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And a little child shall lead them
Her name means “winner” or “conqueror.” It was the name
her mother picked before she even knew she was having a girl.
As I looked down at little Victoria Jo Stinnett sleeping peacefully in my
arms, I knew there couldn’t be a more perfect name.
After all, just 13 days earlier, this little “miracle,” as her
father Zeb calls her, had taken her first traumatic breath – at the same
time her young mother, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, was breathing her last. Little
Victoria was welcomed to the world not by doctors, nurses and family, but rather
by the person who had just sliced her from her mother’s womb. Victoria’s
first car ride wasn’t the short trip home from a hospital maternity ward
with her parents. Instead, it was a 150-mile race with her mother’s killer.
Zeb Stinnett holds daughter Victoria Jo in a Topeka hospital the
day they were reunited. The baby was kidnapped from her mother's
womb by her mother's killer.
Thanks to the work of Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey and many other law
enforcement officials, Victoria was found, unharmed, 23 hours later, and reunited
with her father. The next day, her mother was buried, the mother Victoria Jo will
know only through family memories, photographs and – sadly – through
yellowing newspaper clippings.
Yet, here she slept, oblivious to the strange man with a lump in his throat
who was holding her like rare porcelain. Five days earlier was Christmas, the
celebration of that silent night when a tiny infant brought hope to humankind.
Now, I sat at a kitchen table with a family whose Christmas had been silenced
by the numbness of grief. But I held in my arms the embodiment of victory –
good over evil, peace over violence, love over hatred!
She was dressed for battle in a slightly too-big “Tigger” jumper,
and armed with a sleepy yawn that could melt cold steel. She was blissfully
unaware that she had entered a world in which cruelty and violence could erupt
without warning, and mercifully forgetful that it had done so in her first 24
hours.
I’d never met Victoria’s family before that night. Tammy LaTour,
an aide in the abbey’s infirmary whose husband works with Zeb, told me that
the family was growing weary of continual media attention. Apprehensively, she
asked if I could help.
I learned a couple of things in the aftermath of that June morning in 2002
when an old man with a rifle opened fire in the hallways of Conception Abbey. The
first was that dawn always follows darkest night; that even the most senseless of
tragedies and deepest of pain will give way to unexpected blessings. The other
thing I learned was how to manage national media coverage in the aftermath of a
bizarre, headline-grabbing tragedy.
I’m no PR guru, just a man with an experience that thankfully most people
will never have. I’m not wise, but sometimes life forces wisdom upon us.
I could not help this family with their grief and pain. Each tragedy is a
deeply personal experience. No one can possibly know exactly what Zeb and his
family are going through, just as no one could truly know what the monks went
through. But this tragedy and the shootings at Conception Abbey had one thing in
common – the media.
Perhaps if I could simply answer a few questions, or pass on some lessons
learned the last time the national media descended on Nodaway County, it would
help in some small way to ease this family’s burden.
I ran the idea by Abbot Gregory Polan, who gave his blessing. He said he had
been trying to think of a way that Conception Abbey could reach out to the
Stinnett family, maybe this was it.
Not wanting to intrude on this family’s privacy, I placed a call to
Sheriff Espey. He immediately called the family to suggest the idea, and a couple
of weeks later I was nervously knocking at their door.
The meeting went well. I’m not sure if I helped them, or if they ever
really needed my help. I was humbled by their hospitality, and I’m a better
person for meeting them. They are good people who are facing the unfathomable
with quiet dignity. They told me they desired two things: first, the opportunity
to thank the countless people who have reached out to them with cards, letters,
gifts, donations, and above all, prayers; and second, the privacy to grieve, heal
and get to know their newest member like any other family would, free from news
cameras.
The desires of the little girl in the Tigger outfit were even simpler. Soon
she would want, no, she would demand – and quite vocally – to be fed.
Conquering evil is hungry work.
Peace.
Dan Madden
Director of Development and Communications
We welcome your comments:
communications@conception.edu
www.conceptionabbey.org
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