A reporter's perspective: Why a 15-year-old story matters today

Since the stories about the crimes of Russell Bucklew began running this week, I've received quite a few calls, emails and messages. Some were complimentary, some critical. Three have stood out.

The series has focused almost exclusively on what happened that spring and summer of 1996 and how the family members of the victims have coped over the past 15 years with the powerful loss of losing a loved one.

I've spent many hours getting to know the family members of Michael Sanders. Their stories have been tragic, although ultimately uplifting as they found the will to endure.

Moyers

But a message from a member of law enforcement who helped investigate the case reminded me that there are victims on both sides. The families of Mike Sanders and Stephanie Pruitt have certainly been through hell. But Russell Bucklew had parents, too.

A retired Missouri State Highway Patrol officer named A.V. Riehl told me that they also paid a high price because of what their son did. Riehl conducted Bucklew's post-arrest interview and took his subsequent confession. Riehl was in Columbia, Mo., to testify at Bucklew's trial in 1997. It was there, he said, he came to know that Bucklew came from a decent family.

"Their heartbreak and shame was written all over their expressions," Riehl wrote in a Facebook message to me.

He remembers, after the verdict came down, watching Bucklew's mother and father leaving the courtroom. They were in their 60s and dressed appropriately for the dignity of the court, Riehl said. A suit and tie for him, a Sunday dress and hat for her. "You could see that they were people of dignity and character," he wrote.

They were walking, arm in arm, not another person in the hallway. Mrs. Bucklew collapsed into a bench along the wall. She had just learned her son had received the death penalty. Riehl extended his sympathy to them for the burden they would carry the rest of their lives.

"It was one of the most poignant memories of my career," Riehl wrote. "Not to diminish the victims of the crime, but it jogged my realization that there are victims on both sides."

These stories affect real people, as was brought to my attention by two callers who told me that Stephanie's oldest daughter was hurt by the sight of a photo we ran on the front page. The photo showed Stephanie's profile, with one of the injuries Bucklew inflicted. I try to put myself in her shoes and understand how that must have made her feel, but I can't.

Our intent was not to open old wounds, but to give an account of a man's actions that sent him to death row and to emphasize the effects such crimes have on victims, even all these years later.

Stephanie's oldest daughter may find no comfort in this, but I also got an email from Zach Sanders. He is Mike's youngest son who, like Stephanie's two daughters, also watched Mike get killed. Zach was 4 when his dad died. I got to know Zach, whom I interviewed several times for the series.

I was so grateful to get his note Monday night, which thanked us for running the stories. He said he saw the series as a memorial to his dad. He wants people to know that Bucklew did more than kill one person, that his actions had a long-lasting effect on many.

Zach told me he's glad people know they're surviving and that what Bucklew did that horrific day 15 years ago doesn't define them.

To me, that's a story worth telling.

The story of Russell Bucklew has been a part of my life for a long time, too, although from afar.

When I was 24 and new to the newspaper business, I came to work one morning and was told that an accused murderer had escaped from the county jail. I had never heard of Russell Bucklew, but I learned quickly what he had allegedly done and what police thought he was capable of now that he was free.

I covered the two-day manhunt. Photographer Don Shrubshell and I followed police as they scoured the area. Later, we heard the call come over the police scanner that Bucklew had attacked Stephanie Pruitt's mother. We hurried to East Cape Rock Drive and saw emergency responders treating the wounds of Barb Pruitt and her boyfriend.

The next year, I sat in a Columbia, Mo., courtroom for 12 hours a day for five days, listening as victims described what they had lived through. I saw 7-year-old John Michael Sanders being escorted into the courtroom with the late Betty Knoll, a longtime victim's advocate, and point to Bucklew and say that was the man who had shot his dad. I heard the jury return a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death.

Over the years, I've often thought about Bucklew, the Sanders boys and Stephanie's daughters. I couldn't imagine what their lives must be like after living with what they saw that day. I wondered how they dealt with it growing up and was curious about what kind of men and women they were turning out to be.

Like many, I was aghast to learn what happened to Stephanie in 2009, when she was killed by her husband who then killed himself.

Meanwhile, on this 15th anniversary of the crime, Bucklew is still alive. I wanted to know what the family's thoughts were on the fact that Bucklew had yet to be put to death, 14 years after the verdict. I knew the whole situation was complicated by the controversy and problems surrounding the death penalty in Missouri and across the country. Bucklew is among the next two or three likely to be put to death.

When Bucklew is executed, we believe the series provides some context to our readers. I wanted to try to give readers just a glimpse of what the victims' families had been through. Some of the people agreed to be in my stories. Others didn't, which was certainly their right.

I based these stories on an exhaustive review of more than a thousand pages of court documents and trial transcripts, videotaped interviews and hours of conversations with the victim's families, law enforcement and others.

I also believe that Stephanie wanted people to know what Bucklew did. In fact, she told Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle that when Bucklew was executed she intended to be there and curse him. She wanted that to be the last thing Bucklew saw and heard before he died.

In a way, it will.

Swingle, although he has never attended an execution of anyone he's prosecuted, plans to be there. He intends to bring the picture of Stephanie and hold it to the glass as the drugs course through the veins and end the life of the man who hurt so many.

Scott Moyers is a reporter for the Southeast Missourian.