A Close- Up Look At People Who Matter : Couple Moves From Grief to Activism

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

The words are more than a New Testament Beatitude for Francine and Ralph Myers of Canoga Park. Where once they were the comforted, now they are the comforters.

Not that their own mourning is over, or ever will be. Their lives changed forever when that of their only son ended just before 11 p.m. on July 24, 1993. Tom Myers, 25, an avid surf and snowboarder who worked with his father in the moving and storage business, was shot to death at a party just two miles from home.

Tom’s slaying has taken the Myerses first through the juvenile justice and then the adult court system, where their son’s 17-year-old killer was ultimately tried and convicted; to an immigration hearing in Arizona for one of the other party crashers, and up to Sacramento in April for a “Victims March on the Capitol.” Along the way, grief began translating into activism.

Ralph Myers is on the board of directors of Justice for Homicide Victims and a member of the National Rifle Assn.’s Institute for Legislative Action. Francine, block captain of her Neighborhood Watch group, has painted out graffiti with their daughter, Maria, 25. They are helping a North Hollywood couple, Jana and Ivan Shinkle, whose grandchild was killed in Kansas City, in starting a San Fernando Valley chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. The meetings take place the third Sunday of each month at 2 p.m. at Pine Grove Behavioral Healthcare System in Canoga Park.

The couple support tougher anti-crime legislation, including three-strikes laws, oppose conjugal visits for those imprisoned for violent crimes (“Our son will never have a wife or children”) and endorse the idea of a constitutional amendment addressing victims’ rights.

But their most satisfying, albeit difficult, work involves providing “hugs, hope and lots of listening” to the survivors of other slaying victims.

“I’ve had help and I just try to be there to help other people,” said Francine Myers, always quick to point out those even more devastated by slayings: parents who lose more than one child; families of victims whose killers are never caught; surviving relatives facing intimidation or taunts from fellow gang members of a suspect; and the young newlywed, just arrived from a foreign country with no family nearby, who is now a widow.

Ralph Myers has begun periodic visits to the California Youth Authority facility in Norwalk to talk to groups of inmates, a step for which Francine Myers says she is not quite ready.

“I want them to know the impact that their actions have on the victim, the family, the community, all of society,” Ralph Myers said. “I come away with the hope I can maybe prevent one of them from doing something violent and causing someone else the grief that we’ve been through.”

His visits have brought the grim knowledge that the community of survivors of slaying victims is everywhere.

As Myers concluded a recent presentation, an inmate approached him. It seems one of the young man’ssiblings had been slain and he wanted an address for Parents of Murdered Children so he could send it to his mother.

Personal Best is a weekly profile of an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. Please send suggestions on prospective candidates to Personal Best, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax it to (818) 772-3338. Or e-mail it to valley@latimes.com