LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Don't make excuses for committing crimes

By: Dear Editor: | SCNow
Published: June 20, 2008

I sat and cried after reading the story in the Morning News (S.C. man gets three years in prison for punching death).

Mrs. Kennedy, my heart goes out to you.

My family also was the victim of a senseless act of violence that took the life of our 25-year-old son and my 20-year-old only brother. In the early morning of June 25, 2003, our son, Michael Patrick Rudy, was brutally murdered by an 18-year-old punk who just was going to rob the store where our son worked. He walked in with a 21-year-old female, pulled the gun and shot Michael without a word or any indication that there was going to be a robbery.

His attackers got life without parole and five years. The female got 20 years, 10 years to serve and 10 years intense probation for the armed robbery.

I explain all this because I cannot believe his defense attorney would have made the kind of stupid remarks that Mr. Beasley did. Those remarks are hurtful and ignorant. I am sure he was well paid for his time. Mr. Beasley, Stephen Andrew Moller will get to go home in three years, and he will have learned that there are things that happen to people who break the law. So both people were drinking? So that’s an xcuse now? How about for DUI drivers, that would work too.

But judge “he was just having a drink when he killed that family of four coming home from the beach.” Unfortunately, in today’s society, we don’t have to take responsibility for our actions.

We just blame other people. I am sure if Mr. Sean Kennedy were not there, Moller would have attacked some one else, maybe raped some one and just blamed it on the alcohol.

Shame on you, sir. Let the kid do his punishment. Let him learn that there are consequences for your actions.

How would Mr. Moller feel if it was his kid, 17 years from now? When three years pass, Mr. Moller goes home; Mr. Sean Kennedy never will.

Mark S. Alexander
Florence