The Cost of Rehabilitation

The Denver Post report on April 7th is a sad story and is exemplary of the underlying problem with the institutional programs in this country.


I am going to be very delicate about this because I know it involved someone elses life, Anna Villalobos, who I am saddened for.


The perpetrators name has not yet been released but it's ok because I know who it is. It's a name that has troubled me for most of my life. The man who killed his girlfriend in Wheatridge on Thursday, then turning to shoot himself when discovered, I witnessed shoot another person over 20 years ago with my own eyes; my mother.

The situation litters my stomach with deep emotions that only someone who has experienced something similiar could empathize with. Deep rooted hate, anger, love, and other emotions batter my brain in waves as I ponder over the death of a person I have loathed vigoursly throughout my life.


The attempted murder that he committed in 1987 in Lakewood Colorado with a .357 pistol at point black range was not enough to put him away forever and the family of Villalobos nows has to endure the same wave of emotions I am reliving now.


Not only we're there drugs involved in the original attempted murder but the man ran from police for a week before he was caught. In prison he went to school, it appears he worked hard and with the help of a certian former Colorado State Senator he fought for his parole and they gave it to him.

Unfortunately the State didn't act responsibly in accordance with his parole terms and notify the first person he tried to murder. Having to see him walking across a crosswalk in mid-day must have been horrifying to my mother on her drive home from work and i could see the stress on her face as she told me the occurance.


The simple fact of the matter is, the State failed on all accounts. They failed in the first case to give him life without the possibility of parole. They failed by paroling him and not notifying the families he helped to destroy. They failed Villalobos because now her death and her families mourning is all due to the ineptitude of the legal system.


I remember walking up to my house, unlocking the door and being presented with a loaded gun that unloaded in my mother and a failed attempt that went above my sisters head before he fled the scene. And I have witnessed and lived the aftermath of what a person seeking destruction can create in others lives.


It's unfortunate that Villalobos family and imparticular children have to go through for the next few years and my deepest sympathies go out to them.


At least he took his own life so the possibility of parole will never be presented to a jury again.