My letter....

"We gathered"

April 27, 2012

Dear Members of the Virginia Parole Board:

I am writing to ask you to deny Ricky DeWayne Rogers’ petition for discretionary parole. Further, I request that you defer his next discretionary parole hearing for three years. Ricky DeWayne Rogers (VDOC Offender #1100356) is the man who tortured, raped, and murdered my best friend, 28-year-old, Grace Elizabeth “Liz” Payne, on October 20, 1987.

The last night Liz was alive, she had come over to my house to eat dinner and play with my one month old son. We ate our favorite take out Chinese’s food, talked, watched Matlock on TV and laughed at the baby faces Stuart was making. We had such fun and were so happy that night. I have always felt so blessed that my family and I, was able to spend those last hours with her being joyful and that Liz knew she was loved, before she had to endure the horror, pain and then being  murdered that night by Mr. Rogers.

We meet and graduated from Menchville High School. We both drove blue VW Bugs and had the same nickname “Liz”.  We bonded over us being “teenage” girls yelling for our team to win during a basketball game and became best friends after that. Now 13 years later, we were still apart of each other’s lives. I could write chapters about all the things we did; how we supported each as we grew up and into adults, how she was my biggest art supporter, the comfort we gave to each other during each of our own medical problems, the tough times; like my brother’s John breaking his neck the day after our prom, her parent’s cancers and deaths… and now the birth of my son in 1987. We both thought we would grow old together, maybe as little old ladies, we would be sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking, laughing and crying too… over families, males, life, the sharing that comes over the years and how happy we were to have a lifelong friendship like we did. Mr. Rogers changed that dream for our future. What he could not ever change for me was the influence she gave me during the time we had together, her spirit was so strong, our time together so full of life, her gift to me as my friend, is as powerful today as it was when she was alive

Mr. Rogers chose to murder Liz and for that he should spend the rest of his life in jail.  As the members of the Parole Board, each of you are the only ones with the power now and the ability to keep him in jail. So, I beg you to make the correct decision to keep Mr. Rogers in jail, let us know and feel the justice that that a murderer who can commit the crimes he did, was convicted by a jury and received 3 life sentences plus 25. I also feel that Mr. Rogers should stay where he can be controlled and not around any females. I know Dale Pennell, sister of Liz, has written a very complete letter detailing Mr. Rogers’ crimes. Please, do not let his parole become a yearly subject that we, as people who still miss and dearly loved Liz, have to repeat over and over again. I feel it’s a terrible, cruel injustice that has happened because of the loopholes in the system and in our laws regarding victims of crimes.

Thank-you,

Elizabeth “Liz” Greene