My mind flashed back to the previous winter, when a stone had flown up and hit my windshield as I was driving along the highway. I had had just a split second to think, “Maybe the whole windshield won’t crack,” then watched helplessly as a deep fracture snaked its way across the entire glass. I had been as powerless then to stop the damage as I was now.
In February of 2003, Shannon Moroney met her future husband Jason Staples, and after an instant attraction, on their first coffee date, Jason told Shannon (as he was legally obliged to do) that he was a parolee, having spent ten years in prison for a murder he committed when he was eighteen. As Shannon got to know Jason better, she could not reconcile this “gentle giant” with the crime he confessed to, and after meeting with his parole officer and prison counsellor, she was assured that Jason’s crime was a one-off; an inexplicable and impulsive act of an immature adolescent; Jason had been a model, repentant prisoner and was well on his way to becoming an asset to the community. With the blessing of her family and friends — who were all apprised of Jason’s past and believed him to now be a safe and stable, loving and supportive man — the pair were married two years later. Within one month of the wedding, Shannon would be informed by a police officer that while she was away at a work conference, Jason had kidnapped and brutalised two women. Through the Glass is Shannon Moroney’s account of this experience: her efforts to understand what snapped in Jason; their frustrating experiences with the Canadian Justice, Mental Health, and Prison systems — and through her own experience of feeling further victimised by these systems, which offer no support for the families of offenders, how she furthered her education and became a world-travelling public speaker and an advocate for restorative justice. This account is heartfelt and well-written — Moroney continually and empathetically prioritises the experience of the women who were the victims of her husband’s violence while trying to explain all that he caused her to lose as well — and her story brings forward many interesting and debatable questions; as a book club pick, I’m looking forward to our discussion.
It was becoming clear what many people now wanted from me. It was a pattern I’d see over and over in the months and years to come. They wanted — sometimes even demanded — for me to walk away from Jason and never look back. To them it was simple and clear-cut: Jason was evil. Therefore, I should shun him, ostracize him, eliminate him from my life, mind and heart to prove I wasn’t like him and to prove that I was on their side — the side of “good”. Any other action from me — any attempt to understand the nuances of his mind, the motives behind his actions and the deeper reasons that led him to commit such heinous crimes — was to these people a betrayal and made me guilty by association.
I see a lot of reviewers saying that they know that Jason Staples was a smooth-talking psychopath who fooled this woman and her family into thinking he was a reformed man; that they all should have known better than to invite him into their lives; that he was obviously, after ten violence-free years on the outside, just waiting to pounce. But Shannon Moroney tells a different story: the story of a kind and gentle man who could not explain what snapped in him when he took a woman’s life at eighteen; could not explain what “darkness” swept over him when he abducted first one woman, and then a second while Shannon was out of town. She knew that Jason had been adopted as a baby (so they had no family medical history to go by), and although she knew her husband had been devastated by his adoptive father’s death when Jason was six, and that he found it challenging to be raised by a mother with bipolar disorder, it wasn’t until he was back in prison that Jason revealed the sexual abuse he had experienced while growing up. Shannon had relied on the expert opinions of Jason’s parole officer and prison counsellor when they assured her that he suffered no mental illness, but she would eventually learn that over his ten years in the Kingston Penitentiary, Jason had received no detailed assessments or therapy, and by keeping his head down and avoiding trouble, was successful at concealing the demons that tormented him. While waiting long months for Jason to appear in court, Shannon even discovered that the same mix of caffeine pills and ephedrine that Jason had been self-medicating with while she was away at that conference had been linked to psychosis. There’s no reason to believe that Shannon could have predicted her husband’s violent behaviour, and as he appeared to be just as confused and devastated (Jason called the police the night of his crimes, told them where to find the women, and made a full confession), Shannon decided to advocate for Jason; to see him through the criminal proceedings and attempt to understand what happened.
In no way could you compare Shannon’s experience with that of Jason’s victims, but this is her story and she suffered losses as well: She lost her job as a school guidance counsellor (one of the students at the school was the stepson of one of the victims and Shannon’s principal didn’t think he should have to see her there); she lost friends; she lost financial security and a feeling of belonging to the community; and she lost her husband and the future they had planned together — none of these losses were due to any of Shannon’s actions, but despite being diagnosed with PTSD and suffering in countless ways, her position as the spouse of a violent offender made her eligible for none of the programs and supports offered to victims of crime. (And while I see a lot of one star reviews calling this “poor me” whinging that minimises the experiences of Jason’s actual victims, I thought that Moroney successfully balanced being sensitive to these women’s pain while trying to highlight the areas where systems failed her.)
I was realizing that forgiveness was a decision I would have to revisit over and over. It was turning out to be a process, not a single act. Forgiveness neither erased nor diminished the magnitude of Jason's violence and its continuing ripple-effect. It didn't take away the anger, frustration or loss I felt about what he'd done, and it couldn't bring back the life I'd had with him. What forgiveness did do was remind me that there was a human being behind the violence, and that his heinous acts did not represent the sum of who he was. Forgiveness gave me the permission to see and know both aspects of Jason, to be enormously angry and pained by his violent acts, but also to let go of that anguish before it took complete control over my mind and heart. Forgiveness stopped rage from becoming resentment, and it released me from having every aspect of my character and the life I still had ahead from being bound to Jason's violence. Forgiveness put my life back into my own hands.
Who knows what led to Jason’s violent relapse — I’ll certainly never know — but I think that Through the Glass adds valuable insider evidence to the conversation around prison reform (and especially the need for better therapy for those offenders who will be on the streets again one day; that’s in everyone’s best interest). But more than that, it highlights where systems failed Shannon Moroney: as the wife of a violent offender, everyone from Police Victims Services and the Crown Attorney to her school board and insurance company treated her like an accomplice; and with Canada having one of the highest incarceration rates in the “developed” world, that implies the existence of thousands upon thousands of prisoners’ family members similarly left without needed resources and supports. Moroney’s story sounds like it could happen to anyone and I wish her experience on no one. This was a good read that gave me plenty to think about.
Similar reads:
This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications
(Diane Schoemperlen writes about her relationship with a parolee)
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
(Sue Klebold writes about her son Dylan; one of the Columbine High School shooters)
