After a Child’s Murder: What Parents Need to Know About Guilt, Grief, and Survival

When working with families and friends of people who have been murdered I find that the operative verb is never died but was killed . . . Being killed is seen as different from dying; it's unnatural, a form of theft, an act of taking something from you and your loved ones. What is taken is a person's life and all of its promise for future joy and happiness, companionship, and accomplishment. It is the most precious commodity one can steal and the greatest loss one can suffer.  ~ Helen Fitzgerald

A reader writes: I’m writing this letter in hopes of finding some peace. It will be three years next month that my son was murdered. He was only 18.

Surviving A Child's Homicide

A reader writes: I’m writing this letter in hopes of finding some peace. It will be three years next month that my son was murdered. He was only 18. His mother and I were divorced when he was very young. At that time it was heart- breaking, knowing I would only see my son every other weekend. The years went by ever so quickly. Then he reached the tender teenage years and it seemed I lost control. My son was changing for the worst and there was nothing I could do to stop it. His mother and I had lost communication years prior. Those were years of lies and holding back vital information of my son’s dealings. Making a long story short, my son was dealing marijuana. When his life was taken, my life as I once knew it ceased to exist. Read on here >>>

Traumatic Loss: Needing to Know the Details

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[Reviewed and updated July 7, 2025]

A reader writes: Ten days ago, I was notified that my 16-year-old son had been killed. He was crushed under a freight train when he tried to follow two other boys who had jumped from a platform into an open carriage as the train passed the station. He was such a good kid—someone you’d like the first time you met him. Like the newspaper report said, this was his first real mistake, and he paid for it with his life. Now I’m going through a rollercoaster . . . No one will tell me how he actually died—what actually killed him—so I am visualizing all these things. The police told me he died at 12:35 AM, but his phone rang my daughter’s phone at 2:36 AM. They didn’t find him for 3 hours. There are pieces missing. I’m worried he was still alive—but it’s like a wall of silence. I got a letter from the coroner yesterday stating the inquest will be in 10 weeks. I know this sounds macabre, but I need to know before then. I can’t sleep—I haven’t slept since Monday. I can’t eat. I feel sick. I’m not sure where to go from here.