Father Mourns Wife’s Death, Son’s Future

The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of murdering his mother during an argument asked prosecutors Saturday not to try his son as an adult.

“He needs to be responsible--as a child,” Philip Connolly said outside the Messiah Lutheran Church, where a memorial service was held for his slain wife, Cindy.

“What they are really going to do is take away the one thing I have,” Connolly said, “And that is hope.”

Police say Daniel P. Connolly confessed to shooting his mother with a .22-caliber handgun Feb. 22. They have not disclosed the nature of the dispute, and Philip Connolly would not discuss it.

Prosecutors have charged the boy with murder and said they will seek a Juvenile Court judge’s permission to try him as an adult.

If convicted as an adult, Connolly would be among the youngest defendants in the state to stand trial under a year-old law that lowered to 14 the age at which youths can be tried and punished as adults for serious crimes.

Connolly, a freshman at Esperanza High School in Anaheim, could face as much as 25 years to life in prison.

Friends, neighbors and relatives expressed shock at the slaying, saying the Connollys formed a loving family that seemed free of serious problems.

“I want him to get help,” Philip Connolly said of his son. “I want him to be in an environment where he can be held and nurtured.”

Connolly, standing outside the church with family members, spoke of his difficulties since his wife’s death.

“My life has been changed so much in the past week that I can hardly recognize it now,” he said. “This is a very painful time for my family.”

Nearly 650 friends and relatives came to the church to mourn Cindy Connolly. Many came to remember a woman who they said touched their lives in a special way. Others came to make sense of a crime that has so far eluded understanding.

Connolly, 42, worked as a dental hygienist. Her husband, Philip, is a captain with the Orange County Fire Authority. Together with Daniel and 9-year-old Caitlen, they seemed a near-perfect family, friends and neighbors said.

It was for that reason and others that Connolly’s death shocked Yorba Linda, which had no homicides in all of 1995. In the same week, another Yorba Linda man was accused of murdering his two young daughters.

In a eulogy, Pastor Bob Mooney told the group that they would not find easy answers to the Connollys’ tragedy.

“Families have been torn apart, communities have been torn apart,” he said, often breaking into tears. “I stand here today with more doubts that I have faith, with more pain than I have joy.

“There aren’t a lot of answers today,” Mooney said.

Mooney asked the group to forgive Daniel Connolly, just as the boy’s own father had forgiven him. Turning to the Connolly family, he said: “No one in this church will turn our back on your son. We grieve with you. We ache with you.”

Said Mooney: “I wish I could turn back the hands of time.”