Aiken, SC -- Elke Kennedy, Sean Kennedy’s mother: "Sean was the kind of kid that enjoyed life."
Elke Kennedy doesn't wake up every day and try to forget what happened to her son Sean. She wakes up and talks about it.
Kennedy: "He wasn't' hiding the fact that he was gay.”
In 2007, 20-year-old Sean Kennedy went to a bar in Greenville, South Carolina....where, outside, he was approached by then 18-year-old Stephen Moller.
Kennedy: "Stephen Moller got out of the car, the backseat of the car, walked around the car, walked up to my son, called him a faggot, punched him one time, right here, shattering his facial bones and separating his brain from his brain stem."
The impact shattered his skull, and sent him to the ground. He was taken to the hospital, but never regained consciousness.
Kennedy: "I saw him just laying there on that cold table, and he was so cold, and I said 'Dear God, just let me take his place, because he has not had the chance to live. Let me go instead.’ The neurologist said I'm sorry ma'am, but his brain injuries are non-survivable."
Initial murder charges were reduced to manslaughter, Kennedy says, because there was no hate crime legislation in South Carolina, and the Solicitor said there was no proof of a pre-meditated desire to kill her Sean.
Her son's killer's 5-year-sentence was suspended to three years, and he was released on probation this year.
Kennedy: “As of July 1st of this year, he's a free man.”
The justice system, she says, failed her family, but now Elke Kennedy plans to spread her message about hate. She founded "Sean's Last Wish"...and goes around the country, educating, re-living, and all the while, somewhat healing.
Kennedy: "If I can save one mother from going through what I'm going through, or one son from being attacked or beaten, then I believe my son's death has not been in vain."
Last month, Elke Kennedy and her husband were at the white house, when President Obama signed a law that makes it a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation--a law Kennedy says, would have put her son's killer behind bars much longer than three years, had it come earlier.
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