Woman finds family she never knew —online
■ INTERNET: A woman was
reunited with her father and
three half-sisters
By Meredith May
The Associated Press
BAY POINT, Calif. — America
Online is in the doghouse with
many of its customers, but for one
woman the Internet provider
made an online connection that
changed her life forever.
Kathryn Virello was born 25
years ago after a love affair be
tween her mother and a married
man. When she went online, she
found the father and three half-sis
ters she had never met. In minutes,
the computer found the family
Virello had been seeking for years.
Until she first started exploring
the Internet in December, all
Virello had to unlock the secret of
her past was a dogeared photo of
her dad, his name and a book ti
tled, “You Too Can Find Any
one.”
After a flurry of “are you my sis
ter?” e-mail messages, not all of
which got through the belea
guered AOL network, the family
reunited electronically Jan. 19.
From her sisters, Virello got her
dad’s phone number in Las Vegas.
It took her a day to summon the
courage to call.
“I’m surprised it took 25 years
for her call,” said her father, John
Lattimer. “I always expected this. I
wasn’t hiding, but I wasn’t looking
for her because 1 didn’t know if she
thought someone else was her fa
ther, and I didn’t want to compli
cate things, so I waited.”
Friday, Virello made friends
with two of her three sisters, Shan
non Evans of Palm Springs, and
Carrie Craig of Washington. Evans
and Craig flew to San Jose and
drove to meet Virello at a Concord
restaurant. Trisha Lattimer could
not make the reunion from her
home in Portland.
“Oh, my God, you’re so beauti
ful,” said Virello, when her sisters
walked into the restaurant. Diners
looked up from their onion rings
and ribs as the women cried and
hugged.
“Every time we got together,
we'd talk about our fourth sister,”
Evans said. “We wondered where
she was, what she was like. There
was always this missing link, and
now we’ve found her.”
Evans and Craig brought Virello
a pearl and silver broach that be
longed to their great-grandmother
and a book with photographs of
the sisters. They spent dinner ex
plaining to Virello her relation to
the people in the pictures.
When Virello was a girl, she
thought one of her mother’s
boyfriends was her father. Later,
her mother said her father was
dead. At 13, she learned the truth
at a family gathering, but was told
her father was a taboo subject.
Virello’s search for her past be
gan when she became pregnant
three years ago. She had lived with
only half a family, and wanted to
give her child more than that, she
said.
Though computers make
transcontinental connections in
seconds, a few small miracles had
to occur before Virello found her
family.
For one, half-sister Carrie Craig
just happened to join AOL two
months before Virello, who had
limited her search to AOL’s mem
bership.
Even then, Virello would never
have made the connection to
Craig, because Craig hadn’t used
her maiden name when she
signed onto the service. Craig
added Lattimer to her personal
computer profile only one week
before Virello began her search.
Virello typed in her father’s sur
name, Lattimer, and 18 people
with that last name appeared on
her screen. She messaged only
Carrie, because she was about the
same age and Virello thought her
dad had once worked in Washing
ton.
In her e-mail, titled “NEED
HELP,” Virello mentioned her fa
ther was married to a woman
named Loretta in the ’70s and that
he had a tattoo of a fox “or some
thing” on his right forearm. She
sent the message at 1 a.m. Jan. 19.
Twelve hours later, a scream
rang out in Washington.
“I was shaking so hard, I made
my husband get out of the shower
to type a message back to her,”
Craig said. “I knew from what
she’d written that she was our sis
ter. Finally we could put an end to
this family secret we had to keep
all these years.”
For most of her life, Virello lived
10 minutes from her lost relatives.
Virello says she’s sad she
missed out on sisterhood — swap
ping clothes, talking over boy trou
bles and fighting for the telephone.
But she got the chance to start
with a slumber party at her Bay
Point home last week.
Now, Virello is preparing to
meet her father.
Lattimer, who was a restaurant
lounge owner in Washington for
several years, is astounded his
daughter followed an electronic
trail to his door.
Confession recording sealed for trial
■ COURT: The tape of an
inmate’s confession to a
priest will not be used in his
upcoming murder trial
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — An Ore
gon jail violated the country’s
longstanding respect for religious
confessions when it taped a talk
between a priest and an inmate
suspected of three slayings, a fed
eral appeals court has ruled.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled Monday that Ore
gon can no longer tape such con
versations, saying that the prac
tice violates federal law and the
U.S. Constitution.
A priest has the right to rely on
“the nation’s history of respect for
religion in general and respect for
the sanctity of the secrets of con
fession in particular,” Judge John
Noonan wrote in the 3-0 decision.
The ruling was applauded by
the lawyer who represented the
priest and the Portland Archdio
cese, which sued to have the tape
destroyed.
“A victory for religious free
dom of all members of religious
faiths,” Thomas Dulcich said in
describing the decision.
The court, however, refused to
order the destruction of the tape
of the conversation between the
Rev. Timothy Mockaitis and Co
nan Hale at a Eugene jail, last
April.
That left open the possibility
the tape could be used at Hale’s
upcoming trial for the 1995 shoot
ing deaths of three teenagers.
Although the tape has been
sealed, Hale stated in court docu
ments that he confessed to some
burglaries but denied the killings
to Mockaitis.
Assistant Attorney General
Timothy Sylwester contended the
taping was legal despite the rul
ing.
The priest “went to a jail,
where a state law permits the in
terception (of conversations) be
tween an inmate and anybody
who is visiting there, regardless of
whether it is a priest or anybody
else,’’ he said.
He also claimed the matter was
moot because the prosecutor who
ordered the taping promised nev
er to do so again.
But the appeals court noted
that Oregon, like all states, bars
prosecutors from using confiden
tial communications with a mem
ber of the clergy as evidence at a
trial.
The court said the taping vio
lated the priest’s freedom of reli
gion as well as the federal Reli
gious Freedom Restoration Act,
which restricts a state’s infringe
ments on religious exercise.
The University of Oregon Crisis Center
proudly presents
“CONNECTIONS”
The Annual Crisis Prevention Conference
Saturday, February 1, 1997
Erb Memorial Union
University of Oregon
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
(Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. in the EMU Ballroom Lobby)
Keynote Speaker: D.«l. Morales, Director of Residence Life
Topics will be: Sexual Orientation, Graduate Schools in Psychology, When Isn't A Person In Transition, An
Introduction to Crisis Intervention, The Family Connection of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
People, Developing Options to Anger, Building Communities, Sexual Assault and the Rape Culture,
Suicide and Culture, The Importance of Community When Living With HIV, Conflict Management,
Domestic Violence, Meditation, Making Connection Again After A Loss, The Mind/Body Connection, Yoga
(Exploring the Mind/Body Connection and Using Yoga as a Tool), The Mind/Body Connections of Nutrition.
Conference is available for one university credit and is also open to the general public.
$15 Registration Fee
You can register for credit the day of the conference.
CSPY 408 CRN 22136 • CSPY 508 CRN 22141
For more information or to preregister please call the Crisis Center Business Line at 346-4487.
YOU CAN READ THE EMERALD FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
o.d.e, on the world wide web: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ode
IT’S JUST LIKE REALLY BEING HERE, BUT WITHOUT ALL THE RAIN.
w' Live Music at Clancy Thurber'
\
“Craig Einhorn”
Classical/ Flamenco Guitar
& Pop tunes
4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, Jan. 30,1997
Free Snacks Available
Sponsored by UO Cultural Forum.
Oret/on {/)(///// dj/nera/cl
Heart Beats
only *5!
• Heart Beats will run in the Emerald on VALENTINE’S DAY.
• Call 346-4343 to place your Heart Beat today, or fill out this form and stop by
the Emerald Classified Office: Suite 300, EMU
• Deadline:1pm, Thursday, February 13th
Write t/e most- trait roc adandtorn dr/ater/or two/
for ODE use only.
name:___
phone:__
address: ___
payment method: cash/check/credit
card _
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