A sense of relief, but little celebration

"We're certainly happy about the verdict, but we're more happy it's over. We think justice has been served," said Michael Rizzo, speaking from his Kingston home late yesterday afternoon, after a jury sentenced Gary Sampson to death for killing Jonathan Rizzo, 19, and Philip McCloskey, 69, of Taunton.

Michael Rizzo and his wife, Mary, stopped at the cemetery on the way home from the courthouse to visit their son's grave.

Jonathan was the oldest of their three boys. Nicholas is 17 and a high school senior; Elliot, 14, is a freshman. Both are at Boston College High School, which Jonathan also attended. The younger sons were not in the courthouse yesterday when the verdict came in. Their parents had sent them out Christmas shopping.

"It would have been unbearable for them to sit around for that," said their father. Asked how their son's murder has changed their lives, Rizzo said it was impossible to explain fully. "To say you used to have three boys and now you have two. You used to make reservations for five; now you're making them for four."

For weeks, members of the Rizzo and McCloskey families have attended court daily, listening to the brutal details of the murders and giving their own emotional testimony about the devastating impact. Though the victims were 50 years apart in age, the families bonded over their mutual loss.

"It's been a very long and hard couple of years," said Scott McCloskey, the victim's son, at a press conference following the verdict. "I feel like the boulder around my shoulders has been chipped down to a rock."

At the same press conference, Michael Rizzo said he had promised his dead son that "we would take up this fight and take it to the end. . . . We did that today."

Both families expressed surprise at the jury's decision.

"I never would have expected this verdict, not in this state, not given the way the judge played the game," Rizzo said later by phone. Family members had expressed frustration at US District Judge Mark L. Wolf's decisions to keep certain things out of the courtroom, including blood-stained shirts of the victims.

But Rizzo declined to criticize the judge explicitly. "I just thought the process was unfair to the victims' families, and the judge was able to do things that didn't seem quite right," he said.

The families will see Sampson again at the formal sentencing next month, where they hope to be able to make an impact statement.

Asked if he would want to attend the execution, Rizzo said it was something he had thought about for a long time.

"Your emotional side says not only would you want to watch it, you'd like to push the button," he said. "But it could be six, seven, or 10 years before it happens, so who knows how I'll feel? The fact that he [Sampson] has to live with that hanging over his head, that any day could be his last, is something I can be happy about."

Scott McCloskey, who lives in Plymouth, said he and his five siblings and their families used to go to their father's house for Christmas Eve dinner: Chinese takeout. The patriarch would sit in the head chair, wearing a Santa hat. The family will still get together tonight, said McCloskey at yesterday's press conference. "But no one sits in my dad's chair."

As for the jury, both families had nothing but praise. Mary Rizzo, battling a case of laryngitis, said she prayed for them every night during the trial and that she hoped they would remember the smiling photograph of Jonathan, rather than the crime scene pictures.

Her husband focused on what he called their courage. "I would thank them for being courageous and for looking through all of the distractions of mental illness, remorse and all the other things that were thrown up against the wall," he said.

As for those who oppose the death penalty, Michael Rizzo had a message: "You're entitled to your opinion, but my problem is, until you can stand in my shoes and look at [crime scene] photos of your son. . . . If you can do that and still be against the death penalty, I'd have more respect for you."

He added: "We had a great victory today, but we're not out celebrating. We're still talking about taking someone's life, which is a very sobering thought, though I happen to agree with it."

Closure is not a word the Rizzos use. Instead, they say they are trying to reassemble their lives, to focus more fully on their other two sons.

Recently, Nick was accepted to Harvard, and Elliot made the BC High hockey team, and then yesterday, the jury's decision. "That makes three in a row, so I'm not going to buy any lottery tickets," joked Michael Rizzo.