Killer's execution recalls parish's help for murder victim's kin

Published: 2004-06-21

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- On June 16, Sister Susan Engel, a pastoral associate at the Church of the Annunciation in Baltimore's Rosedale neighborhood, was a little preoccupied with the pending execution of convicted rapist and murderer Steven Oken and the attendant publicity. Sister Susan, a Mission Helper of the Sacred Heart, had had a talk with the parish staff about the execution and the church's opposition to capital punishment. "They were all for the death penalty, without a New York second beat," she said, "and they're Christian, holy people." Even though she holds firmly to the church's position, Sister Susan said she understands how they feel because she remembers the horror of that day just before Christmas nearly nine years ago when Evelyn Cunningham was murdered. She remembers the nightmare it became for the Cunningham family. As Sister Susan was recalling those painful times, Cindy Cunningham, the murdered woman's daughter-in-law, was writing an e-mail to a local TV station to say how badly she felt for the families of Oken's victims and that she was praying for them. The St. Joseph Medical Center nurse, mother of three children, member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Baynesville -- and "Catholic to the core" as she put it -- understood all too well what the families were going through.

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