By Ruben Castaneda
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 5, 2006; B01

Inside her tiny office in the Upper Marlboro courthouse, Lisa Spicknall is poised, solicitous and knowledgeable as she counsels victims of domestic violence who are anxiously wading into the Prince George's County legal system.

A domestic violence victim's advocate for the Office of the Sheriff, Spicknall also is unflinchingly direct: She tells clients that a protective order isn't a guarantee of safety.

Spicknall knows.

In September 1999, her then-husband, Richard W. Spicknall II, picked up their two children, Richie, 2, and Destiny, 3, from the Anne Arundel County home of Lisa's parents. Spicknall had said he was taking the kids to Ocean City. He fatally shot the children not far from a bridge over the Choptank River on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Lisa Spicknall had a protective order against Richard. The order should have prevented him from buying a gun, but a clerical error allowed him to buy the handgun used in the shootings from a pawnshop in Prince George's.

During Richard Spicknall's trial, Lisa collapsed into sobs and ran screaming from the courtroom when prosecutors played an audiotape of him explaining to police why he shot Richie and Destiny.

Now, Lisa Spicknall, 31, confidently accompanies domestic abuse victims to court to provide emotional backup. She calmly fields late-night phone calls from victims panicked over whether they should leave an abusive partner. She delivers direct, heart-rending speeches about her own experience, presentations that bring many who hear her -- including some state judges -- to tears.

"It's very empowering work," Spicknall said in an interview. "There's bad days. There's bad cases that bring you back to where you were. I look at this as turning negative energy into positive energy."

Duchy Trachtenberg, president of Maryland's National Organization for Women chapter, has seen Spicknall speak several times, though she doesn't know her personally.

Of Spicknall, Trachtenberg said: "The most effective activism is often born out of personal experience. I think she's a good example of that."

"Those kids were her life. To lose them in that shocking way is more than most parents would be able to absorb," said Carole Alexander, executive director of House of Ruth Maryland, a domestic violence center that provides shelter, advocacy and other services for battered women.

"She clearly took the grief and turned it toward a higher purpose," Alexander said.

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.

"She told her story, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house," Jackson said. "She is a very, very, very strong woman."

Shortly after the forum, Jackson met with Norma J. Harley, the civilian manager of his office's domestic violence and community services unit. Harley had obtained a grant from the state, that would allow the department to hire three domestic violence advocates.

Harley knew that Spicknall had worked with crime victims. When Harley asked Jackson what he thought about hiring Spicknall, "I jumped at it," the sheriff said.

Spicknall and the other domestic violence advocates began working for the sheriff in March.

One recent morning, a middle-aged man ducked his head into Spicknall's office. He said his girlfriend was continuing to harass him and asked whether a protective order had to be served by police. Spicknall explained that such orders have to be served by police or sheriff's deputies. The man thanked her and left. (Spicknall's supervisor declined to allow a reporter to observe her interacting with clients.)

She quickly is becoming a familiar figure in the Upper Marlboro courthouse. Spicknall is friendly and approachable and flashes her high-wattage smile generously.

She is reclaiming her life. She has a boyfriend who works in Baltimore, and they have two boys, Zachary, 3, and Liam, 1.

Spicknall displays photos of the boys on her desk. Two of the photos are tucked into a larger photo of Destiny and Richie, together, smiling.

"I do this work for Zachary and Liam," she said. "And Destiny and Richie."