LilMtnCbn
06-26-2004, 06:36 AM
http://1010wins.com/topstories/winstopstories_story_178074601.html
Child Killer Steinberg Poised for Parole
Jun 26, 2004 7:43 am US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) The simple stone marker carries a heartbreaking message
from a mother to the daughter she never knew.
"If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane," it reads, "I'd walk
right up to heaven and bring you home again."
Beneath the sad epitaph lies a girl named Lisa, dead at age 6 after a vicious
1987 beating in a Greenwich Village apartment where violence was part of the
daily routine.
On Wednesday, Lisa's killer — her adopted father — goes from prisoner to
private citizen.
Joel Steinberg, now 63, will exit the Southport Correctional Facility with his
public perception as a monster only reinforced by his repeated denials of any
role in Lisa's death.
According to Steinberg, he shared a unique, loving relationship with the slain
girl — an assertion that repulsed many and led to five rejections from the
parole board.
"A lot of people are not happy with the fact he's getting out," said
Steinberg's civil attorney, Darnay Hoffman. "But he has done the time."
The case drew national attention, pushing societal hot buttons from adoption
fraud to spousal abuse. But it centered particularly on child abuse, since
there were warning signs before Lisa's death.
"The whole issue was higher on people's consciousness than it used to be," said
Dr. Kathryn Grimm, a New York-based children's advocate since 1974.
Child abuse hot lines sprang up nationwide, and a poll showed two out of three
Americans felt child abuse cases needed more aggressive investigation.
As prescribed by state law, Steinberg will have served two-thirds of his
maximum 25-year manslaughter sentence. Yet the passage of time has done little
to ease the agony that he inflicted.
Steinberg's former lover, Hedda Nussbaum, recently announced she would flee New
York rather than face him again. Initially his co-defendant, she became a key
prosecution witness after detailing how Steinberg had beaten her
unrecognizable.
Lisa's birth mother, Michelle Launders, wouldn't discuss Steinberg's release.
But she won a 1987 court fight to block Steinberg from burying the child, and
ordered his name deleted from Lisa's death certificate.
"Baby Girl Launders, also known as Lisa," it simply reads.
The case defied many stereotypes about child abuse. This was a middle-class
family, with a lawyer and a book editor raising two children in a historic
brownstone where Mark Twain once resided.
This wasn't supposed to happen, but it did. "The House of Terror," read a Daily
News headline.
At 6:40 a.m. on Nov. 2, 1987, police arrived at a dark and filthy West 10th
Street apartment after Nussbaum called 911 to report her daughter had vomited
after choking on food.
A naked, bruised Lisa was not breathing; her feet were black with dirt so thick
it was later scraped off. Her adopted 17-month-old brother was tethered to a
nearby playpen, surrounded by his own excrement and drinking spoiled milk.
Nussbaum had a split lip; doctors later found she had broken ribs, a broken
nose and a fractured jaw, all inflicted by Steinberg. According to Nussbaum's
later testimony, Steinberg had struck Lisa for staring at him.
With the mortally wounded child in the same apartment, Steinberg ignored her
injuries and smoked cocaine, Nussbaum said.
Lisa died three days later.
The city, if not the nation, was stunned. More than 1,000 mourners, including
the late Cardinal John O'Connor, visited her tiny casket; few had ever met the
child, yet all felt compelled to embrace her in death.
Lisa's brother, Travis Smiegel, was returned to his birth mother. The teen will
start college in the fall.
"Steinberg and Nussbaum are but a footnote in this story," the Smiegel family
said in a statement. "Let them face the darkness, and may the light of God
continue to shine on this boy."
Steinberg was as docile behind bars as he was domineering while free, chalking
up only a half-dozen disciplinary infractions. Despite his good record, the
parole board extended his jail time by almost a decade.
Once free, Steinberg has offers of an apartment on Central Park West and a
$250-a-week job with a local cable television show — not bad for an inmate
with $104 currently in his prison account. Hoffman, his lawyer, offered both
the job and the apartment.
So life goes on for Steinberg, who will have to make regular visits to a parole
officer through October 2012. But for Lisa, there was no prom or graduation, no
wedding day smile or walk down the aisle.
On May 14, 2004, Lisa would have turned 23.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
Child Killer Steinberg Poised for Parole
Jun 26, 2004 7:43 am US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) The simple stone marker carries a heartbreaking message
from a mother to the daughter she never knew.
"If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane," it reads, "I'd walk
right up to heaven and bring you home again."
Beneath the sad epitaph lies a girl named Lisa, dead at age 6 after a vicious
1987 beating in a Greenwich Village apartment where violence was part of the
daily routine.
On Wednesday, Lisa's killer — her adopted father — goes from prisoner to
private citizen.
Joel Steinberg, now 63, will exit the Southport Correctional Facility with his
public perception as a monster only reinforced by his repeated denials of any
role in Lisa's death.
According to Steinberg, he shared a unique, loving relationship with the slain
girl — an assertion that repulsed many and led to five rejections from the
parole board.
"A lot of people are not happy with the fact he's getting out," said
Steinberg's civil attorney, Darnay Hoffman. "But he has done the time."
The case drew national attention, pushing societal hot buttons from adoption
fraud to spousal abuse. But it centered particularly on child abuse, since
there were warning signs before Lisa's death.
"The whole issue was higher on people's consciousness than it used to be," said
Dr. Kathryn Grimm, a New York-based children's advocate since 1974.
Child abuse hot lines sprang up nationwide, and a poll showed two out of three
Americans felt child abuse cases needed more aggressive investigation.
As prescribed by state law, Steinberg will have served two-thirds of his
maximum 25-year manslaughter sentence. Yet the passage of time has done little
to ease the agony that he inflicted.
Steinberg's former lover, Hedda Nussbaum, recently announced she would flee New
York rather than face him again. Initially his co-defendant, she became a key
prosecution witness after detailing how Steinberg had beaten her
unrecognizable.
Lisa's birth mother, Michelle Launders, wouldn't discuss Steinberg's release.
But she won a 1987 court fight to block Steinberg from burying the child, and
ordered his name deleted from Lisa's death certificate.
"Baby Girl Launders, also known as Lisa," it simply reads.
The case defied many stereotypes about child abuse. This was a middle-class
family, with a lawyer and a book editor raising two children in a historic
brownstone where Mark Twain once resided.
This wasn't supposed to happen, but it did. "The House of Terror," read a Daily
News headline.
At 6:40 a.m. on Nov. 2, 1987, police arrived at a dark and filthy West 10th
Street apartment after Nussbaum called 911 to report her daughter had vomited
after choking on food.
A naked, bruised Lisa was not breathing; her feet were black with dirt so thick
it was later scraped off. Her adopted 17-month-old brother was tethered to a
nearby playpen, surrounded by his own excrement and drinking spoiled milk.
Nussbaum had a split lip; doctors later found she had broken ribs, a broken
nose and a fractured jaw, all inflicted by Steinberg. According to Nussbaum's
later testimony, Steinberg had struck Lisa for staring at him.
With the mortally wounded child in the same apartment, Steinberg ignored her
injuries and smoked cocaine, Nussbaum said.
Lisa died three days later.
The city, if not the nation, was stunned. More than 1,000 mourners, including
the late Cardinal John O'Connor, visited her tiny casket; few had ever met the
child, yet all felt compelled to embrace her in death.
Lisa's brother, Travis Smiegel, was returned to his birth mother. The teen will
start college in the fall.
"Steinberg and Nussbaum are but a footnote in this story," the Smiegel family
said in a statement. "Let them face the darkness, and may the light of God
continue to shine on this boy."
Steinberg was as docile behind bars as he was domineering while free, chalking
up only a half-dozen disciplinary infractions. Despite his good record, the
parole board extended his jail time by almost a decade.
Once free, Steinberg has offers of an apartment on Central Park West and a
$250-a-week job with a local cable television show — not bad for an inmate
with $104 currently in his prison account. Hoffman, his lawyer, offered both
the job and the apartment.
So life goes on for Steinberg, who will have to make regular visits to a parole
officer through October 2012. But for Lisa, there was no prom or graduation, no
wedding day smile or walk down the aisle.
On May 14, 2004, Lisa would have turned 23.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
