Mom Turns Own Tragedy Into Career Of Advocacy

Lisa Spicknall, a domestic violence advocate for the Prince George's County Sherrif's Office, helps domestic violence victims through the court process. (By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post)

For Spicknall, the unspeakable sorrow arrived suddenly and the sense of purpose, gradually.

On the morning of Sept. 9, 1999, Maryland State Police troopers found Richie dead inside the Jeep that Richard Spicknall had driven to the bridge over the Choptank River. Though nine hours had passed since Spicknall shot the children, Destiny was struggling to breathe, troopers said.

Destiny died the next day in the hospital.

Richard Spicknall initially claimed a carjacker had attacked him and the children. He then admitted to the shooting and mounted an insanity defense.

In the taped interview that caused Lisa Spicknall to run from the courtroom, he said he was so devastated by the breakup of his family that he decided to commit suicide but shot his children first because he thought, "There's no way I'm leaving my children." Later in the interview, he said he killed them because he didn't want to see them grow up in a new family. At the end of the 40-minute interview, he said there was no plan and he "didn't do this to hurt my children."

In November 2000, in the middle of his trial, Spicknall pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

Lisa Spicknall said Richard was emotionally abusive to her from the time she met him, when she was a 16-year-old high school cheerleader and he was 19. They were married for four years, living in the Howard County section of Laurel, before she filed for divorce in December 1998. During the marriage, Richard often told her she was worthless, and he beat her numerous times, Spicknall said in an interview.

About two months after the murders, Lisa Spicknall began attending a support group for relatives of people killed by drunk drivers or murdered.

She attended the weekly meeting for about three years. "There were people who could sit there and say, 'I know how you feel,' and they really did," Spicknall said. "They'd lost children, spouses, brothers, sisters. If you were having a bad day, you could call up someone and say so. It gave you that feeling of understanding, that you weren't the only one. We were a family."

About a year after the killings, Spicknall began working with a nonprofit crime victims' group based in Upper Marlboro. She worked there for 2 1/2 years.

In the meantime, Spicknall began delivering speeches -- to civic groups, religious leaders, college students, law enforcement officers, judges -- about her experience.

Prince George's Sheriff Michael A. Jackson saw Spicknall speak at a forum for survivors of domestic violence in October at Prince George's Community College in Largo.