As Kori Fredericksen’s name was read aloud, her younger sister, Tammi Murphy, came forward and collected a red rose.
Murphy, 38, of Vancouver wore a pink T-shirt decorated with her sister’s photograph and the words “In memory of Kori Sue Fredericksen.”
Fredericksen’s name was just one of 75 read aloud Wednesday by a Clark County victim advocate during a ceremony for the National Day of Remembrance for Homicide Victims.
About 100 people gathered in the public hearings room of the Clark County Public Service Center, leaving standing room only.
Amy Harlan slowly read the names, which represent the local homicide victims who have been killed since 2010. Sixteen names were of victims who died more than five years ago but whose names had been added by request.
A slide show behind Harlan flashed the names across a large screen.
“We honor each and every name on this list, and we know that they’re not just names,” Harlan told the audience. “They are lives that were taken from this community and your families.”
Murphy, who’s attended the ceremony the last four years, brought her daughter, Destiny, her cousin, Robbin, and a childhood friend and her daughters.
“It’s definitely hard,” Murphy said of attending the ceremony. “But just getting that day to know more than just me is honoring my sister is an honor.”
Fredericksen was killed May 25, 2011, when her estranged boyfriend, Dennis Wolter, stabbed her more than 70 times with kitchen knives at his home in Vancouver’s Lincoln neighborhood, where the couple had lived together.
Wolter was pulled over for speeding early the next morning, and police found him and his blue pickup covered in blood. Fredericksen’s body was found later that day down a ravine on East Evergreen Highway, about a mile from where Wolter was stopped.
Superior Court Judge Robert Lewis sentenced Wolter in 2013 to life in prison without the possibility of release after a jury convicted him of aggravated first-degree murder.
“In our case, justice was served, as far as, he went to prison,” Murphy said. However, she added that “there’s no amount of time that takes away the pain.”
“It’s kind of comforting to see other families, knowing our family isn’t the only one going through it. It’s sad but comforting,” she said.
Chief Deputy Prosecutor Camara Banfield, who helped prosecute Wolter’s case, spoke during the annual ceremony. She took a moment beforehand to view a large memory board for the homicide victims.
“It’s with a grave heart that I can tell you that coming here this morning, looking at the board downstairs, I didn’t have to look at that board to remember the victims and the families of the cases that I’ve handled. These cases, they stay with us as prosecutors, and they are heavy on us,” Banfield said. “These cases become a part of you, and you become a part of these cases.”
She spoke of the work that prosecutors put into a case but acknowledged that justice is not always served.
“One’s loved one may be ripped from them. They may be ripped from us, victims of homicide, and yet, we may not be able to prosecute for various reasons. … It doesn’t change the fact that homicide has taken that life, that someone was murdered,” Banfield said.
“Even when we get the exact resolution we desire, many times you are still feeling empty because you are still living in that world, that world of grief, that world of loss, that world of sorrow,” she added. “Regardless of the outcome of your case, we carry your grief and we carry your loss.”
Victim advocate Mary Todd told the tearful audience that she once heard time does not heal all wounds.
“Sometimes, the best we can hope for is that the wounds scar over enough that we don’t feel them all the time,” she said.
But for Gena Moritz, her wounds are still fresh.
Her son, Craig Moritz, 21, was fatally shot on Feb. 4, 2014, after he and a friend were lured to a van under the pretense of a drug transaction. A masked man, identified as Zacheriah Douglas, is accused of trying to rob them. When Moritz attempted to flee, Douglas allegedly shot him in the back, killing him, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Douglas’ case is still pending.
“It’s more painful than people think,” Gena Moritz said of the ceremony. Still, she said, she appreciates the people who attend because it means they remember her son.
The hardest part, she said, is the time it’s taken the case to go to trial and the lack of answers. “It wears on you,” Moritz said.
She hopes once the case has resolved it will bring her some closure, she said.
