When Ron Berman called me with this story, it sounded too far-fetched to be true. How could a woman get stabbed nearly to death a year ago, with seemingly no notice at all. He'd seen our piece on the Santos killing and saw some similarities to Marie Sabe's story.
But there was one big difference -- when Sharon Santos disappeared there was a huge outcry. We wrote many stories, her company offered a reward and there was general uproar. When Marie Sabe got stabbed 12 times at First Assembly Church of God, there was nothing. No LAPD press release, no word from the district attorney. We didn't even write a brief.
And who knows why? Perhaps the North Hollywood station was particularly busy that day and didn't give priority to spreading the word. They did their main job just fine, catching and arresting Bobby Miranda and finding enough evidence to bring him to trial. Maybe since it was just attempted murder at the time, the DA's press office didn't think it was high profile enough to highlight its prosecution. On our end, we were probably running after other stories, missed the scanner chatter and didn't get anything when we did our daily cop checks.
Whatever the case, after Sabe died of complications of her wounds in November, her loved ones vowed not to give up. They didn't want her death to go unnoticed, so they sued the church for allowing a known felon to live there without notice to the people who worked and prayed there. And that leads us to today's story. Here's the top for you:
NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Even in a house of God, Marie Sabe wasn't safe.
It was a Monday, just a regular day at work. She was wandering peacefully back to her office when Bobby Miranda surprised her.
She was tall and pretty; an earthy, healthy blonde working for a Christian record label renting space at First Assembly Church of God.
He was a convicted murderer, robber and rapist, seeking refuge at the church after earning parole a little more than a year earlier.
She knew the big man with the tattoo on his face, and had even loaned him money a few weeks earlier. He flashed the cash, then pushed her into his room.
"I want to show you something," he growled, according to court testimony. "Be quiet."
He produced a dirty, 4-inch kitchen knife. Over and over, he plunged it into her chest.
"I screamed for help," Sabe later testified. "I screamed my boss's name and I was beaten and stabbed and slashed practically to death."
It's been a year since the savage attack. Sabe is now dead, Miranda is in prison and Sabe's family has filed a civil suit for negligence against the church and its pastors for failing to notify her that there was a killer living on the grounds.
As we've explored before, this is a tricky legal situation. As Hans and I were discussing the other day, churches are usually a place where the downtrodden can go to seek refuge. Miranda, a two-time felon and sex offender, was certainly downtrodden.
But, as family attorney Bill McCord points out, that doesn't mean he should be absolved of his past sins.
"There's a conflict of laudable objectives," McCord said. "You can't fault the folks at the church for wanting to rehabilitate and save a soul. On the other hand, they have a responsibility to innocents in the zone of harm: they have to make sure they're not injured."
It's a fascinating problem, one for which I certainly don't have the solution. You can't just stick all the ex-cons on an island out in the middle of the ocean and leave them to their own devices. With our justice system, they've got to be allowed a shot at re-entering society and starting anew. Tragically, Mr. Miranda repeatedly proved he wasn't up to the task, but how could the church have known that at the time?
Berman's argument makes sense: that the church shouldn't be barred from helping people, but that it should disclose with whom it's working to the other folks who'll be impacted. But, as we've seen in the past, especially with sex offenders, people get rightfully uncomfortable with having ex-cons in their midst.
I'm very curious to see how this will play out, because of the precedent it could set for other churches and places of rehabilitation. In Miranda's case, he failed to take responsibility for getting himself straight, but I'm sure there are plenty of felons who sincerely want to put their past crimes behind them and move on with their lives. When they can't turn to a church or an aid group because people don't want it in their community, those ex-cons will be further marginalized and stand a greater chance of returning to their lives of crime.
But that's an issue for the scholars and the courts to fight about and resolve. In the meantime, I'm just glad to be able to share Sabe's story with you. It's been too long in coming, but at least people finally know what happened.
