Marcella was a big part of my personal survival and growth; she mentored, nurtured and loved me and took me under her protective wing. She helped my organization take root. There aren’t that many women with her kind of stamina, courage or iron-willed determination to see things through to completion. I hope to do half of what she’s done in her lifetime.

I was deeply saddened when several days ago, I saw her in a hospital bed, with her eyes shut, and hooked up to all kinds of tubes and IVs. She couldn’t speak, but I did feel the pressure in her grip as we held hands. I know she felt my presence.

Marcella is a true pioneer in the victim’s rights movement and she paved the way for so many other groups that followed. She co-founded Justice for Homicide Victims (JHV) with Ellen Griffin Dunne in 1984 – both lost their daughters to homicide.

She helped ease the pain and suffering of literally thousands of people over the past 30 years. It’s been said, no one in their right mind would ever seek membership in a group like JHV, but once you were part of their tight-knit group, you forged a special bond with others who had walked in the same shoes.

Marcella introduced me to JHV around 2004 and our two groups partnered on several events and I made the annual pilgrimages to the March on the Capitol in Sacramento. In the process, we became good friends.

She was always very honest with me and could be as direct as a freight train. I’ll never forget, I decided to go brunette for a change and had gone to see her right after the hairdresser and wanted to know what she thought. She didn’t mince words, “You get right back in your car, right now, and you go back to the hairdresser and tell them to change you back to a blonde the way you were before.”

I think a lot of people would be surprised to find out that JHV was neither a support group nor a grief counseling group per se. Their main focus was to change California’s totally lop-sided criminal justice code that all too often favored the criminal with 33 different rights while the family of the victim, in many cases, was treated with naked contempt.

In time, a lot would change.

My friend Marcella may be a slender, blue-eyed blonde, but make no mistake about it, behind her sparkling blue eyes was a woman with a steely resolve who was ready to go whatever distance.

She was stunned – and outraged – to literally bump into the man who murdered her daughter, at a local supermarket. Unbeknownst to her, he had been released on bail . . . and taunted her on the way out. That was then.

Today, Marsy’s Law, the law that bears her daughter’s name, is one of the strongest and most comprehensive constitutional victim’s rights laws in the U.S. Among its statutes; mandatory bail and parole notification to the victim’s family.

She taught herself to play piano and she was pretty good at it. On occasion she would play for all of us in a hotel lounge. I spoke about her stamina – I think we were in Vegas and It had been a very long day and I saw her sitting at a blackjack table at 3:00 a.m. and I said, “Marcella, are you almost through.” and she said, “I’ll be a couple more hours. You go on to the room.” I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Marcella had a real flair for telling stories and as she told them she would get a twinkle in her eyes. Sometimes she swore like a sailor 12 miles out at sea. I don’t like profanity so I told her I would charge 25¢ for each swear word she used. It worked for a while, but other times she would take a $5 dollar bill out of her purse and say, “Here, this is in advance.” I needed ear muffs.

You got to love her. I sure as hell do! (I owe you a quarter, my dear friend.)

PW (Patricia Wenskunas)

Please keep her and her family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.