GILMER, Texas — The family members of murder victim Suzanne Harrison say they’re opposed to Upshur County leaders’ plans to preserve the killer’s jail cell as a memorial to his victims.
More than two dozen relatives of Harrison, who was murdered by Jerry Walter “Animal” McFadden in 1986, say in a signed letter sent to several area media outlets that the county’s proposal to preserve McFadden’s cell as part of a courthouse restoration project “will be no ‘memoriam’ to his victims, but rather perpetuates the killer’s existence and time in that cell.”
“If the county preserves that cell, it should not claim it to be in honor of the victims,” the family wrote. “It actually sensationalizes and glamorizes the jail’s most infamous prisoner, done under the guise of honoring the murder victims.”
To read more from our news partners visit, the Tyler Morning Telegraph.