A victim's voice

John Larson Correspondent

BRISTOL, WIS. - It could be said that like snowflakes, no two murders are exactly alike.

As heavy snow fell two decades ago in Bristol, Wisconsin, two teenage assassins lived out their fantasy and nearly destroyed a family.

Terry Anderson, sister of a shooting victim: You lay awake at night thinking of ways that you would like to torture them.

At trial, the killer would show himself to be a liar. And yet 21 years later, the victim’s sister would now turn to the killer for the truth.

Terry Anderson can still recall every detail of that January night back in 1985. She and her family had been at the local hospital visiting her grandmother.

Anderson: I could hear all kinds of screaming behind me.

And then she found out why.

Anderson: My brother came up to me, grabbed me and pushed me against the wall, and said that Joe had been shot.

Joe was her 42-year-old brother. At first Terry was thinking that he’d been injured.

Anderson: And he kept saying, "No, no he’s dead." And you know, at that point, time just stopped. 

It was a horrifying crime. Joe Vite was murdered in his own home, shot at close range. The house had been ransacked, money and jewelry were stolen.

Police began a search and five days later two teenage boys—Joe’s foster son Danny and his friend Eric Nelson were arrested in St. Louis and charged with first degree murder.

Both trials ended quickly. Both boys, aged 16, were sentenced to life and locked away.

Case closed? Not exactly. On the other side, Terry and her family began their lives in wake of a murder.

John Larson, Dateline correspondent: You don’t really put something like this behind you, do you?

Anderson: Never. Everything is either before or after. My mother used to tell time by “before Joey died” and “after Joey died.”  No you never get over it.

What really happens when there’s a brutal crime? On television there’s an investigation, an arrest and a verdict. But in real life, when the gavel drops a more painful story often begins. Family members are sentenced to a lifetime of aftershocks and unimaginable loss.

Anderson: There wasn’t one person ever that ever had anything negative to say about him.

Joe Vite was the first born in a large Italian family. Terry, the only girl, was the third of six children. Among their many traditions was sunday meals together even after they were grown.  If Joe made an appearance, it made all the difference.

Anderson: My mother thought it was a national holiday.  She’d call and say, “Joe is here, come over.” And you know it was like “the Pope is here.”  We’ve gotta go see him.  That’s how special a visit to her was from him.

A beloved brother, uncle, cousin and husband, over the years Joe and his wife were foster parents to 12 children.

Anderson: I think he was probably the ideal father.  He did lots of things with these kids.  I mean if one grows up to be a physician, you have some pretty good parenting there. 

The murder happened three weeks after Christmas. The joy of holiday was lost forever.

Anderson: My parents never put up a Christmas tree after that.

Larson: Ever?

Anderson: Ever.

In fact her parents’ grief knew no bounds.

Anderson: Up until either one of my parents got sick, they went to the cemetery every single day, every day without fail.

Larson: And this is for how many years?

Anderson: Probably at least 10 or 15. 

And perhaps powerful evidence of how grief lives on was the last family photo ever taken—at Christmas 1984. Joe was in it. Since then, Terry has not allowed the family to take another one. Looking at it would cause too much pain.

Anderson: It’s like putting a puzzle together with a piece that’s missing.  It’s never whole again. You can see what the picture is or what it might be.  But it’s never complete.

It’s a truth about crime often unknown to all but the victims themselves.  Even a trial can inflict more pain, like when Eric Nelson, who fired the fatal shot, swaggered into court.

Anderson: He got up and was kind of walking and said to the judge and “Yo, man.”

17 years would pass before Terry would see Nelson again, at a parole hearing. The passage of time had changed him.

Anderson: I knew that was a face that I would, at that time, hate for the rest of eternity.  And then he looked so completely different.  It was a shock.

Her brother’s killer was noticeably older, and sounded more mature.

Larson: Did anything he said really change your idea of who he was?

Anderson: No. I don’t think a leopard changes his spots. 

Among the things he spoke of at the hearing was his new faith in Christianity. Terry didn’t buy it.

Anderson: I mean everybody that’s looking for Jesus Christ should go to the prison because he’s there.  Why keep looking?  Eric found him, let him show you.

They never spoke to each other, but after the parole hearing Terry learned of a program that could potentially provide her with answers to some troubling questions about the crime and ease her grief. It’s called Restorative Justice.

Janine Geske, Restorative Justice: Restorative Justice puts the harm that caused by a criminal act in the middle of attention, and the idea of restoration justice is to work towards healing that harm.

Janine Geske is a former Wisconsin supreme court judge who now teaches restorative justice at Marquette University law school. 

She also puts it to work by bringing together victims or survivors of violent crime with the offenders for a face to face conversation  controlled by the victim.

Larson: And with knowledge, you found that some healing begins?

Geske: That’s part of it. A lot of victims come to a place where things change after the meeting.  They see life differently. They interact with family differently. And they kind of move on.  It’s not closure—but it’s a moving on into a place that they are more at peace.

So at Terry’s request, Janine has set up a meeting between Terry and the man who killed her brother.

Larson: Why go through that painful journey?

Anderson: For a couple of reasons. Mr. Nelson has had so much power over us for 21 years.  Now there’s a little bit of shift in the power.

Larson: Power how?  I mean—he’s locked up.  Ya know he can’t move.  How does he have power?

Anderson: He killed my brother.

MORE FROM DATELINE

Dateline Section Front

The Secret Life of Michael Jackson Behind The Badge The Mystery At Empire Lake The anatomy of an intelligence failure Vegas Undercover, Part 2 Bring Sean Home: The Untold Story   Slideshow: A reunion five years in the making The Trouble At Twin Wrecks Read diving logs Shelley Tyre wrote The Secret Life of Tiger Woods Dateline Section Front   Add Dateline headlines to your news reader: