“If you support the death penalty because you think that [the victim families] are ever going to be healed by the murder of another person, that isn’t healing, that’s revenge. And revenge isn’t actually that sweet.”

Death Penalty Focus board member Bethany Webb explains why she is opposed to the death penalty despite the fact her sister, Laura, was killed, and her mother was wounded in the worst mass shooting in Orange County history.

On October 12, 2011, Scott Dekraai walked into the Meritage Salon in Seal Beach, and shot nine people, killing eight and injuring one. One of those killed was Laura, the one who was wounded was Beth and Laura’s mother, Hattie Stretz.

Dekraai, who pleaded guilty to the killings, was involved in a custody dispute with his ex-wife, Michelle Fournier, who worked at the shop, and was one of those killed. He told police the other eight he shot were “collateral damage.”

Despite his confession and guilty plea, then-Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas decided to seek the death penalty. Webb was always opposed to the death penalty, and even after it became a deeply personal issue, her opposition didn’t waver. But other victim family members were divided on the issue, Rackauckas persisted, and the capital case dragged on.

After Dekraai’s public defender uncovered extensive prosecutorial misconduct by prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies, his lawyers argued the death penalty should be ruled out because they couldn’t be trusted to turn over evidence that would help the defense. They asked for Dekraai to be sentenced to eight life terms without the possibility of parole.

The judge agreed. Six years after it began, in September 2017, the trial ended when Judge Thomas Goethals told Dekraai that, “The gates of Hell flew open and you emerged as the face of evil in this community,” and sentenced him to eight terms of life in prison without parole, with an additional 232 years to life for attempted murder and other charges.

For Bethany and her mother, now 87, who was shot in the chest, the life sentence and the end of the case “was so freeing.”