Marcella Leach
| Marcella Leach | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | August 15, 1929 |
| Died | March 16, 2015 (aged 85) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Victims' Rights Advocate |
| Children | 2 |
| Website |
http://www.justiceforhomicidevictims.net http://www.marsyslawforall.org |
Marcella Nicholas Leach (August 15, 1929 – March 16, 2015) was an American victims' rights advocate based in Southern California and the mother of technology entrepreneur and victims' rights leader Henry Nicholas. After the murder of her daughter, Marsalee (Marsy) Nicholas in 1983, she helped build Justice for Homicide Victims, one of California's early victims' rights organizations. Her late daughter is the namesake for Marsy's Law, the California Constitutional Amendment and Victims' Bill of Rights, which appeared on the November, 2008, ballot as Proposition 9.
On November 30, 1983, Marcella Leach's daughter, Marsalee Ann (Marsy) Nicholas, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, Kerry Michael Conley. Marsy, then 21, was a senior at UC Santa Barbara and had come home to Pt. Dume, Ca., for Thanksgiving when Conley, with whom she had broken up, shot her to death.
Conley was subsequently convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 17 years to life in prison, where he died in 2007. In the nearly 2-year interim between the murder and the trial, Conley remained free on bail, a fact that was particularly painful to his victim's family, as he was frequently seen around the neighborhood where Marcella Leach and her husband, Bob Leach, still lived. In one particularly wrenching incident, Marcella Leach recalled being shocked when she encountered Conley in a neighborhood grocery store shortly after the murder.
Among those who comforted the Leach family was Ellen Griffin Dunne, the mother of actress Dominique Dunne, who had been strangled to death by a spurned ex-boyfriend the year before Marsy's death. When Dunne decided in late 1983 to create a local support organization for the survivors of homicide victims, the Leaches were among the founding members, along with Marcella Leach's son Henry Nicholas. The California Center for Family Survivors of Homicide was formed as a nonprofit, with a subgroup, Justice for Homicide Victims, as its public face.
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