Families celebrate unborn victims bill

Families celebrate unborn victims bill
The legislation, to take effect July 1, will acknowledge two crimes when pregnant women are victimized

Gov. Bob Riley commended several families and a local legislator Friday in Mobile for their work in passing a bill that will recognize two victims when pregnant women are assaulted or slain in Alabama.

The bill, which passed the House and the Senate unanimously and is set to receive Riley's signature Monday, is called the "Brody Act" in memory of the unborn son of 23-year-old Brandy Parker of Albertville, who was 8½-months pregnant when she was fatally shot on July 27, 2005. The case has not been solved.

The law will take effect July 1.

Riley said Friday that the bill "is going to protect an unborn life as we never have before."

"We hope that this is a legacy you can look back on and know you did something positive for the family members you have lost," he told those surrounding him, many of whom worked to gather support for the bill in memory of unborn relatives who had died.

The bill was inspired by the experiences of several Alabama families as well as cases that Rep. Spencer Collier, R-Bayou La Batre, witnessed while serving with the Alabama State Troopers. Collier began campaigning for such a bill in 2002 during his first run for office.

"If we would have passed this four years ago, it would have applied to all these families," Collier said, referring to several of those who attended Friday's event.

The families, however, said the bill's passage helped give their cases some closure and provided comfort to them because other Alabama people will have the law on their side in the future.

"At least now they have something they can fall back on and won't have to go through the same feelings we had to," Keri Roberts of Semmes said.

In 2001, when Roberts was eight months pregnant, she was struck by a vehicle. The accident killed her unborn daughter, Victoria Lynn Angle, but no one was prosecuted in connection with the incident.

Collier said the bill lacked support for several years because some legislators didn't comprehend the significance of the issue. The 2002 California murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son helped give the bill momentum, he said.

"Once they started seeing individual families that it affected, I think it started opening some of their eyes that we need to do this," Collier said.

Sharon and Tim Helveston of Citronelle made trips to Montgomery in support of the bill. Their daughter, Wendy Sullivan, was eight months pregnant in 2002 with her third daughter when a drunken driver hit her van. Sullivan and the unborn child died, and a Grand Bay man was later convicted of criminally negligent homicide.

"It's just awful that it takes tragedy to get something done," Tim Helveston said. "Thank God for all the hard work that went into this."