Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
–Rumi
This winter Susan Randall worked with the defense on a sentencing case for a high profile multiple-murder here in Vermont. A sentencing is the time for considering the pain caused by a crime. It’s also a time to ask, How did we get here? What happened in the life of this person that led her to do what she did?
For months, Susan worked closely with the woman who committed these murders, creating a profile of her life, her history, and her family. It’s a story of almost unimaginable, multi-generational abuse…abuse which started two generations before her birth. In the end, the perpetrator received a sentence of life without parole. I’m not going to name her here because it’s a very sensitive case in Vermont, and this story is not about her. It’s about what it’s like to work closely on cases like these as a private investigator, and what happens after the cases are closed.
Susan’s private investigation business is here.
The music for this show was made by Emily Kueppers. Thank you Emily!
Wow, Susan.
No words can really express it, but this is a very powerful piece. One thing you learn in prison (and which you’ve clearly learned without going to prison — except to do your job) is how little capacity people have to bear witness to what is actually happening in our world — and to all of us living in this world. And you have that capacity, and the heart to be willing to be with what is, even when it is as brutal as this.
While it’s a strange word to use, the word that comes to mind is “lovely.” I find it lovely that you are willing to put yourself in these situations, with these people, and to face and feel it with them. It would be easy to call It “courageous,” but to me that doesn’t convey the heart that is so obvious in this interview. And my heart is moved and engaged in response.
Perhaps the most important lesson I’m learning through my own process is the power of simply being willing to be with what is, whatever that may be, and however we may feel about it. Almost all of us seem to be trying frantically to get away from the myriad things we don’t like or are afraid of, and through this understandable but backwards strategy, we virtually ensure that we will remain trapped and limited by everything we are not willing to face, both within us and around us.
I don’t feel at all bummed out by listening to this. It’s hard to describe, but I often find it encouraging, even liberating, when someone is willing to face and be with an aspect of life as deeply as you are doing and describing so eloquently here.
Thank you. It’s lovely.
Secondary trauma. It’s not clear to me how to survive it. I’m not sure it’s possible. I’m not sure why we are so cruel to each other. I’m not sure about any of this.