'Citizens Against Homicide' Supports Victims' Families
SAN RAFAEL (KPIX 5) This week's Jefferson Award winner helped start "Citizens Against Homicide" so that victims and their families would have a voice.
Jan Miller's been helping murder victims' families for 22 years... because she is one of those families.
"I feel I empowered myself by getting involved," she explained."
In 1984, Miller's 19-year-old daughter Veronica Perotti was murdered in her apartment in Chico. The case has not yet been solved. Ten years later, Miller teamed up with Jane Alexander to form the group Citizens Against Homicide.
Alexander passed away in 2008, but the group continues to meet about twice a month. When a killer is caught and convicted, Citizens Against Homicide helps families write letters to the sentencing judge, and later to the parole board.
Gene and Shellie Cervantes had two family members killed in Fresno.
"No one is ever prepared to have something like this happen," Shellie Cervantes said.
The group was able to put up a billboard offering a big reward. The Cervantes couldn't believe someone came forward so quickly with proof of who committed the murders.
"It turns out to be the murderer himself!" Shellie Cervantes said. "He murdered them for money and that $50,000 reward billboard was just eating him up."
Ora Knowell lost two sons in two separate killings. Her connection with Citizens Against Homicide was purely accidental. When she was looking for support, she picked up the phone...
"And I misdialed the number and it was their number," Knowell explained.
There are times Miller thinks maybe she's had enough. But then, just like it did with Ora Knowell, the phone rings.
"All of a sudden you're back talking and you realize you just helped that person," Miller explained. " You just helped that person, even to maybe feel better for that moment, for that day. I'm doing what I want to do. I want to help people get through this really horrible, horrific time."
So for helping families who have lost loved ones to violent crime, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Jan Miller.
