Neighbors tie ribbons near journalist’s ND home
ByDAVEKOLPACK
Associated Press Writer
Neighbors and friends in the home
town of an American journalist im
prisoned in Iran came together last
month to fill sandbags to fight off the
rising Red River. Now they’re join
ing to tie yellow ribbons around the
trees near Roxana Saberi’s home and
urge her release from prison.
“We needed to show some signs
of support,” said Kevin Melicher, a
neighbor of Saberi’s parents, Reza
and Akiko Saberi, in the quiet up
scale neighborhood along the Red
River.
Roxana Saberi, who grew up in Far
go, was convicted of espionage in
NY family’s murder-suicide
By BILL BERGSTROM
Associated Press Writer
They seemed like an ideal
Long Island family: William
Parente was a lawyer, his wife
Betty a stay-at-home mom ac
tive in the community. Their
daughters were well-liked by
teachers and classmates.
Friends and neighbors said
they never suspected anything
was amiss and were dumb
founded to learn the Parentes
had died Monday in an appar
ent murder-suicide in a subur
ban Baltimore hotel room.
Experts say that’s typical of
family killings. Several simi
lar high-profile cases in recent
months have been tied to fami
lies’ economic woes, though
there’s no indication that was
the case with the Parentes.
They lived in a neighbor
hood of million-dollar homes
in Garden City, N.Y., next to a
golf course. William, 59, was
a tax and estate planning at
torney who commuted to his
Manhattan office. Betty, 58,
volunteered.
They were in Maryland to
visit older daughter Stephanie,
19, a sophomore at Loyola
College in Baltimore. With
them was her sister, Catherine,
11, a sixth-grader at Garden
City Middle School.
“I can’t tell you how heart
sick I am,” next-door neighbor
Mary Opulente Krener said
“This is the most wonderful
family, the most kind and lov-
Iran last week after a one-day trial be
hind closed doors and was sentenced
to eight years in prison. Friends and
colleagues maintain she’s a political
pawn and not a spy.
On Tuesday, neighbors tied yellow
ribbons around the trees and then
added lace bows and a white ribbon
with “Roxana” on it They placed
more than 100 ribbons, mostly on
ash trees and some on cherry trees.
Arrick Olson was among the first
to tie ribbons, along with his 5-year
old daughter, Evie. Olson said his
daughter asked to help.
“She did. When she found out there
were ribbons involved, it was hard to
deny her,” Olson said.
ing family. I’m astounded.”
The Parentes ate breakfast to
gether Sunday morning and an
employee of the Sheraton Bal
timore North Hotel in Towson
saw them together Sunday af
ternoon.
On Monday, after they failed
to check out of their room on
time, a housekeeper found
their bodies.
Baltimore County police said
they were investigating the
deaths as a murder-suicide,
but did not indicate who was
the killer. They declined to re
lease the results of autopsies
conducted Tuesday.
Cpl. Michael Hill, a police
spokesman, said only that
the Parentes were not shot or
stabbed.
A few hundred students and
other mourners packed the
chapel at Loyola for a memo
rial Mass on Tuesday night,
some standing, some sitting
on the altar or the floor. Two
of Stephanie Parente’s room
mates read Scripture, and three
other roommates offered tear
ful prayers on her behalf. They
were introduced only by their
first names and it was unclear
who was speaking when.
“You brightened our lives, and
we’ll never foiget you,” one
roommate said.
Maryland was already reeling
from a similar tragedy when
word of the Parentes’ deaths
began to spread. Sometime
late Thursday night or Friday
Jean Melicher, Kevin’s wife, said
she bought out most Fargo stores of
yellow ribbons. When a neighbor
asked where she could get more,
Jean Melicher said, “Good luck with
that”
“They’re all gone in the city,” she
said.
Neighbors had hoped to decorate
the Saberi house with a large yellow
and white wreath, but they ran out of
material.
Jane Voglewede said the ribbon-ty
ing was timely because Roxana Sa
beri turns 32 on Sunday.
“Even if it’s symbolic, this is some
thing,” Voglewede said. ‘To me, this
is one of die efforts to keep it alive.”
deaths baffle
morning, a father in a small
northwest Maryland town fa
tally shot his wife and their
three young children, police
said.
The father, Christopher A.
Wood, 34, then shot himself.
Police revealed Tuesday that
the family was having extreme
financial problems.
An analysis by the Violence
Policy Center in Washington,
D.C., found an average of nine
or 10 murder-suicides a week
But familicides in which
both parents and all their chil
dren are killed generally
happen only happen two or
three times every six months,
said Kristen Rand, legislative
director for the center, a non
profit gun-control advocacy
group.
“They were so rare that we
didn’t really bother to count
them as a separate category,”
Rand said. But in the last few
months, she said, “there’s a
clear rash” of such killings.
They can be tied to the na
tion’s economic woes, said
Richard Gelles, dean of the
School of Social Policy and
Practice at the University of
Pennsylvania
He describes familicides as
“canaries in a mineshaft”
sensational cases that herald
an uptick in more common
forms of domestic violence.
“You can only speculate over
whether the economy is go
ing to affect the broad swath
The neighbors’names were on a list
put together last month, when Fargo
fought off a record Red River flood.
Residents of Saberi’s neighborhood
had piled sandbags about 3 feet high
in their backyards.
Kevin Melicher said he greeted
Reza Saberi during the sandbagging
effort and told him “we were think
ing of them.
“He thanked me and said they were
leaving for Iran,” Melicher said.
Reza Saberi, who was bom in Iran,
told The Associated Press that he and
his wife visited his daughter Monday
in Evin prison north of Tehran and
that she was in good condition.
Iran’s judiciary spokesman said
friends
of abuse of children and abuse
of women,” he said. “But the
warning sign is when these fa
milicide cases begin to cluster.
In the past few months, they
have begun to pop off across
the country.”
Familicides have also oc
curred this year in Los An
geles and Santa Clara, Calif.,
and in Belle Valley, Ohio. The
slayings are usually commit
ted by men, usually because
of shame over financial prob
lems, and people close to the
families never see it coming,
Gelles said.
While details of the Parente
case remained sketchy, the re
actions of those who knew the
family fit the pattern.
The Parentes were “the most
wonderful, beautiful, adorable
people. This is impossible,
impossible,” said a sobbing
Lucille Messina, who worked
with Betty Parente on the
board of the Tri Town Auxilia
ry of United Cerebral Palsy of
Nassau. “I can’t believe this,
she’s the sweetest lady you’d
ever want to meet. You’d fall
in love with her instantly.”
The Rev. Brian F. Linnane,
president of Loyola College,
did not know Stephanie Par
ente well but had met her
parents twice at an annual par
ents’ gathering on Long Island.
“They were very memorable
to me for how lovely they were.
What a wonderful couple,”
Tuesday that Roxana Saberi’s prison
term may be reconsidered on appeal,
an indication her sentence will be
commuted.
On Monday, the judiciary chief
ordered a full investigation into the
case, a day after President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad urged Tehran’s chief
prosecutor to ensure Saberi be al
lowed a full defense during her ap
peal.
Saberi moved to Iran six years ago
and worked as a freelance journal
ist for news organizations including
National Public Radio and the Brit
ish Broadcasting Corp. She received
Iranian citizenship because her father
was bom in Iran.
Linnane said. “I’m stunned,
because they were just very
gracious and obviously devot
ed to their children.”
Kremer, the Parentes’ next
door neighbor and a clinical
social worker, said she saw
nothing to indicate the family
was having financial or psy
chological problems. She did
note that William’s parents
and Betty’s mother had died
somewhat recently.
Counselors were made avail
able to students there and at
Garden City Middle School.
The younger daughter, Cath
erine, “was a wonderful, tal
ented and sweet child who
was treasured by teachers and
staff members,” according to
a statement from the school
system.
Stephanie was a former mem
ber of the women’s crew team
at Loyola and a coxswain
for the men’s team. She vol
unteered with Habitat for
Humanity and at a Catholic
school in Baltimore, and had
been accepted to study abroad
next year in Newcastle, Eng
land.
Such events are baffling even
to theologians, Linnane said.
“It’s very important for the
students to realize that all of us
are struggling with this mys
tery of evil,” he said. “We’re
trying to find a way to move
forward and bring some mean
ing to something that seems so
meaningless.”