Greg, a member of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, spoke to MLB.com writer Mark Bowman for a story that was released May 6 — the 20th anniversary of Helen's death.
"As far as resentment," Greg told MLB.com, "it's not something that I sit back and say, 'I hate my father.' I can't say that I hate my father. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. I think my parents did a good job of raising me to be a good person.
"The resentment has to do with my kids. I'm sure I have some scars in certain situations. But what's hard for me is that my kids (a boy, 4, and a girl, 2) can't experience their (paternal) grandparents. They love my wife's parents. But it would be nice to have it on both sides."
And it's a double tragedy as Greg and Tim, who's also married and the father of a 5-year-old daughter, have lost a mother and a father. And, yet, there's every reason for both parents to be proud about how the two sons have turned out as responsible, caring, solid citizens.
Carbon copies of their mother.
Helen was the ideal maternal influence, while Jerry was anything but a deadbeat dad. A former minor-league outfielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he groomed his two boys into becoming top athletes. After coming home from work, he practiced with them religiously.
Greg starred in baseball and football at Bishop O'Dowd High School before receiving a baseball scholarship to the University of Oklahoma. He's now in his 10th Major League Baseball season as a pinch-hitter and role player with the Braves, his fifth big-league team, although he was placed Thursday on the disabled list.
Tim attended Skyline High School and three colleges — Tennessee, Oregon, and Lewis and Clark — before signing as a free-agent quarterback with the New England Patriots. His stock rose quickly at a Patriots minicamp. Starting quarterback Steve Grogan told him, "You can play in this league." At that camp, Tim received the shocking phone call that his mother was dead. His National Football League dream was dashed at 25. He returned home to mentor Greg and to oversee the two day care centers that since have been consolidated.
Greg was 16 when his mother's life ended at age 49. Jerry's life was over, for all intents and purposes, at 48. But there would be a three-year interval as he awaited trial. During that time, he interacted with his sons and those few friends who hadn't abandoned him, including me and my wife. We stuck by him, helplessly.
Jerry had moved from Oakland to Walnut Creek so he wouldn't be as easily recognizable. I joined him for lunch, not knowing how to play judge and jury, and hoping against hope that another suspect would turn up. When Jerry asked me if I thought he was guilty, I told him I didn't because I couldn't think of anything else to say.
Well, hadn't Jerry and my Oakland Tribune colleague, Harry Harris, coached my two sons in youth baseball for a half-dozen summers? I felt I owed Jerry something. My wife, the kindest person I know, baked him a pie on his birthday after Helen's death. It's not easy trying to play God when no verdict had been rendered.
I showed up for Jerry's trial, then was asked by his attorney to leave because I might be called as a witness. It didn't happen, but in that same Oakland courtroom I spotted the other woman. She worked in the same office as Jerry, and she wasn't his first extramarital affair.
Helen, apparently, didn't know about this last fling or that Jerry had resumed smoking, another addiction, but only at the office. Perhaps it calmed down his bad temper that showed itself in fits of road rage — and again during that fatal evening of May 6, 1989.
Something happened that night. Jerry and Helen were to leave shortly on an anniversary trip. Did the phone ring? Did the other woman call, believing he was taking her? Whatever occurred, it resulted in an explosion, and the release of Jerry's hair-trigger temper. Then after he choked the final breath out of his wife, he concocted a lie.
I was covering a Warriors playoff game in Phoenix when my distraught wife called with the tragic news. She then pleaded with me to come home. I did, and Greg showed up at our doorstep two days after the murder. We told him our house always would be open to him.
But Greg didn't need another shelter as he basically internalized his grief. When he played for the Colorado Rockies, the team's manager, Buddy Bell, a compassionate man, asked me in San Francisco how he could get closer to Greg, who seemed so self-contained.
I then explained the horrific murder details and advised Bell to show Greg a lot of love, even hug him on occasion, because that's what he needed most.
Few big-leaguers have compiled a 10-year career carrying as much emotional pain and remorse as Greg has played through, and carries to this day. He agreed to speak with MLB.com because he's also involved in a cause that helps innocent children who are caught up in violent domestic situations much like his own.
Greg hasn't seen his father in four years, and isn't sure if he'll ever see him again. Tim is taking some time off from prison visits, but plans to reconnect with his father at some future date. However, the subject of grandchildren is a much touchier issue.
It's a long drop from the pedestal Jerry Norton once sat on, placed there by his sons, especially now that the pedestal is broken into tiny pieces, irreparably.
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