LETTERS: MURDERER GETS MORE ATTENTION THAN PRESIDENT

To the editor:

Imagine my disgust when I opened Sunday's paper a saw that Page 1 was taken up with a 6 1/2-by-9-inch picture of Jerome Mallett, a murderer, and a 4-by-2 1/2-inch picture of our new president. That seemed to me and, I'm sure, to many others that the murderer of Jim Froemsdorf was much more newsworthy than the inauguration of our new president.

My heart goes out to the Froemsdorf family in having to again, 15 years later, relive the murder of their husband and father. I know the family and have admired and respected both Jim and his wife, Sarah, and the three girls. I feel the picture and article were insensitive to this wonderful family and their friends. Have you any idea of what all of them went through? Have you any idea what it feels like to never have closure on something this tragic?

I feel someone made a grave mistake in putting together the Sunday edition. I also feel that the Froemsdorf family deserves an apology. I know the Southeast Missourian is a better newspaper than what we received in Sunday's edition.

By the way, if you would like to read newsworthy coverage of the inauguration, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch presented a very newsworthy edition in reporting it, plus it printed in full the inaugural address.

BETTY DEARDORFF

Cape Girardeau