Murder on Abortion Row

(siren blares) >> Tonight on Frontline-- a shocking murder.

>> MAN: We've had a shooting at an abortion clinic in the... >> The victim... >> WOMAN: My name is Shannon Lowney.

>> The accused gunman... >> MAN: I'm not insane.

I'm not incompetent.

>> WOMAN: He said, "Mom, I was the thief on the cross with Jesus."

>> MAN: An absolute deformity of Christianity.

>> In the fevered climate of a holy war, two lives tragically collide.

>> Tonight, "Murder on 'Abortion Row.'"

>> Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by annual financial support from viewers like you.

This is Frontline.

>> PROTESTERS (chanting): Women will decide our fate.

Not the church, not the state, women will decide our fate... >> PROTESTER: Please give life to your unborn baby.

Please be a mother to your child.

Your baby has a heartbeat.

(phone ringing) >> RECEPTIONIST: Hello, Planned Parenthood.

Do you have an appointment for an abortion somewhere?

Okay, what we would do first is make you an appointment.

Okay, you can come here or you can go elsewhere, and then I'm going to have you speak with a counselor.

And what the counselor does... >> PROTESTERS: Not the church, not the state.

Women will decide our fate.

>> NARRATOR: There are three women's health clinics along a two-mile stretch of road in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Anti-abortion activists call it "Abortion Row."

(pro-choice and anti-abortion protesters shouting) >> WOMAN: The only time the protesters bother me...

I mean, I can forget that they're there... >> NARRATOR: Beth Waters is the head nurse at Planned Parenthood.

>> WATERS: ...is when I happen to walk through the door at the same time in the morning as someone who the protesters really affected, and that person is crying, and needs, you know, ten or 15 minutes just to get themselves recovered to even be able to fill out their forms or say why they're here.

>> WOMAN (shouting): Your baby is not a criminal.

Why should it receive the death penalty?

Don't let Planned Parenthood kill your baby.

Ask them to show... >> NARRATOR: Bill Cotter is a devout Catholic who has been a full-time anti-abortion activist for seven years.

>> COTTER: It just seemed very self-evident to me it was very wrong.

It was obvious that it was killing a human being, that life began at conception, and it didn't seem at all controversial to me.

>> PROTESTERS: Safe, legal and on demand.

Abortion rights throughout the land.

Safe, legal and on demand.

Abortion rights... >> WATERS: They say in the media, you know, there needs to be more debate about the... no, there doesn't need to be debate.

This is a legal choice and a legal right that women in this country have, to have an abortion, and we don't need any more debate about that.

We've had plenty of debate and the courts have said that this is legal.

>> MAN: Hiya, how are you doing?

>> NARRATOR: The clinics have been a battleground of protest and confrontation for years.

Lieutenant Bill McDermott has watched it from the beginning.

>> McDERMOTT: There were a constant group of people who showed up predictably, every day at every clinic at a certain time, and did what they had to do, whether it would be sing or pray or hold cards, and then leave.

You could set your clock by them, your watch by the time they came, by the time they left.

>> NARRATOR: He noticed nothing out of the ordinary about a young man in the crowd in early 1994.

>> McDERMOTT: I used to call them "mechanics" because they wore work boots, dungarees.

There was nothing unique about their dress.

They dressed like... like a mechanic would.

And what struck me about this group-- there was about seven to ten of them.

They were white males who got there early and didn't really mingle with the big body of the group, the prayer vigil people.

They always stayed on the outside.

Nothing he did caught my attention.

>> NARRATOR: Richard Seron, a security guard, had just finished target practice when he reported one day for duty at Preterm Clinic and saw the same young man.

>> SERON: I spotted a young man enter the front door, dressed in a black spy-type coat with lots of pockets and big cuffs.

This alarmed me right away.

He was acting kind of furtively, so what I did was to gaze at him and put my hand on the butt of my service revolver, and while he walked the length of the corridor, I tailed him and escorted him out the rear door from where he disappeared into the neighborhood.

>> COTTER: December 30, 1994, the Friday morning.

It was a cold winter morning, and as I typically was, I was down in front of the Preterm abortion clinic in Brookline with another individual.

We were sidewalk counseling there from about 6:30, 6:40 in the morning.

It was fairly uneventful.

>> MAN: She was sick and I told her to stay home, but it was just typical of her that she was afraid that somebody would call and not be able to get the help they need.

>> NARRATOR: David Keene was the boyfriend of Shannon Lowney, a 25-year-old receptionist at Planned Parenthood.

>> KEENE: I kissed her good-bye, and she ran across the street, and that's the last I... last time I ever saw her.

>> WATERS: I was in a procedure with the doctor, and I heard a funny noise.

I didn't hear the gunshots and neither did the doctor.

But I heard a funny... it was a funny yell for help.

And I said, "Can you check on that?"

and just as he was opening the door, one of the other nurses yelled in that she needed me also, and I started running out and she said, as we were... she's like, "And bring the emergency cart and the oxygen.

Shannon has been shot."

(sirens blaring) >> NARRATOR: Minutes later, the gunman appeared at a second clinic down the street.

>> WOMAN: He just came in that clinic, opened up the door and started shooting at anything he seen.

He did not hesitate.

He thought the office was open, so he would start shooting.

If I was in front of the lady, I would have got shot, too.

I think I was the only one that didn't get shot.

>> NARRATOR: Ed McDonough heard the news and rushed to Preterm where his fiancée, Leanne Nichols, worked.

When he got there he was sent on to the hospital.

>> McDONOUGH: Then they took me into a room and they asked me to ident... talk... to see what she was wearing.

They came in with her engagement ring.

Right then and there I fell.

I just... that was it.

I couldn't believe it.

>> NARRATOR: Leanne Nichols and Shannon Lowney were dead.

Five others had been critically injured.

>> PROTESTORS: Murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer, murderer... >> WOMAN: All of these people are to blame, and the blood of these women and the other people who were shot in Brookline is on your hands.

>> COTTER: I don't feel that I have anything to apologize for because I didn't do anything.

I mean, this thing was a great tragedy... >> MAN: I feel very sad.

When I got the news, I went to the chapel.

>> INTERVIEWER: You never thought it would happen here in Boston?

>> LAW: Nope.

>> NARRATOR: Bernard Law, the cardinal of Boston, was in his historic residence when he heard the news of the clinic shootings.

>> LAW: I immediately went to...

I went to the chapel and... and prayed, and I took a...

I took a...

I took a notebook with me.

I knew that it was going to be necessary for me to address this.

From my perspective, the violence of the killing of these two young women was part of a larger violence that I saw as an evil: the violence of abortion itself.

>> NARRATOR: Cardinal Law emerged from his chapel with a handwritten statement that called for a moratorium on anti-abortion protests outside the Brookline clinics.

>> MAN: Stop killing babies.

Stop killing babies.

You need to stop it.

>> NARRATOR: News of the moratorium spread quickly across the country.

And in Norfolk, Virginia, the cardinal's call for peace was scorned by Reverend Donald Spitz, an ex-Catholic turned evangelical Christian.

>> SPITZ: It was, like, the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of.

What would happen if the protesters were out there and they convinced a woman not to go in there and kill her child, and because of his words those protesters were not there, and that woman went in and killed her child?

Would the blood of that baby be on the hands of Cardinal Law?

I think he would have a part of that.

>> NARRATOR: That night in Boston, pro-choice supporters grieved.

At the two clinics where Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols had died earlier that day, the entranceways had become shrines to the first female casualties slain in the anti-abortion violence.

>> WOMAN: We're being murdered for exercising our right to choice.

We're being murdered for being women.

>> WOMAN: And I'm going to tell you that you can die from this simple, little surgical procedure; that they can perforate your uterus.

>> NARRATOR: The next day, 1,200 miles away in Norfolk, Virginia, Reverend Spitz and his followers were ending their protest outside a women's health clinic.

15 minutes later, a gunman suddenly appeared at the building's main entrance and sprayed the lobby with a hail of bullets.

Nobody was hurt.

Within 15 minutes, police surrounded a pickup truck and the gunman was arrested.

His name was John Salvi.

For Reverend Spitz, he was a divine intervention.

>> SPITZ: I personally believe that God brought John Salvi here because there was support for him for the concept of... that unborn babies deserve the same protection as born babies, by whatever means necessary.

>> MAN: I think probably the most remarkable thing to me is when Salvi came in here he was not a zealot.

I expected this guy to come in here and be full of fire and brimstone, and, you know, be screaming, "Jesus saves," and all that.

He didn't.

He was very quiet.

He didn't seem to have any particular interest in religion.

>> NARRATOR: Salvi was interviewed by a defense psychiatrist.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: So without the background, let me just come back and say, first of all, at some point do you plan to share what happened-- whether you did or didn't do the crime-- with your attorneys?

Or do you plan never to reveal that to them?

>> SALVI: My plea is a plea of silence.

There are certain questions which I just do not wish to answer.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: At any time, even if it's...?

>> SALVI: That does not indicate one way or the other.

"Did you eat at Burger King at 3:00 in the morning?"

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Silence?

>> SALVI: Silence.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Okay, I understand that.

But, you know, once you get to court... >> SALVI: What... How does that mean that I did eat there or didn't eat there?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: It doesn't.

>> SALVI: You know, in what way?

I... You know, I don't choose to answer certain questions, just as certain questions you asked me I didn't want to answer.

>> NARRATOR: During the first week after his arrest, John Salvi appeared quite normal during several court appearances.

>> MAN: I say he's in very good spirits.

He's an intelligent young man... >> NARRATOR: A Virginia public defender, Taswell Hubbard, was Salvi's first attorney.

>> HUBBARD: Otherwise I found him very competent and a very nice individual.

>> NARRATOR: But when Salvi arrived in Boston, his new attorney, J.W.

Carney, had a different answer.

>> CARNEY: I'm having real concerns about his mental health and his mental condition and his ability to serve as a defendant in a criminal case.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Let's just kind of get started and see how it goes here.

First, you're how old, Mr. Salvi?

>> SALVI: 22 years old.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Okay.

And were you employed at the time, before you ended up in jail?

>> SALVI: Oh, well, yes, I was.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: What were you doing?

>> SALVI: I'm a hairdresser, and, uh... an assistant.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Okay.

Where were you born?

>> SALVI: I was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on 03/02/72.

>> NARRATOR: Salvi grew up north of Salem, in Ipswich, Massachusetts, the only son of Anne Marie, a piano teacher, and John, a dental technician.

He attended St. Stanislav Roman Catholic church, where his grandfather played the organ and his mother was the choir leader.

Father John Jusseau was the parish priest.

>> JUSSEAU: He was a well-behaved child.

He was an only child but he, uh... and his parents spent so much time in wanting him to be a, uh... you know, a good citizen, a good member of the church, you know?

He was... he was an ideal child.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): He was a very religious boy.

He asked to become an altar boy.

And we thought that was wonderful, and we agreed to that.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: All the families knew one another, so it was like one big family, and when you attended Mass on Sunday, you got to see people you knew and loved, and, uh... it was a community activity as well as a religious activity.

>> JUSSEAU: But he was a very good altar boy and one who enjoyed serving, so it was... Everything was just fine, you know?

That's why it's so puzzling, what happened later on in his life.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Do you have any unusual beliefs as a Catholic, or is it pretty straight Catholic church in terms of your own attitudes?

>> SALVI: My beliefs as a Catholic would be more along the lines of exactly what the church has to say.

The pope went to a conference in Cairo, or some cardinals went there... >> PSYCHIATRIST: Mm-hmm.

>> SALVI: And I was for everything that they were for and against everything that they were against.

>> CONGREGATION (singing): The word has gone out with a shout, a shout and the sound of the trumpet... >> LAW: I think it's generally understood that the Catholic church is pro-life, that we respect every human being from the first moment of conception to the last moment of natural death and every moment in between.

For me the difference is a matter of life or death, so it matters profoundly.

And there's no way that I could walk away from that.

>> NARRATOR: Bernard Law had led the fight against abortion from the moment he became cardinal of Boston in 1984.

In his first public pronouncement, Cardinal Law described abortion as the primordial evil of our time.

(singing continues) The morning after the murders, Cardinal Law received a visit from Bill Cotter, leader of Operation Rescue.

>> COTTER: The day after the shooting, I went over to the cardinal's residence, rang his bell and asked to see him, and he showed me his statements that had in it a request for a moratorium.

How could anybody read this statement and not infer from it that it is our presence, our demonstrations, our rhetoric that is the catalyst for the shootings?

Because if you have the shooting and then you say, "Okay, get away from the clinic," it's a very natural conclusion to say, "Well, gee, the people in front of the clinic-- "the demonstrators, the picketers, the prayers, the counselors-- must be in some way a contributory factor."

>> LAW: I was giving what I thought was a reasoned explanation as to why I felt it would be best to refrain from this.

And I was appealing to people, individually and collectively, to consider what I had to say, with respect, and that's what I said basically to Mr. Cotter.

(commotion) >> NARRATOR: The cardinal and the Operation Rescue leader had been battling for years over the proper tactics the anti-abortion movement should use against the clinics.

Since 1988, Cotter had attempted to shut the clinics down by physical blockades and invasions, and had been arrested more than 40 times.

>> COTTER: If abortion is murder, we've got to really act like it's murder.

We've got to put our bodies on the line to make a tangible sacrifice, to make a tangible effort to actually stop the killing; not just hope that it will be stopped by a politician, or a judge or something, but if it's happening now, we've got to do something now.

>> NARRATOR: but in 1991, he broke a court injunction prohibiting such activity, and he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

In jail, Bill Cotter received an important visitor.

>> LAW: I had felt a certain admiration for persons who would feel so strongly about the pro-life movement that they would be willing to risk even imprisonment.

But I have never felt that it was appropriate for the church to be involved in organizing Operation Rescue activities.

I just felt that that was not right.

>> NARRATOR: Cardinal Law's call for a moratorium had now become a nationwide controversy.

The moratorium had already been endorsed by several new England bishops, but elsewhere in the country, the Boston cardinal's call for peace outside the clinics received little support.

In New York City, Cardinal John O'Connor, arguably the most powerful Catholic leader in the country, told pro-lifers in his diocese that they should continue their protests.

>> O'CONNOR: ...within the archdiocese of New York, in the vicinity of abortion clinics... >> NARRATOR: In Boston, Cardinal Law downplayed the controversy.

>> LAW: One is always happy when one's friends are with him... but as a matter of fact, that didn't occur, and that's fine.

I am archbishop of Boston, I'm not archbishop of New York, and they know that they're not archbishop of Boston, so I did what I needed to do.

(crowd cheering) >> WOMAN: I call this evening upon every political, moral and religious leader across the country and in Boston and Massachusetts to demand that the anti-abortion movement stop demonstrating in front of clinics.

>> NARRATOR: Nicki Nichols Gamble is president of the Boston chapter of Planned Parenthood.

(cheering) >> GAMBLE: And that the movement cease their inflammatory rhetoric that has fostered this climate that we must end.

We must end the climate of fear and violence.

(cheering) >> PROTESTERS (chanting): Remember Shannon Downey.

Remember Leanne Nichols.

Mass mobilization... >> NARRATOR: Outside the Brookline clinics, pro-choice activists commemorated the two victims.

Leanne Nichols would be remembered more privately, but Shannon Lowney had become much more a public figure.

(church bell tolling) >> WOMAN: Every single day, Shannon was a light in the lives of women in need of help, in need of comfort, in need of compassion.

It's that image we should take with us as we leave here today-- the warm reassurance that Shannon's light will not only live on in the lives of those she knew, but in the lives of every woman in America through a deep communion with the Planned Parenthood movement.

>> CLERGYWOMAN: Farewell, Shannon.

The world is better for your having lived.

We and all whose lives you touched are better for having known you.

We loved you living.

We love you now.

>> NARRATOR: Shannon Lowney was baptized in the Roman Catholic faith by her parents, whose ties to the church were strong.

Before meeting and marrying in their 30s, Shannon's father, Bill, a history teacher, had served a decade as a religious brother in the Holy Cross order.

Shannon's mother, Joan, a music teacher, had been a nun for ten years.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: I was brought up in a very strict Catholic family, and in the days in which I brought...

I'm a woman of my time, and in the time that I was brought up, I accepted dogma and I accepted the faith as it was presented to me.

But very early in my parenthood, I heard a Jesuit priest talk about parenting, and one of the things he said that affected me very much was that all of us as parents have a responsibility to pass on to our children the strongly held beliefs we have.

The children's responsibility is to reject that belief, try it out, examine it, wrestle with it and either come back to it or not.

>> BILL LOWNEY: And we really came that way ourselves in our own lives.

We made decisions that were sometimes contrary to the general public's vision of the way we should do things, but we've done that ourselves as individuals and we wanted to support that, and do support that with our own children.

>> NARRATOR: Shannon was very close to her older sister, Megan.

>> MEGAN LOWNEY: I think we had a great advantage in only being two years apart, and so our experiences were a lot the same.

We were seeing things from a similar age.

And I think, secondly, we were just born close.

>> NARRATOR: Liam Lowney was Shannon's younger brother.

>> LIAM LOWNEY: She was a very fun person.

You can see that in her childhood growing up when she was smiling all the time and she smiled throughout her life.

I think the smile says a lot about a person.

>> NARRATOR: In high school, Shannon Lowney had two passions she inherited from her parents: her mother's love for music and her father's specialty, history.

She was a straight-"A" student, but Shannon sometimes discovered she'd pay a price for her high achievements.

>> WOMAN: She had a very definite sense of what was right and what was wrong, from a very early age, and... kids are definitely eager to jump on that kind of a piety kind of thing going on, and I think she got stomped on for that a lot of times.

>> NARRATOR: Sue Solomon was Shannon's best friend from early childhood through high school.

>> SOLOMON: I remember there was a trip to Washington, and a bunch of girls had decided to kind of ditch another girl and leave her, kind of like, "Come on, let's go," and Shannon just wouldn't do it.

She wouldn't go.

So she spent the day with this girl, you know, and that's always the way she was, you know, kind of looking out for the little guy, making sure nobody was getting stepped on.

She was... she was very special.

>> NARRATOR: When he was 13, John Salvi and his parents moved to Naples, Florida, where they bought a modest bungalow in a middle-class neighborhood.

Salvi was struggling academically at Naples High School, but in his sophomore year he focused his energies on wrestling, the school's most prestigious sport.

He started on the junior varsity team.

Arthur Ogden was his coach.

>> OGDEN: John was, from my perspective, a model student.

I liked John.

I liked him a great deal.

John's temperament, when it came to wrestling, I think can be summed up in one word-- he was intense.

He did not like defeat, and many times I would find myself, after John had lost a match, trying to talk with him to point out some of the good things that he did.

No, he did not have a great record, but that seems to me to be secondary to what he was looking for.

And I kind of think he was looking for a personal identity.

>> NARRATOR: Paul Chamberlain became John Salvi's best friend.

>> CHAMBERLAIN: It was... he was taking the vitamins more, and the shakes, and mixing this, and it was God wanted him bigger is what it was, is what he would tell Donald and I.

God was making him lift the weights.

He was helping him get stronger, and we started thinking, "Well, John is getting a little weird."

>> JOHN SALVI (father): He was reading the Bible all the time.

He would carry a Bible with him to school and, you know, I thought it was a bit... maybe a little bit on the fanatical side to be reading all the time... reading the Bible all the time.

But then, if you're going to be a fanatic about something, Bible isn't a bad thing to be a fanatic about.

>> NARRATOR: In his senior year at high school, John Salvi walked away from his dream of becoming a star wrestler when he realized he couldn't make the varsity team.

>> OGDEN: He did not come and discuss it with me, but I could understand why he would leave, and I was very disappointed.

I did not have the opportunity to contact him.

When I finally did contact him, he just said that he had a job.

>> CHAMBERLAIN: He was constantly in church, or God wanted him to do this or God wanted him to do that, which basically isn't wrong, but it was to make him bigger and stronger and things like that.

He basically went his separate ways, and it was, "Hi, how you doing?"

in the hallways and that was basically all it was.

There was no more going out.

>> NARRATOR: When he graduated from high school, John Salvi was ranked 205th out of 265 students in his class.

Soon afterwards, Salvi enrolled in a fire academy.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): He tried to become a fire fighter.

He had passed everything.

And there was one last thing to do, and that was to run...

I think it was less than a mile; could've been a mile, but he had been a cross-country runner, and that would have been the absolute simplest thing in the entire test, and he couldn't do it.

And I was told that he just stopped, held his head and refused to do the run.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: What was the message you were anxious to put out at that time?

>> SALVI: Well, a few things that I don't think that the Catholic church is addressing.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: What is that?

>> SALVI: The financial persecution of Catholics... in this country as well as worldwide.

They know who the Catholics are, laying off certain Catholics.

This occurs also not only in the business world but also in the public school systems as well as police departments and fire departments.

It's a layoff procedure for Catholics.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: And how do you know this is going on?

>> SALVI: Everyone knows it's going on.

>> NARRATOR: When Shannon Lowney graduated from high school with honors, she chose to join her sister at Boston College rather than go to Notre Dame, her father's alma mater.

>> BILL LOWNEY: She really hated to not go to Notre Dame, so we had a tough night-- I remember that very well-- but I said to her, you can only walk in your own shoes.

>> NARRATOR: Boston College is a Catholic university run by the Jesuit order.

Their historic encouragement of rigorous intellectual pursuit also placed its staff and students in conflict with the church hierarchy.

One day Shannon wanted Kristin Korn, one of her roommates, to go to a protest rally.

>> KORN: The women were protesting the patriarchal society at Boston College and they were standing in a circle with one woman in the center holding up kind of a stuffed sheet on a pole.

She invited everyone to come in and do what they wanted to this representative of the patriarchy at B.C., and the women ran into the center of the circle screaming and kicking this object and spitting on it, and I was shocked and I think that a lot of the other people who were watching were shocked also, and Shannon was furious.

She was so upset.

She thought that that was just the sort of feminist ideal and attitude that was setting feminism back.

>> NARRATOR: But Shannon also had a running argument about the role of women with her 80-year-old grandfather.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: He came from a generation in which women were expected to be homemakers and were expected to support their husband.

And Shannon came from a generation and from her own personal philosophy that women were to be people in their own right.

So that was a discussion they had over and over and over again.

>> LIAM LOWNEY: Shannon went through what I referred to as, "the stage" that both my sisters went through where they became militant about feminism and issues like that, and I was only a high school kid and I didn't know much about it and really, at that point, didn't care.

However, I remember a time, coming back from my grandmother's house-- it was Megan, Shannon and I driving in the truck and I wanted us to drive faster so that we could get back and see Jack the Ripper-- it was some mini-series that was on-- and she went on... off on me for a good period of time about how I could watch something that glorifies a man that did such horrible things to women.

We had numerous fights about things like that.

>> NARRATOR: In her sophomore year, Shannon Lowney took a controversial course in radical feminism taught by Mary Daly, a theology professor at Boston College.

>> DALY: I was a feminist before one could use the word, before I even knew the word, when I was a little kid, when I would say, "Why can't girls be altar girls?

What's wrong with that?"

Then I no longer wanted girls to be altar girls or women to be priests, I just wanted out.

But that took a while.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: Mary Daly writes a good deal about "beyond God the Father."

The whole concept of God is not necessarily male.

So this idea of a woman who could call herself Christian or call herself Catholic, who could grow up in a culture but could still question it, this was very valuable to Shannon, because here was Mary Daly who had done something like that.

>> NARRATOR: Jennifer Mernell was Shannon's roommate.

>> MERNELL: She wasn't angry and negative about the Catholic church, she just had chosen... found something else through her knowledge and her education that suited her, that sat with her, that didn't create conflict for her.

It wasn't a negative, angry thing, it was just what she found through the course of her life.

>> DALY: She was a very, very quiet student, in my experience, and although I had many radical students the year that she was in my class-- in 1989-- overtly radical activists, she just didn't jump out in that way.

But the quiet ones are often the ones who are absorbing the most.

It's sinking in, it's organically developing, a radical feminist consciousness, and it blossoms later, and this was an astonishing example of that.

>> NARRATOR: Shannon had become a campus activist and she now wanted to stage a debate among male professors called "men and abortion."

The first person she approached was her history professor, Paul Breines.

>> BREINES: I have felt, in my numerous years at Boston College, that the issue of abortion is really the main issue which one, as a faculty member or as a student, really has to make a very conscious decision to take the risk to bring that subject up and to talk about it here.

I mean, it really...

I think it's the tabooed subject.

>> BREINES: That's not an answer.

You're just here harassing people.

>> PROTESTER: They're going in... that's a killing mill.

They're murdering babies every day.

>> BREINES: Murdering babies every day?

That's what's going on?

>> PROTESTER: Yes, what else is that?

>> NARRATOR: Breines was a pro-choice activist who often confronted pro-life protesters outside the clinics.

>> BREINES: Don't you have a mind of your own?

Do you have to listen to your organizer?

You can't speak?

>> PROTESTER: Hallelujah, hallelujah, Jesus is Lord.

>> BREINES: There's a thought.

>> BREINES: When I was a college undergraduate, my then girlfriend, who subsequently became my wife, got pregnant.

We tried to deal as responsibly as we could as 20-year-olds with that issue and we agreed that she would have an abortion and certainly after that point, for me, in a deep, emotional way, my commitment to the woman's right to a free and safe and hygienic abortion, as risky as it may be, is the best thing.

It seemed good for me, but I thought it was really best for women and that's why I'm pro-choice.

>> All human beings have a right to life.

Our unborn children are members of the human race.

They're human beings, so they have a right to life, or alternatively, to kill an innocent human being is intrinsically wrong.

An abortion kills an innocent human being, therefore it's intrinsically wrong.

>> NARRATOR: Shannon asked Peter Kreeft, a philosophy professor, to represent the pro-life view.

>> KREEFT: Women, like men, have a right to control their own bodies and my right to swing my fist ends at your nose.

And a man does not have another body inside of his womb because he doesn't have a womb and a woman does.

So there's a special case for a woman.

A woman has a responsibility and a privilege that a man doesn't have, of giving birth to another human being.

>> BREINES: From the standpoint of the anti-choice people, women tend to be recognized rather... almost not at all.

Um, that what's central is the womb, the fetus.

And I feel that women are not instruments or vessels for the production of infants, but people who give birth.

>> NARRATOR: Shannon then asked Louie Haag, an ex-Catholic priest teaching ethics, to participate in the debate.

>> HAAG: She made it fairly clear that she came down on the side of choice and one of the things that I tried to do was get her to go beyond that.

I suggested that the question was not pro-life or pro-choice; those are too simple.

I would argue that if the absence of brain wave is the medically and morally accepted criterion for death, that index ought to be equally important on the front end of the spectrum.

And we know that we do not have human brain wave activity until the beginning of the third trimester.

I am suggesting that abortion in the first two trimesters does not constitute morally the equivalent of homicide, of murder.

And that, I think, is where the debate must be engaged.

>> NARRATOR: In her senior year at Boston College, Shannon Lowney spent her Christmas break on a Jesuit missionary program which provided American college kids with their first experience in the third world.

In a diary she kept, Shannon wrote about her 12-day stay in a poor Ecuadorian village.

>> SHANNON (dramatized): "The stories the children have "told me already of dead brothers and sisters "ground me in the reality of their existence.

"Death is not sanitized here; it is part of daily life.

"The children clamor to take out our garbage, "surely to claim those things which we found unusable.

"Yesterday, we threw out a load of ant-infested candy "and today the children are eating it anyway.

"I am ridden with a dull guilt that I want to walk away "and never look back.

"Right now, I feel like "the smell that permeates my clothes, my hair, my skin "is something that has crept into my soul.

"I hope I can shake this misery without losing its impact on my point of view."

>> MEGAN LOWNEY: Her experience each day, waking up to the poverty and despair of the people with whom she was sharing those days was... it was really tremendous, and she was dropped in this place as an outsider, not to really effect change in 12 days, but to learn, and I think that had a really dramatic impact on her.

("Pomp and Circumstance" plays) >> NARRATOR: On a sunny June day in 1991, Shannon Lowney graduated from Boston College with a magna cum laude degree in history.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: Oh, her graduation from Boston College-- we were just so proud, I can't tell you how proud we were.

>> BILL LOWNEY: I was elated.

And she was, and she just smiled from ear to ear.

We gloried in her success, and it was a very, very, very special time in our own history.

("Pomp and Circumstance" playing) >> NARRATOR: Three and a half weeks after her murder, the president of Boston College, Father Donald Monan, had decided to personally conduct a memorial mass for Shannon.

The Jesuit's decision to memorialize a clinic worker set off an immediate media controversy with Bill Cotter of Operation Rescue.

>> COTTER: Well, we said in the press release that the Mass in honor of Shannon Lowney was scandalous and in a sense sacrilegious because it was using the sacrament of the Eucharist to bestow honor on the life and by extension the work of Shannon Lowney, and that work was the procurement of abortions.

That really is a betrayal of the Jesuit tradition.

It's a betrayal of the Catholic tradition, and it's something that's really remiss in a shepherd of the church.

>> LAW: From everything I know, this was a young woman who was doing what she thought was right.

Do I think that it's a good thing, in and of itself, for a Catholic to be working in an abortion clinic?

Well, clearly, I think not.

>> COTTER: I think it's valid to ask this question: Had Boston College been truly and faithfully a Catholic college, truly and faithfully teaching the Catholic faith, would Shannon Lowney be alive today?

>> JOAN LOWNEY: Shannon believed in people's having strongly held beliefs.

She would appreciate those strongly held beliefs and so do we.

But despite the fact that those people believe it was inappropriate for a Catholic college to acknowledge her passing, I personally am very grateful to Father Monan for focusing on the fact that she was a young woman who lived out her beliefs and respected that.

They said, "This bright and caring young woman was snatched away and we mourn her passing."

>> NARRATOR: In Naples, Florida, John Salvi still lived at home with his parents and worked part time for a family friend, Mark Roberts.

>> ROBERTS: He was working for me as a workout more so than a job.

He liked the idea of what I did gave him a workout on a daily basis or whatever.

When he came to work for me, he was getting into bodybuilding and that type thing.

I learned that he was the type of guy that if I, for a day, would give him a list of things I wanted done, he'd always get them done.

I could not stand over him and tell him how to do something, though.

It never worked with him.

He had to do things his own way.

>> NARRATOR: But Mark Roberts had no reason to be suspicious when his employee wanted to buy his .22 caliber semi-automatic.

>> ROBERTS: I took it one time to shoot and I took John Salvi with me and we went out in the woods and shot some cans and that kind of thing, but at the time that my wife was pregnant, I just decided I didn't want it in the house.

And I debated getting the gun destroyed, but I thought, "Well, it's going to..." He had asked about it and wanted it and I thought, "Well, it's going to a good family, I know the family."

I never thought that it would get in any kind of trouble or anything like that.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: A couple of times he came to the dinner table and I was fixing dinner and he said to me, "Mom, are you trying to poison me?"

and I looked at him and I said, "John, why would you think a thing like this?"

and he wouldn't answer, he wouldn't reply, he wouldn't...

I wouldn't get any feedback.

There were times I would get so angry with him, I would yell at him at the top of my lungs.

It was a feeling that I had, like I wanted to shake him and just get a reply, but I wasn't getting a reply.

There was no feedback.

>> ROBERTS: At the same time that was happening, his personality completely changed.

He got to where he could go into a rage.

I was very careful of what I said to him.

He would just blow off.

You would be afraid when you were around him sometimes, but then on the other hand, he could be so nice and it was just kind of, you got used to dealing with that.

>> NARRATOR: One day on a job site, John Salvi exposed himself to a woman.

>> ROBERTS: I believe what he had started to do was he basically was going to urinate off the roof, which that's bad enough, but a lady starts yelling back at him and I then peek over just as he's pulling his pants back up.

She told me what he had done in front of her and I decided at that point, I had a problem, and, uh, I was actually afraid to tell him that I was going to fire him or whatever, and he worked in such a situation where it was just part-time, and I decided that what the best thing to do was I just told him that work was slowing up and he ought to go find something else, and that was just the way I...

I was afraid he'd come back or do something to me or whatever, so I was trying to part on good terms with him.

>> NARRATOR: John Salvi needed a new start and decided to move back to Ipswich, Massachusetts, where he had spent his childhood.

In Ipswich, Salvi moved to a second-floor room in an uncle's house.

It was right next door to a garage owned by his cousin, Charlie Hall.

>> HALL: I never thought John Salvi would become the kind of headline news that he is because while he was around here, he was a quiet person and never seemed to have giant aspirations, never thought he would do anything quite like that.

>> NARRATOR: Salvi used to drop by Charlie's garage to borrow tools for his truck.

>> HALL: I thought he was a pretty hard-working guy.

He always seemed to have a job, was always keeping himself busy.

He seemed to be a pretty normal guy in most respects.

We never discussed abortion.

I did notice that he had a certain strong anti-abortion sentiment, especially considering the fact that those stickers were on the back of his truck.

>> NARRATOR: The anti-abortion stickers on Salvi's truck were the first outward signs of his interest in the abortion issue.

Three months later, when his parents arrived for a visit, they noticed another change in their son.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): His apartment was the filthiest place I've ever seen.

There were maggots everywhere.

Food was stuck to things and the rubbish had never been taken out, and he hadn't bathed in God knows how long.

He said, "John the Baptist lived in the desert on grasshoppers and honey," and he said, "and he didn't bathe all the time and he didn't," uh... "And he was the finest man that ever lived, one of the finest men that ever lived."

And I said, "Well, you have to clean this place."

His mother and I cleaned it.

>> NARRATOR: Salvi now had a landscaping job, driving spikes through railroad ties.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): He said that he had asked God to tell Satan that every time he drives a stake, a spike with a sledgehammer into this railroad tie, that that would be like a spike going through Satan's heart, and as he said that, uh, he also prayed that Satan would know that it was he who drove the spike.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: I said, "Don't think about Satan."

I said, "It's frightening to think about Satan."

I said, "Read, think about Jesus.

"Think about love.

"Think about nice things.

"Don't think about Satan.

It's too frightening."

And then he thought a couple of minutes and he said, "Mom," he said, "I guess it wasn't very smart of me to challenge Satan."

>> SALVI: Now, a Catholic girl that gets an abortion is not bright... at all.

For the main reason is, you don't want to be outnumbered too much.

Abortion in a great way is wiping out the Catholic church.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Now, do you, do you oppose abortion... >> SALVI: Catholics have the wrong outlook on life.

They'll say, "If we're not financially ready, we won't get married."

That's not what you say.

The Catholic people are weak, very weak.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Listen to my question.

>> SALVI: You have to have a government, you have to have a structure in society.

We can't be a bunch of monkeys.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Okay, do you oppose abortion only for Catholic individuals or for all individuals?

>> SALVI: Do I oppose... could you please repeat that?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Do you oppose abortion only for Catholics or for all individuals?

>> SALVI: I would advise all individuals not to.

I don't think it's good.

That's my opinion.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Okay.

>> PROTESTER: You mothers will never be the same after your baby's dead and gone!

(anti-abortion protesters shouting simultaneously) >> NARRATOR: In Brookline, Massachusetts, a women's health clinic run by Planned Parenthood had an opening for a receptionist.

Clinic director Alice Verhoeven interviewed Shannon Lowney for the job.

>> VERHOEVEN: I remember thinking that here is this woman from an Irish Catholic family, a graduate of B.C., and it was somewhat ironic that she was applying for a job at Planned Parenthood and I talked with her about those issues.

How would her family feel?

>> MEGAN LOWNEY: As children, we were given the choice to choose our own spiritual path, and I think that was tremendously freeing for us, and so I think that was an experience early on in our lives where we felt we had choice and we were empowered by that choice, so as a person growing and developing her own way of thinking and believing, Shannon really believed everyone had choice and everyone needed to have choice.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: That's why she worked there without a blink of an eye.

But the picture for Shannon at Planned Parenthood was broader than the abortion issue, and that's important.

She was there to serve women, in a very broad context, whether it is to help them get some basic medical care that they need, whether it is to get a screening for cervical cancer.

I mean, there were many reasons to go to Planned Parenthood, but if it came to the abortion issue, if it was for an abortion, Shannon fully agreed with their right to have that, and she treated them with respect if that's what their choice was.

(protester shouting) >> NARRATOR: Inside the clinic, Shannon Lowney and her co-workers did their best to cope with the effects of the protesters outside.

>> PROTESTER: Don't kill your baby!

Don't kill your baby!

>> WATERS: They call it sidewalk counseling, and they're not counseling anyone.

They're showing horrible pictures of fetuses.

The average patient that comes in here is nowhere near that pregnant, and they have to walk through that... >> PROTESTER: Honey, please, come out.

>> WATERS: And they have to be told that they're killing their baby, they have to be told that these people are going to help them.

How are they going to help them?

Are they going to take them into their homes?

No, they're not doing that.

They just give them pamphlets.

That's what they do.

It's not sidewalk counseling, it's harassment.

>> VERHOEVEN: Our phone staff and our reception staff are absolutely critical to give the first signal to patients that we are a good place to come to, that we welcome them and we care about them.

She was a master at handling the phone calls and the reception of people walking into the clinic.

She had an innate ability to connect with people in a very short period of time.

>> PROTESTER: Remember one thing and don't ever forget it: the judgment of God is on your household.

>> MEGAN LOWNEY: Her first reaction was to try to reason and say, "Why is it that you believe that way?

"I believe differently.

Can we talk about this?"

And so as she first started at Planned Parenthood, she would actually greet the protesters and kind of have a dialogue, attempt to have a dialogue.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: "Do you understand "what's going on in here?

"This is not an abortion clinic, this is a women's health center.

"Do you understand the other kinds of work we do?

"Do you understand that the Supreme Court has said "that women have a right to seek health care and abortions, too, if that's their choice?"

And when she could not engage them in dialogue, this was a source of enormous frustration to her.

>> NARRATOR: At Repro Associates, another women's health clinic down the street from Planned Parenthood, Leanne Nichols decided she needed a change.

She'd worked for four years as a telephone counselor, but now she wanted a different job.

She was encouraged to try another field altogether by her friend Eileen MacDougall.

>> MACDOUGALL: I spoke to her on several occasions and tried to get her to at least give me her resume, because I was working at a financial institution.

It was much closer for her and a much better commute.

And I said, you know, "Let me see what I can find for you here," but I could never even get her to send me a resume.

Leanne's commitment was to working in clinics.

>> NARRATOR: In September 1994, Leanne Nichols went to the third clinic on Brookline's main street, Preterm, where she became the receptionist.

>> MACDOUGALL: She had a very sweet voice.

You know, if you look at a picture of her, she has a very sweet face, and "sweet" is probably the word you'll hear consistently.

Leanne was just a sweet type of person.

>> NARRATOR: Leanne Nichols was the first sweetheart for her fiance, Ed McDonough.

>> McDONOUGH: in 1987, we went to a Red Sox game and I happened to sit next to Leanne.

We went on a date the following week, and she brought me a flower.

It was the nicest thing that anyone ever gave me.

No one ever brought me a flower.

We just spent our whole time together ever since then.

>> NARRATOR: The couple began to build a future together when they bought a small cottage in rural New Hampshire.

>> McDONOUGH: Our house was a fixer-upper, but we didn't really mind working on this house.

It was a nice place for our cat.

Butterscotch was our little kid.

Our little kid.

Leanne loved that cat more than anything.

We had little nicknames for each other.

She was "Mommy Scotch" and I was "Daddy Scotch."

We just wanted to start living, you know, the American dream.

To live, work and survive.

>> NARRATOR: Shannon now had a boyfriend, David Keene.

They'd met working part time at a pizzeria during college.

David says he fell in love with her smile.

>> KEENE: It was contagious.

She smiled and other people smiled, or she laughed and other people laughed.

She really-- not even trying-- could change the world around her by just being herself.

I was worried that there's no way she would want to be with me, you know.

Here she was, this brilliant student doing all these-- even then-- going to Ecuador, being involved in school and I was hard-pressed to, you know, show up at work and make it to one class a week, or...

The single reason why I actually had the drive to push for a college degree was Shannon.

>> NARRATOR: At the clinic, Shannon settled into a routine and was now a familiar figure to protesters outside.

Operation Rescue was no longer attempting blockades, but instead staged prayer vigils and demonstrations on the sidewalk.

(protesters singing) >> WOMAN: No, no problem.

I can take all the pictures I want.

It's a free country, isn't it?

>> MAN: It is, to a certain degree.

>> WOMAN: Oh, no, it ain't no certain degree!

You make me!

You make me shut up!

>> WOMAN: You know, I take pictures of everybody that's out there and... You know, just for my album and stuff.

>> NARRATOR: Barbara Bell is a veteran Operation Rescue activist who's been arrested 33 times, and she quickly sized up a new protester who'd appeared outside the clinic one morning.

>> BELL: I met John Salvi in front of Planned Parenthood.

You know, the second Saturday of every month, we have a prayer vigil where the Catholics come out.

I went over to him and asked him, you know, introduced myself and talked to him for a few minutes, and this kid was very hostile even then.

I took pictures of him.

He got very, very upset and started cussing and swearing and yelling at me and didn't want his picture taken.

And when the prayer group came in sight, I had said to one guy, I said, "John, please, watch this kid here."

I said, "This kid is off-base.

"There's something wrong with him.

"He's not in tune with the rest of us.

"He's not here for prayer.

"I don't know what he's here for, "but he was just cussing and swearing at me and I just don't trust him in what's going on."

That was the first time I met John Salvi.

>> NARRATOR: John Salvi had moved into another community closer to the clinics, and was living in a rooming house in Everett, Massachusetts, a working-class town on the edge of Boston.

Mary Stoddard was John Salvi's landlady.

>> STODDARD: He was a very nice, quiet gentleman and he always paid his rent on time and very polite.

He always called me "Miss Mary" and he went out with a couple of girls.

One girl lived here and one didn't.

>> NARRATOR: Arlene Anderson dated John Salvi for a few months.

>> ANDERSON: He was a very loving human being-- very caring, loved children, very polite.

Couldn't say a bad thing about him, the time I knew him.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: I did meet one of his girlfriends, Arlene, and, uh, she said to me, she said, "I just want you to know, Mrs. Salvi, that John is such a gentleman."

And I felt happy about that.

Those were nice words for a mother to hear.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): Very nice girl.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: Very nice girl.

And, uh, I was glad to see he was dating someone.

>> NARRATOR: In August 1994, John Salvi came to a Roman Catholic church just a few blocks down the street from the Everett, Massachusetts, rooming house where he still lived.

Father Edmund Sviokla, the parish priest of Immaculate Conception, met for 15 minutes with Salvi in his rectory office.

>> SVIOKLA: He came here and he wanted to preach at all of the masses, and I told him that was absolutely out of the question.

I mean, he just was not qualified to do that.

He was not pleased, uh, because he thought that he could really educate these people as to how terrible abortion was.

>> NARRATOR: During a visit to Everett, Salvi's parents urged their son to move out of his rooming house.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): We told him we'd like him to get an apartment.

That way, he'd be able to cook and have his own bathroom.

Well, he did get the apartment.

And we went out and helped buy things for the apartment that he needed.

We saw him the next day and he said, uh... he looked terrible.

He says, "I was up all night."

Evil was at the... in the apartment trying to get him.

He said, "I was up all night praying and reading the bible to keep the evil back, away."

>> NARRATOR: John Salvi soon appeared at a Baptist church a mile and a half down the street from Immaculate Conception.

Reverend Tom Coots, pastor of Glendale Baptist, was just starting a Sunday service when he saw Salvi for the first time.

>> COOTS: I noticed when John came in he had something in his hand and he was trying to get my attention.

And I ignored him, because I was afraid he might interrupt our service.

During the prayer time, John Salvi gave another gentleman in our service this rolled item which he had, and this gentleman is a gentleman that is really, uh, against abortion.

He immediately started weeping and crying, and that is when he handed me the picture.

I first got a very sick feeling, because the picture was a picture of an aborted baby, but I was quite sick about it.

And then John left.

>> NARRATOR: John Salvi's parents had purchased a 40-foot mobile home and decided it might be good for their son if they took him on a tour across America.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): The trip was, uh...

He didn't talk to us.

When he did, it was repetition over and over of things in the Bible.

And that went on to the point where you'd want to start screaming.

At least I did.

So maybe that says something about my mental health.

But...

I just couldn't listen to it anymore.

Uh, we went to Las Vegas as part of our trip.

He said, "It's an evil place," wanted to get out of there.

He said the only thing he was doing was, he'd read the Bible and he'd take the dog for a walk, and he spent the rest of the time in the trailer.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: I said, "John, you just can't stay.

"It isn't healthy, "It isn't healthy for you to stay in the trailer.

"it's wonderful to read the Bible, "but you can't just read the Bible and walk the dog, read the Bible and walk the dog."

And he said, uh, he was sitting at the dinette, and he had his Bible open in front of him.

And he said, uh, "Mom..." He was-- desperation in his voice-- he said, "Mom," he says, "Don't you understand?

I was the thief on the cross with Jesus."

And what could John and I say?

Uh... We were rendered speechless.

We didn't know what to think, what to do.

>> SALVI: There's no reason, uh, that anyone would think I was insane.

I've never acted insane or carried myself in an insane way.

Why would they think I was insane?

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: We thought, if he...

If he isn't mentally ill, how are we to know, and that'll...

There's such a stigma, and it's so difficult to find a position.

You just can't find employment.

>> SALVI: Does that mean you're crazy now?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Let me answer.

>> SALVI: That's called a fifth-amendment right.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Let me answer your question.

>> SHANNON LOWNEY: Uh, my name is Shannon Lowney, and I work for a group called Advocates for Children, and Advocates is the child abuse prevention counsel for Androscoggin County.

And as an educator, it's my role to go into classrooms like this one... >> NARRATOR: Shannon Lowney had quit her job at Planned Parenthood to move to Lewiston, Maine, where her boyfriend, David Keene, had found a job.

>> SHANNON: ...and how we can prevent child abuse from happening in the first place.

>> WOMAN: She related to the kids wonderfully.

They were very interested to hear what she had to say.

>> NARRATOR: Nadine Edris had hired Shannon to talk to teenagers in local high schools about sexual abuse.

>> EDRIS: And Shannon was able to do it in a way that the kids could really get a lot of information, and they were also very interested in her as a person.

>> SHANNON: If you see the kinds of stuff that can happen to kids who are abused, you feel alone, you feel like you don't have anybody to talk to, as we said, you're afraid you won't be believed... >> MEGAN LOWNEY: She was really having a sense of impact with the people that she was working with.

At the same time, she was growing herself and saying, "I'm pretty good at this, "and I think I can find a place in this world for me "to talk about the truth, "to empower people to move themselves "from situations of oppression and abuse "and, you know, whatever it was that was keeping them from really developing themselves."

>> SHANNON: You have a right to say no to any unwanted sexual touch, okay?

What's important to remember, though, is that it's not your responsibility to say no.

It is not your responsibility to tell someone, it is not your responsibility to get away or to say no, but these are your rights.

>> LIAM LOWNEY: Shannon became a vegetarian in college.

She had a book called The Politics of Meat.

And animals have rights.

Here we go-- rights, rights, rights.

She would sit there and riddle me for a good half an hour at dinner when I'd be eating my burger or steak or whatever it might be at the time.

And then always finish the conversation with, "I'm only saying this because I love you."

You know?

And I would really question that while she was talking to me.

Um, I was quite an antagonist, though.

Of course, with both of my sisters, I would put my meat right in front of their face-- my hamburgers and turkey or whatever-- right in front of their face and try to get a rise out of them, so I guess I was deserving of anything she said.

But she only said it because she loved me.

>> WOMAN: Shannon did not like my husband being a hunter.

She did not like him killing anything-- didn't, doesn't agree.

>> NARRATOR: Hallie Twomey is David Keene's younger sister.

>> TWOMEY: She didn't like the fact that we have guns in the house, even though they're locked up and kept out of sight, out of mind.

She thought that was terrible of us, and really upset my husband to the point of he wouldn't even discuss it with her.

He just said, "It's my life, my thing and that's it.

You have to respect that."

But she would go to every extent to let us know that she didn't agree with it and that she wanted them out of the house, and just, you know, I've always thought it's kind of ironic the way things turned out.

You know, it's so sad, but my husband is a responsible gun owner, and his idea was "What I believe is my belief, "and if you don't believe that or understand, well then that's fine," but... Yeah, she wanted us to get rid of the guns.

>> NARRATOR: On a visit home to Florida, John Salvi dropped by his old boss Mark Roberts' to show off the gun that Roberts had sold him.

>> ROBERTS: He had told me that he had changed it himself.

He had taken the gun and cut the stock as far as the wood part of it down, and it was a brown color originally and it was a pretty gun, and he had literally changed it, uh, in length and that, and he just painted the whole thing black, and he had put the silencer on the end of it, and he said he was using it out in the woods to shoot cans and wasn't disturbing anybody.

So it kind of bothered me when he showed me the gun, but I didn't think anything of it.

And that was the last time I saw the gun, and actually the last time I saw him, too.

>> NARRATOR: The first gun in the war against abortion clinics went off in Pensacola, Florida, 630 miles north of John Salvi's hometown.

In march 1993, Michael Griffin killed Dr. David Gunn.

But in the radical fringe of the anti-abortion movement, a statement supporting the murder circulated.

>> MAN: I believe it was morally justified, and that's the truth, and often the truth does seem extreme in a decadent culture that... >> NARRATOR: It was originated by Paul Hill, a fundamentalist Christian minister, and signed by 30 radical pro-life leaders from across the country, including Donald Spitz of Norfolk, Virginia.

>> SPITZ: I believe what Michael Griffin did would be analogous to someone going up and shooting a Nazi guard-- shooting some Nazis, trying to save the innocent Jews.

I believe this in that same vein, and I can understand perfectly why somebody would do that.

It makes perfect sense... makes perfect sense to me.

>> NARRATOR: In July 1994, Paul Hill murdered Dr. John Britton and a security guard during a protest outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida.

>> HILL: Now is the time to defend the unborn the same way you'd defend slaves about to be murdered.

>> REPORTER: Mr. Hill, why did you do it?

Why did you do it?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Tell me, a few months ago, a man in Florida killed a doctor who performed abortions.

Do you recall?

I don't remember his name.

>> SALVI: No, what was that?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Do you remember reading about it?

Reading about it, he shot a physician to death, and he was charged and convicted of murder.

>> SALVI: Uh... >> PSYCHIATRIST: Do you recall reading about it?

>> SALVI: Huh.

Uh, I've heard different things in the paper about different individuals doing stuff like that.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Okay.

Do you support that kind of conduct or not?

>> SALVI: Do I support it?

That's a question that I, uh...

I don't know.

Does the Pope support it?

If the Pope supported it, I support it.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: All right.

>> SALVI: Well, how does the Pope feel about it?

>> LAW: I think what we have is we have a person who decided to do something which was wrong, and decided to do a wrong thing in a very misguided way because of something that is good, and that is the defense of human life.

>> MAN: Hail Mary, full of grace... >> LAW: Does that mean that everything that contributed to that good therefore is to blame?

I don't think so.

I don't think anyone could rationally say that.

>> DALY: He has to disassociate himself from John Salvi, but he's not really, in my opinion, in a different position from Salvi.

Essentially, Salvi is a product of that mind-set and that kind of education.

He's a little altar boy who maintained his extremely conservative views to the utmost and followed through on them.

So I think they're on a continuum.

>> VERHOEVEN: I absolutely hold many other people responsible for the crime and the crimes.

Um, he may have pulled the trigger, but he was part of... he was incited, I believe, by the movement.

He was moved by the rhetoric.

And I think that there are other people out there who are potential Salvis who are being moved by the rhetoric, by the hate.

>> NARRATOR: In her diary, Shannon wrestled with the issue of violence.

>> SHANNON (dramatized): "I cannot get over "the stumbling block of the futility of violence "in any other context than direct self-defense.

"I do not understand how violence can bring about change "in the mind of someone on the other side of a dispute.

Hate is a destructive force in and of itself."

>> NARRATOR: Shannon also wrote about a recurring nightmare she had.

>> SHANNON (dramatized): "In my dream "of being chased and killed, "the man chasing me either wears a mask or has no face.

He seems to be shooting, and I always awake in a sweat."

>> NARRATOR: In September 1994, Alice Verhoeven received a phone call from Shannon, who was moving back to Boston.

>> VERHOEVEN: It was one of those calls out of the blue, and we were actually looking for someone at the time.

Our receptionist had just resigned and we were looking for someone, and Shannon called and I remember walking through the halls and saying, "Guess who's coming back!"

I couldn't have been more delighted.

>> NARRATOR: In September 1994, John Salvi packed up his pickup truck and moved out of his rooming house on the edge of Boston.

After an hour's drive north, Salvi arrived in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, a seaside resort town that in the cheap off-season is a lonely haven for drifters.

Salvi moved into a bachelor apartment, where Jeff Marshall, a 19-year-old laborer, was his downstairs neighbor.

>> MARSHALL: I thought he was gay.

I'll be honest with you, I did.

I had nothing against that as far as that goes, but I mean, I just thought he was kind of feminine as far as, you know...

I mean, he was very quiet, you know.

I never saw anyone come in the building with him, leave with him.

I mean, no noise coming from his apartment.

>> NARRATOR: During the day, John Salvi attended a beauty school to become a hairdresser and after school worked part time as an assistant at a local hair salon.

Rick Griffin was his boss.

>> GRIFFIN: At the beginning, the people in the salon thought, "Well, gee, he's odd."

And he did have a certain oddness about him, but it was mainly that he was so quiet.

And, uh, you know, he's only a young kid and we figured we could bring him out of that a little bit.

>> NARRATOR: Jesse Marcoux, a hair dresser, used to play backgammon with Salvi during breaks.

>> MARCOUX: I don't know, he just didn't look like a hairdresser, didn't have the people skills to be a hairdresser.

You got to talk to people if you're going to cut their hair.

"How do you want it?

", right?

John had a hard time doing that.

>> GRIFFIN: He never really mentioned abortion in the salon, and only a few times after other people in the salon had noticed the picture on his truck did it become a topic of conversation amongst the employees.

>> MARCOUX: I saw the picture and I asked him one day what it was, and he told me it was a picture of Jesus.

A picture of a fetus didn't quite look like a picture of Jesus, but I wasn't going to push it.

I just said, "All right," and let it go.

>> NARRATOR: On December 11, 1994, John Salvi attended an office Christmas party hosted by Rick Griffin.

>> GRIFFIN: He was drinking, like, straight vodka with a little bit of cranberry juice, no ice or anything, and, um, so he was unusually gregarious.

And one of the girls who also had been to another party, and she came pretty much in a good mood, she thought, "Well," she said to some of the other people around, "Well, I'm going to bring John out of his shell."

So she grabs John, gives him a great big kiss, and it lasts like about ten seconds and, uh, the minute, you know, John comes up for air he just says, "Will you go home with me tonight?"

and it was very strange, because, you know, we were just, everyone just sat there and laughed, you know, the people that were there.

And instead of acting like he was being made fun of, he just sort of went along with it.

And everyone wondered if it was a joke, but he pursued this girl, and the odd part of it is the girl was married and everything and she was, uh, she said, "John, I'm married, I have two kids-- that was just a Christmas kiss."

>> MARCOUX: He never talked about his past at all.

He never said nothing about his family or any friends.

Because I asked him, I said, "do you got a girlfriend?"

He'd say no.

I'd say, "You got a boyfriend?"

he'd say no.

I'd say, "How about a dog?"

you know.

He'd say no to that.

(laughing) Just... strange kid.

>> NARRATOR: In Fairfield, Connecticut, Shannon Lowney spent a special Christmas with her family.

>> LIAM LOWNEY: No, Shannon had this big brainstorm.

Everyone would buy each other a present, but you can only spend $20.

Now, we knew we were, you know, gypped, because that meant Shannon would only spend $20 on each of us, so... um, we went along with it and it actually turned out very nice, because every present was so thoughtful.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: And Shannon came up with wonderful gifts, and we opened them slowly, one at a time, and laughed a lot about it.

>> BILL LOWNEY: Well, that's been sort of a history in the family with my two daughters-- that I always give them a flannel nightgown at Christmas to keep them warm.

>> MEGAN LOWNEY: So, you know, it was the same as always, but she really was such a strong young woman with such future.

It's very clear in my own memory looking back at Christmas when I saw her that she was herself, you know-- finally becoming herself.

>> NARRATOR: At the beauty salon, John Salvi had a new boss, Doreen Potter.

>> POTTER: Um, my first impression of him was that he was like a stick of dynamite fixing to go off.

John Salvi scared me just by the way that he was, and I felt very uncomfortable being alone with him in the room.

>> NARRATOR: Potter's fears were realized on the afternoon of December 23.

>> POTTER: The guy said that he needed a haircut and John said he was doing it, and I said, "No, you won't be doing this haircut," and that someone else would be doing it.

And he got kind of angry and he came from around the counter and he grabbed the guy by the back of the coat and ripped his coat off of him.

And the guy, at that point, was like, you know, "If you had a bad day, don't take it out on me."

And I kind of looked at John.

I was, like, "What are you doing?"

And he came up to me and he said, "I'm sorry, it doesn't happen very often."

And in my mind I'm thinking, "Okay, John, how often does this happen?"

And it was like 30 minutes after that his parents came in, and I know if it was my parents coming in from out of town, I'd be excited-- you know, hug, shake hands, something like that.

And there was no emotion whatsoever with his mother and father, and that was my opportunity to say, "John, why don't you just go ahead, take some time off, spend it with your family."

>> NARRATOR: On December 24, John Salvi and his parents attended a Christmas Eve mass at a small Roman Catholic church in Seabrook, New Hampshire.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): It was like a nightmare.

We went to the 5:00 mass.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: it just happened so suddenly.

It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

One minute he's singing, and the next minute I could see him getting extremely agitated.

>> MAN: I heard a disturbance next to me with some profanities which obviously you never hear in church, and, uh-- especially on Christmas Eve-- and I just sort of, uh, thought I was hearing things at first, but then I heard a second profanity and I observed a woman grabbing a younger man, and the younger man spun around and went walking very deliberate down the center aisle towards the altar.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: I immediately went to see my husband, and I said, "John, you've got to get up there.

"John's in the-- he just, he just stomped down the aisle and he's screaming."

>> YOUNG WOMAN: And I was just standing there, thinking, "This man is not doing something normal.

"He's going to walk up and do something funny.

I don't know what it is, but I think he has a gun."

because he had both his hands in his pockets, and he just kept going.

>> NARRATOR: Kathleen O'Donahue, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, was standing at the back of the church.

>> O'DONAHUE: And just the whole time I was ready to drop to the floor, because I thought he had a gun.

>> MAN: He pointed right at Father Haim and called him "a fucking whore."

Um, when he was coming down the aisle, as he was looking at all the parishioners, he was calling them "a bunch of pussies."

>> O'DONAHUE: He kept one hand in his pocket, and I thought that he was just going to whip it out and start shooting.

So I was terrified.

>> MAN: We started to lead him out of the church because it was causing quite a disturbance, and the ushers had opened the door so that we could get him out, and he knew he was losing his audience, and he started to, uh, try to break free of myself and the other gentlemen, and I was grabbed from behind by somebody who identified themselves as a state trooper, who said, "I have the situation under control."

>> JOHN SALVI (father): Oh...

I have trouble belie...

I was there, I have trouble believing.

When we got back to his apartment, he ranted and raved.

His mother and I were sitting there in disbelief.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: He said, "If it had been my son, I wouldn't have stopped him from saying what he had to say."

And then he became perfectly silent and just started... he was staring and gazing.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): For about ten, 15 minutes.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: Yeah, I tried to talk to him and... >> JOHN SALVI (father): And then... >> ANNE MARIE SALVI: He didn't seem to... >> JOHN SALVI (father): Like nothing happened.

He stopped, said... said, "Well, uh, how about spaghetti for supper?

I'll make us some spaghetti."

I mean, we couldn't eat anything.

>> ANNE MARIE SALVI: No, we didn't eat at all that night.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): He made a thing of spaghetti, and like nothing was....

I don't know if he knew what had happened earlier.

I don't know.

>> NARRATOR: On December 27, John Salvi in his pickup truck arrived outside the beauty salon where he worked, but Salvi remained in the truck.

>> POTTER: John never knew about us wanting to terminate him.

It was never discussed.

And then on Tuesday, they called and said he was out in the parking lot.

And they changed the locks that night.

I mean, he was just sitting out there.

>> NARRATOR: On December 29, after saying good-bye to his parents who were returning to Florida, John Salvi appeared at a shooting range in Seabrook, New Hampshire.

(gunshots) There, two brothers, P.J.

and Ryan Day, were practicing.

>> BOY: This strange guy walked in with a big black bag and black jacket.

He pulled out this .22 rifle, and then he pulled out two banana clips that were taped together with lots of bullets in it.

>> OLDER BOY: It was like an assault rifle.

It really wasn't a gun that was made for fun shooting.

Looked like it was made to kill people.

It didn't look like a pleasure gun.

>> YOUNGER BOY: He got his target up and just started to shoot.

He had it about ten feet away until he brought it up and put the end of the barrel right on the target and started to shoot, so it was leaving powder marks.

>> OLDER BOY: You don't usually see people firing off that many rounds, point blank.

I thought that he was capable of hurting someone real bad.

>> NARRATOR: On December 30, Shannon Lowney unlocked the front doors of Planned Parenthood and opened the clinic for the day.

>> WATERS: The morning of the 30th was pretty much like any morning.

I was in a procedure when I heard a funny... it was a funny yell for help, and I'm really, being the nurse in charge here, I'm often, you know, I'm attuned to that-- you know, you hear... Other people don't even notice it, people who haven't worked in hospitals and stuff.

You hear running down the hall, they don't think anything of it, and it's, like, my heart stops.

I'm like, "What's going on, what's wrong?

", because if you're running, it's an emergency.

>> VERHOEVEN: I heard crackling noises, which I immediately thought was some kind of electrical equipment backfiring.

That's all I could think of, but it sounded ominous somehow.

And I went down the hallway, and I immediately smelled gunpowder.

>> WATERS: When I got to her, she was on her back.

And there was blood everywhere, and there was a big hole in her neck, and she was still breathing.

>> VERHOEVEN: At that point, we didn't know whether the gunman was in the clinic or not.

>> NARRATOR: By the time the first 9-1-1 call was received by the Brookline police, John Salvi had arrived at Preterm clinic, two and a half miles down the street.

(siren wailing) >> WOMAN: Some guy went in there with a shotgun.

There were six of us standing, ladies standing in the hallway.

I was one of the last to come through the door.

And if I would have been in the front of the lady who got shot, I would have been shot, too.

>> NARRATOR: In a ground-floor room at Preterm, Richard Seron was just changing out of his security guard's uniform when he heard shots coming from the reception area.

>> SERON: I immediately recognized it to be .22-caliber, semi-automatic gunfire.

I could see a young man standing near Jane Sauer, who was slumped down behind a pillar.

We locked eyes for a fraction of a second and exchanged one shot each.

What I would do is to lean out, make a fast shot and then jump back in to avoid the hosing that he was giving the doorway.

>> WOMAN: He went thisaway.

He was right behind me.

If it wasn't for me jumping over the gate, he would have shot me.

He just came in that clinic, opened up the door and started shooting anything he seen.

>> NARRATOR: Salvi had made a successful escape, and inside the clinic, Seron surveyed the carnage left behind.

>> SERON: I noticed Leanne Nichols slumped face down on the floor like a rag doll that someone had dropped.

Jane Sauer, on the other hand, was still alive and was moving, and her eyes were open.

(siren wailing) >> NARRATOR: Down the street at Planned Parenthood, Beth Waters and a doctor were trying to save Shannon's life.

>> WATERS: We were getting an airway into her mouth.

Just as I was doing that, I heard a yell that there were more people shot in the waiting room.

>> NARRATOR: Beth Waters and another nurse rushed into the clinic waiting room, where two men lay wounded, while nearby, a female clinic worker was in critical condition.

>> VERHOEVEN: some of the bravest acts I've ever seen and probably ever will see are some of the medical staff here.

Those two nurses who went out into the waiting room, not knowing who was out there and what was out there, but they knew that people were shot and they went out there and took care.

>> WATERS: You know, I didn't know whether Shannon was definitely... whether it was too late for her or not at that point.

I assumed it probably was, but so when the EMTs came, I was, like, "She's the most serious-- go in to her."

And they came right back out after going in to her, and I knew then that there was nothing that I could do for her.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: I thought it was the most incomprehensible, obscene thing I had ever heard in my life.

Who she was, all the promise of her life, and all that she could do in the world, just her being in the world, her presence in the world lightened it and brightened it, and all her whole motivation to help others.

There was so much to do in the world to make life better.

I could not believe that all of that promise was over.

My father said, "This is the first tragedy that has struck our family," and those are practically the last words he said.

He just sat there and he kept saying Shannon's name over and over.

And my father just gradually slipped away, almost 12 hours to the minute after Shannon died.

>> MEGAN LOWNEY: I...

I had naively believed that I would grow old with my sister... And yet on December 31, I had to identify her body.

The trip to Boston was forever.

And the sense that she was so far away, and... you know, physically, and that we needed to travel to find her dead was a very strange experience.

(lively music playing) When we did arrive, on this eve before the New Year, the experience of people on their way to parties and celebrating the New Year's Eve was really so strange and so surreal.

>> BILL LOWNEY: I was very much aware of the coming of the New Year, and that we were not celebrating the New Year.

We were involved in identifying the body of a beautiful daughter.

>> LIAM LOWNEY: We did go to the morgue as a family to I.D.

her body, and it's a very vivid picture in my mind.

It's something I'll never forget.

Unfortunately my last picture of her is not of her at Christmas, it's of her at this morgue.

>> JOAN LOWNEY: If anybody asked any parent, "What do you think the most difficult job would be in the world?"

It is to see... to identify one's child who is dead.

But I will always carry with me the memory of her face that night.

She looked about 16 years old, and, uh, she looked asleep, and those who loved her were shoulder to shoulder for her that night, and it's a warm memory, it's an important memory.

It isn't a happy one, but it's not a horrible one either.

>> NARRATOR: In a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, a small private service was held for Leanne Nichols, the second receptionist murdered by John Salvi.

>> MACDOUGALL: Lee was like the forgotten woman, and that was very sad.

And Lee would not have liked notoriety, but Lee would have very much wanted her political beliefs to be known, and she would have wanted people to know that she was doing this because this was what she wanted to do, not because it just happened to be a job she saw in the paper.

>> NARRATOR: On the steps of Preterm, Ed McDonough placed his own memorial for his fiancee.

>> McDONOUGH: I had my cousin make her a little cross for me, a little wooden cross.

I wrote a little saying for Butterscotch that, "Mommy Scotch will love you always, Butterscotch."

And I wrote, "Leanne, I died along with you.

"I can't wait to be together again.

Love, Ed."

Because we were taught when we were young, when we die, we all get together again.

In time, we would be together.

>> PROTESTERS: Murderers, murderers, murderers, murderers, murderers... >> PROTESTERS: Defend the rights of the baby to choose.

>> PROTESTER: Who chooses for the baby?

(protesters shouting) >> PROTESTERS: kill your baby!

>> VERHOEVEN: The very day we opened the clinic again-- one week from the day of the shooting, we saw a few patients-- we had a handful of people outside.

And I remember thinking, "I never talk to the picketers.

"I never acknowledge their presence.

That's how I deal with it."

But on that day, I remember turning around and saying, "How dare you."

>> SPITZ: John Salver, we're on your side.

If you need anything, let us know.

We want to help you any way we can.

John Salver, you are a hero.

>> NARRATOR: Outside the Norfolk jail where John Salvi was being questioned, Reverend Spitz and his radical followers hailed a new hero.

>> SPITZ: And I would like to ask, why is the life of a recep... of a receptionist worth more than the lives of 50 innocent human babies?

>> SPITZ: They were guilty.

They had blood on their hands.

And I'll be honest, if they died without accepting Jesus Christ as their lord and savior, in that split second before they died, they are in Hell now, and they'll remain there for eternity.

>> LAW: One thing that I never do is discuss what... where an individual stands before God, which would be the question put to me in asking, you know, theologically, where would she be?

The scripture says, "Judge not that you be not judged."

>> BAILIFF: The jurors for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on oath, present that John C. Salvi III, of Hampton, did assault and beat Shannon Lowney with intent to murder said Shannon Lowney.

As to that indictment, sir, how do you wish to plead: guilty or not guilty?

>> SALVI: Not guilty.

>> NARRATOR: John Salvi's parents appeared at their first and only press conference.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): If we had gotten him help, maybe this terrible tragedy might never have happened.

We want to urge all parents... >> ANNE MARIE SALVI: There were so many signs of mental illness, but I didn't know anything about mental illness.

Well, I do blame myself.

And my husband and I have a lot of regrets, so many regrets.

I was, uh...

I had a very archaic...

I was so archaic in my thinking.

I thought if somebody is mentally ill, if they were in a room, my picture of it was that they were in a room, they were either sitting at a chair or curled up in a corner, and, uh... they were like a vegetable.

I had no idea they walked, talked, and they felt pain, and they couldn't express themselves.

And sometimes when they did, it wasn't what you expected or wanted it to be.

>> JOHN SALVI (father): We should have done something.

We should have seen more.

Those women and their families, we both pray for them daily.

It's, uh... because we really... We must have been terribly blind not to see something to stop this.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: If your attorneys thought your best bet would be some kind of insanity defense, would you go along with that?

>> SALVI: An insanity defense?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Mm-hmm.

>> SALVI: What benefit is an insanity defense?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Well, the benefit is... >> SALVI: What are the benefits?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: If you succeed, you would go to a psychiatric hospital rather than to prison, and as soon as you're considered not dangerous to others, you could be released from the hospital.

>> SALVI: How...

In what time period would you stay in a mental institution?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: That would depend upon when you're considered not dangerous to others.

So people could be there for just a month, or they could be there for a lifetime, but it's not fixed like a prison-- you know, you got a fixed term: five years, ten years, life.

In a psychiatric hospital, it would be... depending when you're... if the court viewed you as no longer mentally ill and not dangerous... >> SALVI: What psychiatric facility would you recommend for an individual who was incompetent?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Well, that's up to the courts in Massachusetts.

One of the ones that people go to is Bridgewater State Hospital.

>> SALVI: Bridgewater State Hospital.

And what is that facility like?

>> PSYCHIATRIST: It's not as nice as this new jail.

>> NARRATOR: In July 1995, a five-day hearing was held into John Salvi's competency to stand trial.

>> MAN 1: It's my opinion with reasonable medical certainty that at the present time, Mr. Salvi is not competent to stand trial.

>> MAN 2: The opinion I formed was that there are no signs or symptoms of mental disorder.

>> MAN 1: In my opinion, Mr. Salvi is suffering from schizophrenia, undifferentiated type.

>> MAN 2: Mr. Salvi is not schizophrenic.

>> MAN 3: He is suffering from a psychotic disorder, and is best characterized as schizophrenia.

>> SALVI: I definitely consider myself competent to stand trial.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: You do?

Are you anxious to stand trial?

Would you like to stand trial, or would you like to avoid it as long as possible?

>> SALVI: Stand trial, or avoid it as often as possible?

No, it...

I don't run from trial.

When there's a trial that's set and a date set, I would go to trial.

>> PSYCHIATRIST: Okay.

>> JUDGE: The court has found that the defendant is presently competent and will stand trial on the charges before him.

(protesters singing) >> NARRATOR: Five months after the Brookline murders, most protesters had returned to the clinics, and on June 2, 1995, Cardinal Bernard Law acknowledged that reality and announced he was lifting his moratorium.

>> LAW: The moratorium was not universally respected.

After five months, it seemed to me that the situation had gone quite peacefully.

I may live somewhat insulated, I don't know, but my sense is that the rhetoric and the tension around the issue that we're discussing has been lessened.

>> VERHOEVEN: when I heard the news that the cardinal lifted the moratorium, I felt, "So what?"

It has had no effect on us.

I am really sorry that the cardinal's moratorium didn't have more of an effect.

But it has not had an effect on our lives here in the clinic one bit.

And, um, I guess I feel...

I guess I feel sorry that he did rescind it, because it means on some level he's given up, too.

I think we're back to square one.

(protesters shouting) >> COTTER: There will be peace on the abortion issue when abortion stops, because if you want peace, there must first be justice, and as long as there is abortion, there is, by definition, injustice.

>> NARRATOR: Yesterday, on February 5, 1996, John Salvi's trial for the murders of Leanne Nichols and Shannon Lowney began.

>> MEGAN LOWNEY: I haven't spent much time with the question of who killed her and why.

I guess I don't feel that it's really a valid, you know, use of my time.

When I think about Shannon, I think about her, and her life and what I miss.

At Christmastime, growing up, my mother would always buy a few presents that were the same for both of us because we were "the girls."

As the girls, we often had, you know, the same identical presents, and at Christmas morning we would see that our presents were similar by a card that was cut in half, and they would be identical, you know, the one half of the card on each present.

And so when you found one of those presents, you had to look, you know, to the other, so I would look to Shannon and say, "Find the one that looks like this," you know, "We have to open it together," so that neither of us would know ahead of the other.

And I think, you know, not having the other half of the card is what I miss.