Letter to the Editor

Mother responds on behalf of convicted son

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

To the Editor:

I would like to respond to the letter in the June 9 paper from Christi Moore.

Enough is enough, and I don't appreciate you belittling my pain. I have expressed our apologies for what has happened to your family and yet you still won't stop. 

How dare you say I have not lost my son! I can't hug him, see him or talk to him when I need to! From the research I have done about the different prisons in Indiana, I probably will never get to again! If you visit, you are talking on a phone through a glass and you only get a half hour to an hour. That's a relationship? I can't talk to him without paying $17 for each collect call, and that is the way it will be until I die. It is just like a death, the beloved person is gone from you and you grieve like a death! (IF) he gets out in 35 years most likely I will be dead and so will the majority of all of his family!

His children will not know him! Or ever understand what has happened! Imagine for one second a child of yours doing this and how you would have to deal with it. I have cried so many tears for the past 10 months, just like all of you, and I would like to know the real story about what happened when Shawn first met the Moore (those) boys and the fourth unknown boy that he supposedly pulled a gun on back in July '06 that led to all of this in the first place. What did those boys do to make Shawn feel that he needed to protect himself to the extent of pulling a gun? That circumstance is what led the boys to call Shawn, trick him into coming to their home and beat the pulp out of him. (Look at Shawn's face in the very first picture of him in this newspaper back on Aug. 13, 2006, right after his arrest.) He was obviously beaten and had marks to prove it.

There should of been and still should be charges brought against all who beat him. Battery charges! Step back and imagine getting beaten by numerous people at once, lying on the floor and getting punched and kicked over and over again, what does that do to anyone's emotional state.

All five of these boys must live the rest of their lives knowing that they all had a part in this horrific tragedy and have ruined so many lives including their own families. Shawn realizes what he has done and has expressed remorse many times! He has nightmares about Jana and what he has done. He has a conscience, and he did show remorse in court that day! I am his mother and I heard it in his voice! 

I also want it known that our family was told to be at the courthouse at 10 a.m. on the day of the hearing. Our subpoenas all read 10 a.m.. I arrived at 9 a.m. and had begun with no seating room. We were obviously lied to and for reasons only the prosecutor, judge and lawyer know as to why.

As of this week Shawn is on his way to a prison, we don't even know which one or where it will be located. When someone is incarcerated, it costs the family literally! Everyone who has feelings for Jana and everyone who has feelings for Shawn have been affected to the extreme, the verdict has been handed down and it is now time for all of us to accept it and try to keep on living with what we have now, and what bothers me most of all is one day my two grandsons (one a 2 year old and one 2 months old) will have to deal with the truth and may read some of these articles. 

Tracey Jaffri

Indianapolis