WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 14, 2005; Page A03
Sally Ellison does not have an appointment with the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. She is not even a Catholic. But she is flying 900 miles from her home in Wisconsin to Washington today for a meeting of U.S. bishops, and she thinks they should hear what she has got to say.
"Because of their negligence, my son is dead. I think that's a pretty good reason for them to listen to me, don't you?" she said.
After an unusual hearing last month, a judge in Hudson, Wis., ruled that a Catholic priest, the Rev. Ryan Erickson, "probably" murdered James Ellison, 22, and Daniel O'Connell, 39, on Feb. 5, 2002.
The troubled and troublesome priest, who had a penchant for real handguns and for pretending to shoot people with his thumb and index finger, avoided prosecution by hanging himself from a rectory fire escape last year.
But at the conclusion of the "John Doe hearing" -- a form of trial without a defendant that is allowed in just five states -- St. Croix County Circuit Judge Eric J. Lundell said he was convinced that Erickson, 31, shot the two men after O'Connell accused him of molesting children.