Vigil Remembers Victims Of Crime Ninth Annual Candlelight Event Includes Reading Of Victim’s Names

Thirty people huddled together during a windy vigil Thursday night, struggling to keep their candles lit as they remembered victims of violent crime.

Two women read the names of crime victims while Julie Shiflett, herself a rape victim, strummed a guitar outside the Public Safety Building.

One of the readers, Jewel Zeihen, said she began attending the annual vigil after her son, Peter Zeihen, was fatally shot outside his Valley apartment complex on Nov. 18, 1991. No one has been arrested in his death.

“This kind of group is one you don’t want to belong to,” she said before the vigil began.

The Violent Crime Victims Support Group has put on the event since 1987.

Connie Love, the group’s founder, said the vigil is a memorial for the dead and also for survivors of violent crime.

She began the support group after her 20-year-old daughter, Carrie Love, was killed in Oregon by a man who was later convicted of the murder.

During the vigil, the group prayed, listened to Shiflett sing and Love read a poem, then lighted candles.

A bouquet of nine white roses - one for each year of the vigil - sat at the bottom of a small memorial for victims.

The group began the vigil by reciting the pledge of allegiance to a flag at half-staff because of the deadly bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City last week.

Love praised President Clinton’s strong words about swift justice against those who are responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing.

But she said justice rarely seems swift while waiting for a trial to begin and end.

“Those of us who have been in the justice system know that it’s not swift,” she said.

Sheriff John Goldman noted the timeliness of the vigil, considering the bombing last week and the 50th anniversary this spring of the liberation of Nazi death camps in Europe.

“We must never, never forget the victims of violent crime and we must never fail to feel outraged,” he said.