A man who bound a rape victim and then threw her in a lake to drown her while she was still alive had his death sentence commuted to life on Monday by President Joe Biden, angering the victim's family.
The victim's father described the timing of the president's decision as "despicable," Fox 59 reported.
"I think President Biden offered a Christmas gift to the perpetrators of murder, but he offered only pain to the victims, the families of the victims," said Rachel Timmerman's father, Ken, according to Fox.
Marvin Gabrion had his death sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole. Gabrion killed Rachel Timmerman because she was about to testify that he had raped her. Gabrion restrained a still-alive Timmerman with tape and handcuffs, chained her to some cinderblocks and tossed her into a lake in Manistee National Forest, MLive reported.
Gabrion is also suspected of murdering Timmerman's 11-month-old daughter, whose body has never been found. Ken Timmerman said that the family had hoped to prod Gabrion into providing some information as to what happened to her, Fox 59 reported.
"From the get-go, we offered to trade the death penalty for information regarding my granddaughter," Timmerman told Fox 59. "We offered that from the very get-go. Gabrion was unwilling to tell us what he did with Shannon, so that's always remained an open hole in our heart."
According to MLive, Gabrion is suspected of killing three other people, including Robert Allen. Allen had mental disabilities, and Gabrion was allegedly stealing his Social Security checks when he disappeared.
"You couldn't imagine someone that deserved it more than Mr. Gabrion," Timmerman told Fox 59. "He killed at least five people. Where's the justice in just giving him a prison bed to die comfortably in?"
Biden commuted 37 of the 40 federal death sentence cases. The three inmates left on federal death row are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh's Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the Associated Press reported.
"These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my Administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder," Biden said in a statement. "Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss."
