Murdered girl's grave is dad's refuge

Author: Dennis Cassano; Staff Writer

Long after her death as a result of child abuse, Maria Ostlund's father visits her grave daily and tries to sort out things.

The monument at the foot of the grave seems large for someone so tiny.

It's draped with the fantasies of childhood and the dreams of fatherhood: A Christmas wreath decorated with ornaments. A perky cloth rabbit. A small white teddy bear. A wooden valentine that says, "I miss you."

There is a flower box with another heart on it, most of the red paint weathered off one side and wearing thin on the other. It's been here a year and eight months.

A child's grave. Maria Ostlund's grave.

This is not a quiet place. The traffic on nearby Penn Av. intrudes on the peace.

But David Ostlund visits every day, sometimes twice a day.

"I really just wanted a nice little put-together family," he says. "That's all I ever wanted. Janet and Maria were my last chance."

Now Maria Ostlund is dead, and Janet Ostlund is in the women's prison in Shakopee, sentenced to serve nine years for unintentionally murdering her adopted daughter by shaking her to death.

Ostlund gestured toward the headstone that marks the grave of his daughter.

He's comfortable here. It's a place where he can think, where he will not be bothered by anyone. He's trying to sort out the future of his year-old son. He's still trying to sort out the trial of his wife, though he's convinced the jury's verdict was right.

The trial was a year ago, and two weeks ago the Minnesota Supreme Court refused to review the verdict. The Supreme Court's decision was the day after the Ostlunds' divorce was finalized. With the usual time off for good behavior, Janet Ostlund will be released from the Shakopee women's prison at the end of 1992.

Two-year-old Maria was one of eight children under the age of 10 who were murdered in Minnesota in 1986. According to preliminary statistics from the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, nine others were murdered in 1987.

"When a parent loses a child, whatever the circumstances, I don't think they row with both oars in the water ever again," Ostlund said.

"It really is difficult to deal with when someone you loved very much killed someone you loved very much," he said, his deep voice still breaking, his eyes still watering occasionally. "It's a very hard thing to deal with."

Ostlund, a body repairman at an automobile dealership, has cloudy blue eyes. His dusky brown hair hangs down to the collar of his work shirt and flannel shirt-jacket. He's regained some of the weight he had lost at the time of the trial. "That's one of the bad parts" of regaining his balance after reeling for so long, he says.

A tall man whose 40-year-old frame always has drooped, his unshaven face sags as well.

And his feelings of guilt persist, even though he had no notion there might be a problem in his home. "Maria's death weighs on my shoulders pretty heavily. She did die of child abuse and I feel that somehow I could have prevented it. That's pretty tough to deal with."

The other tough thing to deal with is their son's future. Michael Ostlund was born in September 1986, about a week after Janet Ostlund was indicted, and has been in a foster home ever since. Hennepin County has started proceedings to terminate her parental rights, an issue expected to go to trial this spring or summer.

If his former wife's parental rights are terminated, Ostlund has to decide if he should raise the boy or allow him to be adopted.

"I want to raise that child," he said emphatically. "But I don't know if I have the heart to tell him, `You can't see your mother because she killed your sister.' "

Ostlund is trying to decide if it would be better for Michael to be adopted and never know about his real parents.

He comes here to try to figure it out.

His first marriage ended in divorce after 10 years in 1979. His son, Rob, 17, lives with him at 4019 Beard Av. N., Robbinsdale. His daughters, Lynn, 16, and Anna, 12, live with their mother.

He married Janet in 1983. "I was nuts about her," Ostlund said.

They thought Janet was unable to have children, so they decided to adopt. Maria arrived from El Salvador Aug. 30, 1985. She was frail, with scabies and infected ears. Doctors later testified that her head and brain were abnormally small.

David and Maria slowly warmed to each other. Over time, she began to seek him out to play with her and he found her waiting for him at the back door every day when he got home from work. "That makes a long day at work worthwhile," he said one day outside the courtroom during the trial.

"From that point on, I just went nuts over the kid," he said.

Then she was gone. On July 15, 1986, she was dead.

At first, he said last week, he could not stay away from the cemetery. "Maria's grave was like a magnet. It just pulled me here."

He was there three or four times a day. When he couldn't sleep, he would be there at 2 in the morning. He was there all day on Saturdays and Sundays.

"I'm over that," he said. "Now, if I need to be somewhere else, I'm able to do that. I couldn't before. I'm healing. I feel better today. You learn to deal with it." A psychologist is helping him, he said.

He's made acquaintances there in the cemetery.

One day, in the first winter after Maria's death, when he was making a snowman for her alongside the grave, he looked up and saw that another father was making a snowman for his daughter at her nearby grave. They waved.

Other people have noticed him. One day, a woman who lives across Penn Av. from the Crystal Lake Cemetery got on her bike and rode over to say hello.

Another woman who drives along Penn twice a day stopped "to see how I was doing. She stops by every once in a while. She brought a scarf for the snowman he made this winter.

Someone else visits frequently, he doesn't know who. He guesses it's a woman because of the size of the footprint. The footprints are there after every snowfall.

During the trial, Ostlund said, "All I ever dreamed of was a pretty little suburban house. I don't envy the people in big houses. I envy the people in cute little suburban houses."

He thinks he will sell his within a year.

For all the sadness in his life, Ostlund still has the capacity to laugh.

"Now I'm being audited by the IRS," he said through a broad smile.

"That'll be a cakewalk compared to all this."