At Last, a Place for Families to Recall the Good Times : Remembrance: After nearly four years of fund raising, relatives are about to dedicate the Crime Victims Memorial Monument.

Jean and Joseph Pascale’s 26-year-old daughter, Susanmarie, was murdered by her husband in 1985, two days before their divorce would have been final.

“He shot the door in and he stood over her and shot her while she was begging for her life,” said Jean Pascale. “She was heard to say, ‘Please don’t hurt me.’ ”

The Anaheim couple scattered their daughter’s ashes in the ocean off Carmel, Susanmarie’s favorite town and where she had planned to move.

The Pascales took over raising Susanmarie’s 3-year-old son, Jeffrey. Jean Pascale, still in shock three months after the murder, joined the Orange County chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. She said the support group, which she still attends on a monthly basis, has been “a lifesaver.”

But while the pain has lessened over the years, something has been missing.

“When my grandson was very small, he was talking to me and said, ‘Boy, Grandma, I wish I had a place to put flowers for my mom.’ I said, ‘There is a place we’re going to have soon.’ ”

Sunday afternoon at 2, after nearly four years of fund raising, the Pascales will join several hundred other relatives of crime victims at Memory Garden Memorial Park here to dedicate the Crime Victims Memorial Monument. Jeffrey Oxford-Pascale, now 10, will unveil the gray marble memorial, the first of its kind on the West Coast.

“Basically, it’s a monument of love,” said Pascale, a founding member of the monument committee, which raised $15,000 for the memorial.

Scheduled speakers include state Sen. Ed Royce (R-Anaheim) and Collene Campbell of San Juan Capistrano, whose 27-year-old son, Scott, was murdered in 1982 and whose brother, millionaire racing promoter Mickey Thompson, was also murdered, along with his wife, in 1988.

Representatives of the Irvine-based Victim-Witness Assistance Program, Parents of Murdered Children and Mothers Against Drunk Driving also will attend the event, which marks the beginning of Victim Rights Week in California.

The 5-foot-high monument is just inside the entrance to the memorial park, which donated the site. Between a carved pink eternal flame and an engraved rose are the words: “Dedicated to those who lost their lives to violent crime.”

Lining the walkway leading to the memorial are granite markers bearing the names of men, women and children killed in such violent acts as homicide and drunk driving. (Family members made a $50 donation to cover the cost of engraving.)

There are about 100 names so far. But there is room for more than 1,000 names, and each year during Victim Rights Week, more will be added.

“We’re trying to memorialize the victims, and we also want people to know that what is happening out there just can’t go on; it’s just so awful,” said Pascale, who works for the Victim-Witness Assistance Program. “This memorial is something I hope will make people aware of the violence.”

The memorial was the brainchild of the Orange County chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. “A lot of us thought it would be nice to have somewhere where we could all be together to remember our loved ones,” said Carol Ralph of Huntington Beach.

Ralph’s 18-year-old son, Bradley Kaye, was killed in 1984. Bruce Ralph, her former husband, was convicted in the murder of his stepson.

Like Pascale, Ralph has found great comfort in attending meetings of Parents of Murdered Children: “I actually have a life now. I don’t think I’d have had one without the group.”

Friends and relatives “were wonderful,” she said, “but they didn’t know how I felt. You’re not really yourself when this happens to you. I was doing strange and crazy things.”

Although she was “functioning and trying to carry on normal living,” after her son’s murder, Ralph said, she would get up at 2:30 a.m. and go grocery shopping--then she’d leave her groceries in the parking lot.

“When I went to my second meeting, I found somebody had done the same thing and I didn’t quite feel so alone,” said Ralph.

For her, she said, the Crime Victims Memorial Monument “is a place that will give me comfort and I can visit whenever I like.”

Pascale agrees: “It’s a place to go and place flowers and remember the good times.”

The monument committee hopes to raise $2,000 to $3,000 for two benches that will be installed near the monument. For information, contact Parents of Murdered Children at (714) 647-7508.