Murder victim's mother no longer angry but still wants death penalty
By Sandra Chapman
WTHR
FRANKLIN, Ind. - The mother of a murdered Franklin College student is speaking out as the man who killed her daughter tried to get his death sentence overturned.
Connie Sutton sat in a courtroom last week while lawyers for Michael Dean Overstreet argued why their client should not be executed for raping and murdering her daughter Kelly Eckart in 1997.
"Kelly will be gone for 17 years on the 27th of this month," Sutton told Eyewitness News. "I don't feel that anger anymore. I'm not living with that hatred in me anymore, and that's a good feeling. It really is."
The veil lifted at a most unusual time: during the death row appeal hearing for her daughter's killer, Michael Dean Overstreet.
Doctors treating Overstreet for paranoid schizophrenia revealed intimate prison conversations with Overstreet. Sutton said she had no idea what she was about to hear..
"I never expected for him to admit to what he did. Never," she said in disbelief.
And although it didn't come the way she always wanted, Sutton said she finally got what she needed from the man who abducted, assaulted and killed her 17-year-old daughter.
"I'll never forget the minute that it came out that he was sorry about what happened, you know what he put Kelly and her family through," she said. "That was the very first time that I cried in court."
She knew Overstreet looked differently but couldn't be sure if it was due to medication.
"His eyes looked different. When we were in court 14 years ago, his eyes were cold. They were eyes of a murderer," she said.
Although his appearance has changed, in Sutton's eyes, Overstreet will always be a murderer.
His reported gestures of remorse give her some peace, but when it comes to his death sentence, "He still needs to die for what he did. As long as I know he was in his right mind when it happened, I don't think I can ever forgive. But I could walk away if I had to now."
While Sutton said she has released her anger, she is not saying she has forgiven Overstreet - only that she can live in peace with whatever the judge now decides. A decision is expected by December 5.
Sutton said it's been a long journey and that she's grateful for all of the support from Johnson County and Franklin College.
http://www.wthr.com/story/26479226/2...death-sentence
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