Dear Elsa--Letter 2

Dear Elsa Newman,

I am writing you this series of letters--pretty short series so far, but it will get better as I have more time to put into it--so I can let you in on how I feel about the horrors of your unjust incarceration and your separation from you children.

On the other hand, how on earth do I express in words my dismay over your situation, your agony, the situation of your children and their agony?

I have always prided myself on being an English teacher, and a teacher of English should somehow be able to find words for everything, should she not?

The bottom line is this: I HAVE NO WORDS.

I have no words to express my compassion for you and your children.

I have no words to use for the agony in the deep places of my heart and soul and spirit over the horrifying injustice that has been done to you.

What words will do enough to express the fear your situation arouses in me? If such a thing could happen to you, then it could happen to me...or to my children...or to my grandchildren. And that should be enough to rouse fear in the entire country.

That should be enough to rouse fear in the entire country! Why? Because it not only COULD be happening to others, it IS happening to others.

Other mothers are jailed or imprisoned--just as you have been--for trying to protect their children.

My dear God, will this ever end for Elsa Newman? Elsa Newman, will this ever end for you? Will the horrors your children have experienced ever become something they can admit? Will we have to wait until Herbie and Lars are fifty years old before they have the courage to say, "Yes...our mother told the truth. We were molested. Doctors saw the evidence. We told our mother. She tried to help us. And she ended up in prison."

I hope someone who knows you will see this and pass this message along to you. I am with you all the way. After nearly two years of researching your case, I have found NOTHING to connect you to the crime of Margery Landry. I can only conclude that you are innocent and that Landry acted on her own.

• Why else would she have waited until you were out of the state to do her breaking-and-entering routine?
• I don't know you well, and yet I know you would never have allowed anyone to take a gun into the house where your children were staying.
• I know you were trusting the American "justice" system to deal fairly with you and your children. I know that in your case, the so-called "justice" system became a system of injustice and you went to prison for someone else's crime.
• I know you had told Margery Landry to keep away from Arlen Slobodow.
• I know that Landry--apparently with full knowledge of what she was doing--defied your instructions and entered Slobodow's house early in the wee, dark hours of a January morning.
• I know that Landry shot Arlen Slobodow by accident, while she struggled with him over the gun she was carrying.
• I know that Margery Landry pled guilty to all the things the prosecutors said she was guilty of.
• I know she refused to plead guilty either to conspiracy or to attempted murder, saying none of these had happened.
• I know you were charged with and prosecuted for, not only the things Margery Landry had pleaded guilty to--but also the two things she said never happened: conspiracy and attempted murder. How could the county possibly null pross the charges for the person who committed the crime--and yet hold them against someone who was out of state and unaware of what was going on?
• I know that in her testimony in court, she stated under oath that there had been neither conspiracy nor murder attempt.
• I know that, long ago, when I read the story of your case in a newspsper that had actually taken a stand AGAINST you, I thought, "Well...that's stupid! If a woman like that wanted the man dead, he would be dead!"
• I know that at sentencing, you refused to apologize for any part of Landry's crime. You were offered a reduction in sentence if you would apologize. And yet you refused. You had done nothing wrong. You would not apologize for what you had not done! Such integrity it must have taken to withhold an apology when you may have been the only person in the court who believed you were innocent. Such integrity, to take on a longer sentence in that horrible prison rather than lie and apologize.
• I know I respect you for that. I wonder sometimes if you have ever regretted the integrity that demanded such honesty.
• I know that at least one of your sons has apparently turned against you. I know this because your older son writes to me occasionally--vile, threatening, childish, obscene and accusing emails--that get him nowhere. I refuse to listen to someone--even a child such as he is--who approaches me thus.
• I know that for some reason, you are not allowed to talk to your younger son any longer. Could it be that he has inherited the integrity of his mother...and his father dares not let him talk to you?
• I know I have said enough for now. My heart, my spirit, my soul, my spirituality and my way of being in this world have all been touched by your story.

I do hope someone who knows you will pass this on.

Sincerely,

Aine O'Brocken

March 31, 2009

March 31, 2009

Dear Elsa,

How sad…no, how tragic for a Jewish mother to be unjustly imprisoned and thus to miss your son’s bar mitzvah yesterday! I am sure that your beloved younger son, Lars, would have done you proud had you not been innocent and in prison. Not only that, but I understand it is the second bar mitzvah you really had the right to attend, because of your innocence—but that in both cases the courts, prosecutors, and government of Maryland denied you that both that right and the privilege that would have meant so much to you.

I’m wondering if there is any comparison in other faiths. A Catholic mother unjustly imprisoned and unable to attend her children’s first communions or confirmations? A Conservative Evangelical Protestant mother forcibly absent, by virtue of false imprisonment, on the day her child walks down the aisle to “accept Jesus as Savior”? A Methodist mother who had her baby while falsely imprisoned and thus had to miss the child’s christening?

Or what about the secular world? What about an unjustly imprisoned mother who thus had to miss her children’s high school or college graduations? What about missing a first recital? Did you ever get to see and hear Herbie in a violin recital?

I don’t know that there is anything—either in other faiths or in the secular world that quite compares. My heart goes out to you.

Truthfully, my heart would go out to you, even if you were guilty of the crimes of which you are accused. But you and I and an assortment of other people are well aware of your innocence.

Among them? The prosecutors. An assortment of witnesses who lied. The State’s Attorney, now Attorney General of the State of Maryland. The judge who heard your case. Maryland’s highest court which declared that the first trial had been improperly conducted and stated clearly in their majority opinion that there was nothing to connect you to any crime. Your ex-husband, who set up the case for the prosecution by informing the 911 operator that his wife had sent someone to kill him [Sheesh, Elsa! Even if that were true, there is no way Arlen Slobodow could have known it! Why didn't somebody wise catch that slip-up on his part?]

And of course, there are always those among us—Friends of Elsa Newman and Sons--who know in the deep places of our spirits that you are not guilty, although we have only joined this battle after you were already unjustly imprisoned and have learned of your innocence and unjust imprisonment by months of research and study.

Finally, there are the over 200 people who signed a petition asking Governor O’Malley to open an unbiased investigation into your case. All of these people also believe in your innocence and believe your incarceration is a travesty of justice.

Again, my heart- and spirit-felt sympathies. No Jewish mother should ever have to miss her sons’ bar mitzvahs because of such insane, unjust circumstances.

Because the Care2 site closed your original position as of March 28, after it had been online for only six months, I have started another petition for you on the same site. I am hoping that people who read my letters to you will click on this site and sign this petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/free-elsa-newman--save-her-kids-from-abuse

Sincerely...and holding you in the light,

Aine