EVERETT — Anita Schuerhoff raised three sons to be gentlemen. Don’t let girls go home alone; escort them to the door to make sure they are safe, she taught them.
So, it was no surprise to Schuerhoff, 58, of Bothell, that her son Michael left home on Tuesday evening on Jan. 2, 1996 to accompany his female friend to meet a group of five boys whom she didn’t know well.
"He just said, ‘goodbye,’ " Schuerhoff recalled. "I said, ‘Be home early, by 10 o’clock.’ "
But Michael, 18, a senior at the Cascade High School, never came home.
Later that night, Schuerhoff got a call from police that friends had reported Michael as missing. After a search, Schuerhoff learned the stern reality: One of the five boys had pushed Michael off a trestle on the Burke-Gilman Trail behind Bothell’s Blyth Park.
Michael fell about 36 feet into cold water in a slough and drowned.
First came disbelief, then grief that will never go away, she said. Schuerhoff still keeps the Levi’s jeans and hiking boots that Michael wore that night.
"It’s a nightmare you never wake up from," she said.
The legal battle with the 17-year-old who pushed Michael continues.
But a good thing also came out of the tragedy, Schuerhoff said.
"In this journey that I’ve taken and my family (has taken), I have made so many good friends," Schuerhoff said on Sunday in front of a crowd at the "Walk and Candle-Lighting Remembrance" for crime victims.
More than 100 people gathered for the event at Everett’s Matthew Parsons Memorial Park, named for the 12-year-old boy who was abused by his father and whose head was slammed into the floor by his father’s live-in girlfriend in 1991. The boy remained in a coma until his death in 1997.
Families and Friends of Violent Crime Victims, Providence Everett Sexual Assault Center and Snohomish County Center for Battered Women hosted the event, intended as an annual gathering and funded by a grant from the U.S. Justice Department.
Help is available for victims, Dianne Lundberg of Mill Creek told the crowd.
"Remember you are not alone. It’s not your fault," said Lundberg, who turned to Providence Everett Sexual Assault Center after her daughter was sexually assaulted.
Afterward, the crowd marched downtown streets, chanting the message that their placards carried: "Victims Have Rights." Some drivers honked in support as the group made its way to First Congregational Church on Rockefeller Avenue.
Inside the church, some spoke to encourage the victims of crime and their families to seek changes.
Seth Dawson, a former Snohomish County prosecuting attorney, said that the state legal system traditionally failed to provide rights for crime victims.
"The court must, must give, it must give great weight to victims’ opinions," said Dawson, who became a lobbyist in 1994 to advocate crime victims’ rights.
Some progress has been made, he said.
"We have a long way to go, but we are getting there," he said.
Criminals have many rights, while victims tend to be quiet because they are stuck with grief, said Mark Roe, a chief criminal deputy prosecutor in Snohomish County.
Courts could make decisions that negatively affect victims’ rights, Roe warned.
"One thing you can do, one thing everyone in this room probably can do: make a little noise," Roe said.
Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@heraldnet.com.
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