Weaver's supporters, hoping for healing, dismayed by sentence

Lancaster New Era (PA)

Author: Cindy Stauffer; Joe Byrne

Before a judge handed down his stiff sentence for Keith Weaver this morning, friends and family talked of rehabilitation and of healing.

But they expressed shock and dismay after they heard the judge pronounce a 35- to 70-year sentence for Weaver.

Weaver's supporters gathered early today in small groups outside a courtroom at the Lancaster County Courthouse.

An official from Weaver's former school came. So did two jury members who helped to decide the 16-year-old's fate at his trial a year ago.

One woman carried a red and a white rose, as a symbol of love for the Weavers.

Today, most of them had hoped for some closure to the two long years that have passed since the night that Weaver fatally stabbed his parents, Dr. R. Clair and Anna May Weaver, and his 15-year-old sister, Kimberly, and then sexually assaulted a teen-age girl who was visiting his Landisville area home at the time.

Before the sentencing, Vi Bender, the supervisor of Locust Grove Mennonite School where Weaver was a seventh-grader at the time of the killings, said, "To be honest, I just really hope that Keith becomes healthy. I hope he is rehabilitated, that he finds what he needs to understand what happened to him."

Sitting next to her was 15-year-old Amy Bender, one of Weaver's friends who has stayed in contact with him while the teen has been in prison.

"I just hope they can have a good mixture of being fair. I know he has to serve time for what's been done," the Lancaster teen said. "I think he knows that, too."

The Weavers' pastor at Landisville Mennonite Church, the Rev. Sam Thomas, expressed hope that Weaver would be sentenced to a facility where he could continue the therapy the family and church have been providing. His psychologist, Thomas said, "says he is amenable to good therapy."

Hershey Leaman, head of a small group of congregation members who monitored the legal proceedings for the family, spoke of "rehabilitation and restoration and a return to normal life."

But a normal life seems like a remote possibility for Weaver, who could be jailed until he reaches middle age.

The sheer weight of that sentence weighed heavily today on those who say they continue to love Weaver.

Weaver's brother, Steven, fought back tears after the sentencing but declined to comment. His sister, Deborah, was not present at the proceeding.

"I think we all love Keith, and we hate to see him in prison for so long," said Barbara Ann Horst, an aunt of the Weaver children.

"It's a long time," said a glum Hershey Leaman, head of a small group of church members that monitored the legal proceedings and reported back to the Weaver family.

The sentencing of the slight teen to the State Correctional Facility at Camp Hill clearly was not what the family and church members wanted, Leaman said. " ... We hoped it would be a place with more options for help."

Another relative shook her head sadly and said her daughter would not be able to visit Keith at Camp Hill nearly as much as she did when he was in Lancaster County Prison.

The Weavers' extended family has maintained a forgiving, loving attitude toward Weaver throughout his imprisonment and subsequent trial.

That attitude prevailed today.

Mary Sauder, one of Anna May Weaver's two sisters who attended the sentencing today, said she is forgiving to her nephew.

As she prepared to go into the courtroom, she said, "I want to see Keith. He's just part of the family."

Two jury members also came back to see Weaver and follow up on his sentence.

Sharianne Myers, Lancaster, said she hoped Judge Richard Eckman would be lenient with the teen.

"I just have a lot of sympathy to the young man," she said. "I think a lot of it is his age and all the things he went through before he got to the Weavers."