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From a mother's pain, some peace
© St. Petersburg Times Some people are called upon in life to suffer more than others. Janice Myles is one of those people. Many of them are shattered by their suffering. Some are not. They come out the other side of their pain and are capable of great acts. Janice Myles is one of those who came out the other side. Fifteen years ago, her little girl was molested by a neighbor. Three years later, as Myles' daughter, Robbi Shaunti, became a teenager, she shot herself in the head. Every year since, Mrs. Myles visits Robbi's grave in an East Tampa cemetery on Robbi's birthday -- Jan. 20 -- and talks to her. She leaves a gift of flowers behind. Every night since, when she prays, she tells Robbi how much she is missed and loved. And every time her daughter's molester, Roosevelt Daniels, appeared in court, she was in court, too. She was there last November when Daniels was released on probation after serving 12 years in prison and confined for two more under a law designed to keep sexual predators locked up until they no longer pose a threat. She was there to get the address where he would be living in Seminole Heights. History was not going to repeat itself, Mrs. Myles vowed. On her own, she told a day care center and two schools that Daniels would soon be in their midst. But that wasn't enough for her. In January, she rounded up more than a dozen of her friends to put 600 fliers containing Daniels' photograph on telephone poles and in storefronts, fliers that contained Daniels' picture. Mrs. Myles circulated the fliers even though she figured he might have moved on from the neighborhood. But deep in her heart, she had this against-the-odds wish that the fliers would help catch Daniels again. What followed was a series of crazy coincidences. Among other places, the fliers went up in a Seminole Heights convenience store owned by a friend of Mrs. Myles' boyfriend. In the meantime, a little girl told police she'd been approached by a man who looked like the man in the fliers that she had seen in the store. The cops went to the store. The owner directed them to Janice Myles. Roosevelt Daniels was re-arrested last Sunday. It's enough to make you believe in fate -- or at least powers beyond your own. Soon after Robbi Shaunti killed herself, she came to her mother in a dream and told her not to blame herself for the suicide. She then embraced her mother, and the sense of her daughter's presence was so real that Mrs. Myles jumped out of bed and ran out of the room. Soon after Daniels was released last fall, she dreamed of him, too. In this dream, he said he wanted to apologize. Mrs. Myles refused. How was an apology going to make up for the loss of her daughter? She awakened, drenched in sweat. Robbi Shaunti Myles would be 27 now. All of her that her mother possesses are cheerful photographs of a little girl that hang in her home -- and that unflagging passion to pursue Roosevelt Daniels to the ends of the earth. People who mean well have told her to get over what happened, and get on with her life. She ignores them. This is her life, and living this way has kept her sane and whole. Daniels is in jail now, without bail. Mrs. Myles has already contacted a prosecutor in the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office to find out when Daniels will get a court hearing. Just as before, she intends to be present. And for the one after that, and after that -- as long as it takes, whatever it takes, to give Janice Myles some measure of peace, and strength. A correction needs to be made. In Tuesday's column, I misspelled cassock, the word used to describe the long, dark vestment worn by some clergy.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Mary Jo Melone Tampa Uncuffed From the Times Metro desk |
