Miriam Fife, Sandy Hook mom give message to parents at crime victims lunch

BOARDMAN

Victims of crime, personified by Miriam Fife and representatives of the Sandy Hook Promise, were honored guests at Help Hotline Crisis Center’s 2015 Victims of Crime luncheon.

Fife, whose son, Raymond, 12, was tortured and raped in southwest Warren in 1985, turned her grief and ability to identify with other victims of crime to become the first volunteer victim-witness advocate with the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office.

Later, when grant money became available, she became a paid employee charged with the same task.

During her 29 years in the position before her recent retirement, Fife also was a force that helped change Ohio’s law to make it possible for victims of offenses committed by juveniles to speak at the offender’s trial and sentencing.

Other law changes followed that gave the public better access to information about juvenile offenses.

After the event, Fife, a 1958 graduate of Warren G. Harding High School in Warren, said being raised in a strong family and her faith in God enabled her to not only endure the pain of her son’s death, but face it and life head-on and try to make a difference.

She urged parents and grandparents to “get their heads out of the sand.”

Fife said she was so impressed with the Sandy Hook Promise, an organization working to protect children from gun violence in the aftermath of the shooting deaths of 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012, that she signed up to help.

A video was shown of Nicole Hockley, whose autistic son, Dylan, 6, was one of those killed at Sandy Hook, who described her feelings and determination to fight gun violence.

Read what she said and more about the event in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.