Charles A. Corr, Ph.D., is Professor emeritus, Department of Philosophical Studies, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Dr. Corr is a member of the Executive Committee of the National Donor Family Council and the International Work Group on Death, Dying, and Bereavement. Dr. Corr has written over sixty professional articles and book chapters. His most recent book is Death and Dying, Life and Living.

Violent and unexpected deaths leave trail of ‘secondary victims’

By Charles A. Corr

At 10:30 p.m. on April 29, 1997, Cheryl and Joe Wieromiej became “secondary victims.”
The call to their Albany, N.Y., home was from a family member who rushed to tell them — before they might hear it on the evening television news — that their two grandchildren were dead in a small town some 30 miles away.
Because her first grandchild, Kevin, had died of sudden infant death syndrome in 1991, Cheryl’s first reaction was, “No, no, I can’t go through this again. Not two more grandchildren.”
In fact, it was even worse. On that terrible evening, Cheryl’s son-in-law, Ken Ogert, had used a shotgun to kill his wife, Cheryl’s 26-year-old daughter, Sharon, his 5-year-old son, Kenneth, Jr., and his 22-month-old daughter, Chyenne, before taking his own life.
Cheryl believes that Ken had never been able to come to terms with Kevin’s death six years earlier. Something snapped in Ken that night, the anniversary of Kevin’s burial.
That night, Cheryl and her family were flung headlong into sudden and violent circumstances that tore their worlds apart. Unexpected deaths administer a powerful shock — like a cosmic slap in the face — to those left behind, allowing very little time for survivors to take in, much less deal with, the magnitude of their loss.
Professionals call them “secondary victims.” At best, survivors not only will cope but also reach out in a way that changes their lives and those of others around them. At worst, the loss comes to dominate their lives by draining them of meaning and joy.
As Cheryl said, “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I wouldn’t want anybody to go through this.”
Like a deadly game of dominoes, it has been estimated that each sudden and unexpected death has a direct effect on 10 other people. At that rate, more than 4,100 new secondary victims are being created every day in our society as a result of accidents, suicides and homicides.
While the more shocking acts of violence — from the school shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado to the Oklahoma City bombing — rate prime-time TV coverage and front-page headlines, in reality they are few and far between. In the sphere of violent death, motor vehicles take the biggest toll.
Motor vehicle accidents are the most common cause of violent death in the United States, killing nearly 43,500 people in 1998 and accounting for 28.8 percent of all injury-related deaths. Firearms are the second leading cause of injury-related deaths. In 1998, 30,700 people were killed by guns. The death rate from motor vehicle accidents and firearms has declined in recent years, but the United States continues to lead all civilized countries in all of these categories.
And long after the police, reporters, and cameramen leave, families and friends spend years trying to piece their lives back together.
For her part, Cheryl Wieromiej was angry. As she waded into the aftermath of the multiple deaths, “the only thing that kept me sane,” she said, was the conviction that her son-in-law “couldn’t do this in his right mind.”
Funeral arrangements had to be made for four people simultaneously. And two weeks later, on Mother’s Day, the family had to face the horrific task of cleaning up the bloody apartment in which the deaths occurred.
“These are things people never think of,” said Cheryl.
Because Cheryl lived out of town and did not share the same last name as those who died, she was spared some of the initial flood of media inquiries. But some in her community did criticize the family for including her son-in-law in the same funeral services as the three people he had killed.
Other secondary victims often find their mourning is delayed when legal proceedings against the perpetrator — over which they have little influence — drag on and on. One bereaved father was even subpoenaed as a witness by lawyers defending his son’s killers, not to actually testify in the trial, but simply to keep him out of the courtroom, away from the sympathetic eyes of the jurors.
When those left behind turn to others for help, they often find that support for the bereaved has become less available because of the decline of extended families whose members live near each other, as well as of the strong bonds formerly found in neighborhood, religious and other communities.
Cheryl Wieromiej sought help from a therapist, but didn’t find it useful.
Everywhere I go, I’m the horror story,” she said. Her grief was compounded by the earlier death of her infant grandchild and by the fact that four people died at her son-in-law’s hand.
It got to the point, said Cheryl, where “you don’t even know who you’re grieving for.’’
A friend of Cheryl’s in Pittsburgh saw an ad in a local paper for The Compassionate Friends, a self-help group for bereaved parents and grandparents. Cheryl was not aware there were organizations like this when her friend suggested that she seek out a chapter in the Albany area.
“I was desperate at that time,’’ she said. “I would have done almost anything.” The group gave Cheryl an opportunity to share her experiences, even though most of the members had lost children younger than her daughter and few had experienced four deaths at one blow. It was “one of the most helpful organizations I could find.”
Every survivor of violence has to cope with death and loss in his or her own way. For Suzanne Villaggio, and her husband, John, who lost their 28-year-old son, David, in a car crash, “there is no one closer to me than my husband, but still we are grieving differently.”
The Villaggios’ lives changed with a phone call from an administrator at a hospital in Fargo, N.D., who spoke the words every parent dreads: “Your son has been in an accident. He is in surgery right now. You had better get here as soon as possible.” David died that night when a pickup truck in which he was a passenger skidded on an icy interstate highway outside Fargo and rolled over several times.
Just before David died, John and Suzanne had relocated from Georgia to New Jersey, where John had accepted a position with a new engineering company. When David, who had started a successful electronics business in Fargo, died, his family hadn’t been in the community long enough to make any strong connections and they had to deal with a death that occurred thousands of miles away.
Still, help and compassion were there for the Villaggios that night. A friend drove them to the airport at 4 a.m. so that they could get the first flight out. A ticket agent cried when she learned why they were in such a rush to depart. David’s friend, Chris, who had been driving the pickup, was sobbing and crying when the Villaggios reached the hospital in Fargo. And the Villaggios learned that other drivers had immediately stopped to help when they saw the accident.
Unfortunately, a neurosurgeon and a physician at the ICU in Fargo were distant and insensitive. Suzanne, a nurse who had worked in emergency rooms, later said, “It was as if they were saying, ‘You just need to get on with this.’”
Donating some of David’s organs and tissues for transplantation helped the Villaggios find some good in the middle of their tragedy. Still, taking leave of David at the hospital that night while knowing that his organs would be retrieved in the morning — even though they understood that he was already brain dead — left the Villaggios with “the toughest night we’ve ever had.”
Later, Suzanne found comfort in sharing stories about David with her 80-year-old mother. Suzanne also treasures her memory of the last meal David hosted for them at an expensive restaurant in Fargo the summer before his death. And she remembers fondly his closing words to her in their last telephone conversation: “I love you, Mom.”
The Villaggios also welcomed the support of The Compassionate Friends chapter, where Suzanne was surprised to discover at their first meeting that nearly all of the other participants had lost a child through a motor vehicle accident.
A few months after the death of her son, Suzanne said, “What I want to do is to have healing, to feel better, but how do I do that?”
Professor Kenneth J. Doka of the College of New Rochelle (N.Y) is editor of the book “Living With Grief After Sudden Loss: Suicide, Homicide, Accident, Heart Attack, Stroke.” Doka notes that “each type of unexpected, violent death poses its own unique problems, but all intensify and complicate the survivor’s grief. Deaths like these also heighten a survivor’s sense of vulnerability and anxiety.”
Lula M. Redmond, a family therapist who founded the first homicide survivors therapy group in the United States and is author of “Surviving: When Someone You Love Was Murdered,” gives each of her new clients a spiral-bound notebook and tells them to “date it and start writing, even if you can only write a few words each day.”
Over the years, Redmond has learned that keeping a journal helps survivors achieve some sense of control over what has happened to them. It also helps to vent strong feelings, prepare for legal proceedings that might arise and prevent some of the confusion that creeps up in later years.
Redmond advises those who want to help friends and family members who have lost someone unexpectedly “just to be available and to be willing to listen. Try to understand the needs that motivate the survivor’s behaviors and the profound loneliness and emptiness that he or she is experiencing. It won’t last forever.”
And that is what Cheryl Wieromiej is discovering. Four years after the deaths of her two grandchildren, her daughter and her son-in-law, she said, “I’m better because I’m not numb. I’m still working on it. This doesn’t go away. You learn to live with it.’’

2001, Partnership for Caring, Inc.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.