My grandfather, Sam Levin, shot and killed his daughter on August 16, 1937.

A torn black and white photo of a mother and father and their five unsmiling children, circa 1930, sits on my bookshelf, a daily reminder of my link to a dark and shameful past. To the casual observer, this family portrait could simply be a treasured memento, perhaps retrieved from a relative’s musty basement. However, were you to carefully study each face, one detail is evident: the youngest daughter looks slightly different; the color of her skin just a fraction darker than that of her parents and her brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, the photo is very old and faded, much like the memory of those still alive today-neighbors and friends who might reveal the hidden truths about this otherwise unremarkable-looking family. How exactly, you may ask, did the lives of these people so dramatically collide with the taboos and prejudices of the time in which they lived?

The cemetery was cold and deserted on that late winter afternoon as I slowly made my way down row after row of graves. At last I stood before a small, unadorned headstone bearing the name of my long-forgotten relative. I had found what I was looking for: confirmation of a painfully brief life and the unsettling knowledge of a very mysterious death. A rush of tears slid down my frozen cheeks and pooled into the collar of my jacket. I bowed my head in silent tribute to Sally Levin, the 16 year-old girl who lay in eternal repose and for the disturbing conditions that led to her death. What secrets of her life and my family were buried beneath this frozen, unforgiving patch of earth, this hallowed place of sorrow and regret?

Sally was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1920, the fourth of five siblings and my mother’s younger sister. My immigrant grandparents (Russian Jews) raised their children in a religiously observant home where the Sabbath was faithfully observed, dietary rules were followed, and religious services at the oldest synagogue in the state were attended with regularity. Not much is known about Sally: she was an average student, quiet and withdrawn in school, and a tag-a-long sister at home. Her only distinguishing feature was a complexion a shade darker than her siblings and that of her classmates. For this never- explained departure from the norm, Sally, according to my mother, was given the cruel nickname “Blackie,” a slur that followed her all the days of her life. It would seem that normalcy prevailed in Sally’s life until she entered her teens, at which point her behavior dramatically changed and the family became complicit in concealing her condition to the unsympathetic and uneducated world that lay just beyond their door.

Sally was severely mentally ill, and by the summer of 1937 her condition had escalated to ominous heights. On one occasion she brandished a butcher knife and attempted to stab herself and one of her brothers. On another, she turned on the gas stove while other family members were at home. Such aberrant behavior could no longer be tolerated. My grandfather was forced to admit the seriousness of Sally’s situation, not to mention the danger she posed to the rest of the family. Under a shroud of secrecy, my grandfather sought medical help.

Based on these two attempts to end her own life, as well as the threat she posed to her family, a doctor in Cheyenne diagnosed Sally as suffering from dementia praecox (schizophrenia). This doctor also suggested my grandfather seek a second opinion in Denver, knowing that it would take the signature of two physicians to have Sally committed. There, the original diagnosis was confirmed. Both doctors concurred that Sally’s illness was incurable, that she was in imminent risk to herself and to others, and that commitment to an asylum was necessary.

Sally begged her father to end her life and the misery of a future she believed could only bring shame and despair to those she loved. The girl stated, on more than one occasion, that she preferred death to the agony of being locked up in a terrifying place hundreds of miles from her family and the only home she had ever known. According to court documents, when my grandfather initially refused her bizarre request, Sally then suggested her father die alongside her. Realizing it was probably just a matter of time before Sally would succeed in taking her own life, my grandfather was forced to consider his role in determining Sally’s fate.

Sam Levin was not a man of violence. Trapped in a nightmare of indecision, held captive in a life or death tug-of-war not of his own making, Sam wrestled with doubt for days and nights without end. He knew the unspeakable act he was about to commit was wrong, but what other choice did he have? Plagued by agonizing thoughts, exhausted from plaintive prayer, Sam heard the clock in the narrow hallway tick away the final hours before his beloved Sally would be taken from him, perhaps never to return. At last he decided: father and daughter would die together, partners in a plan devised to end the torment of sleepless nights that yawned and stretched before them, taunting them both with yet another tomorrow. A tomorrow neither could endure.

Sometime after 10 a.m. on the morning of August 16, 1937, father and daughter drove to a remote location west of Cheyenne and there, at close range, my grandfather shot Sally once in the head and once in the chest. As his child lay crumpled on the ground before him, my grandfather then took aim at his own head and fired twice. Still conscious, he stabbed himself multiple times in the chest with a pocket knife to make certain that he would not survive. Was there hesitation in those last few seconds before my grandfather looked at his beloved child one last time and then pulled the trigger or, did both of these lost souls remain resolute until the end? I am haunted by the images of their final moments together, the seconds that elapsed before there could be no turning back.

Three weeks shy of her seventeenth birthday, Sally’s life ended in a field just west of Cheyenne city limits (later determined to be on federal property). The headlines from the two daily papers the day after the shooting read:

“CHEYENNE FATHER KILLS DAUGHTER, 17, AND THEN SHOOTS AND STABS HIMSELF” and “FATHER, NEAR DEATH, SAYS INSANITY DROVE BOTH TO AGREEMENT”

A man who cherished his family above all else had, in a matter of minutes, torn it asunder. The agonies he must have suffered before and after condemning them both to death are unimaginable. Sally died within an hour from her wounds, but my grandfather survived and lived to celebrate his 89th birthday.

Since learning about Sally’s life, I have asked myself many times: Who was the man I worshipped all the years of my childhood: a courageous and confused father or some kind of monster beyond redemption? It is an irrefutable fact that Sam Levin loved his daughter Sally so much he felt compelled to take both their lives, as was her wish. It is also true that he carried the details of her downward spiral into the hellish pit of her illness, and the tortured moments before her death, to his grave.

I was married with grown children of my own when Sally’s story began to unfold before me. I do have a very vague recollection of hearing about an unnamed sibling who had died in childhood, but as far as I knew, Sally Levin never existed. When, quite by accident, and in confidence, a smattering of facts about my aunt were made known to me, I simply could not, would not believe it. I was stunned. I hesitated to pursue the details of this gruesome tale because my mother was still alive and clearly agitated when I pressed for more information. I began in earnest to unravel Sally’s story after my mother passed away, determined to uncover the mystery of happened on that fateful August day.

While researching the events of 1937, one thing became astonishingly clear. To shield future generations from what they perceived as the shame of Sally’s mental illness, not to mention the truth about my grandfather’s stunning crime, the members of my mother’s family created a pact: Sally’s name was never to be mentioned. Not ever. Thus, the circumstances of my aunt’s life and death remained a secret for nearly 60 years.

When Sally’s murder became front-page news in Cheyenne and across the western states, many of its Jewish citizens were angry and embarrassed. The good name and reputation of this proud and honorable minority was suddenly in jeopardy. My grandfather had done the unthinkable, and it wasn’t long before his place in the social order of the town plummeted to zero. So immense was the scorn for his deed that some parents warned their children that, should they ever find themselves on the same side of the street as my grandfather, they were to quickly cross to the other side.

A sanity hearing for my grandfather was ordered within 48 hours of the incident and the following statement was issued: “There is no evidence at this time of any unusual mental reactions, such as delusions, hallucinations of any type, mental depression or excitability.” As a result of these findings, it was determined that my grandfather was competent to stand trial for his crime. It is ironic to think that, had he been found insane at this hearing, my grandfather would have been sent to the infamous Wyoming Sate Hospital (insane asylum), the very place Sally so feared and adamantly refused to go.

When the Federal Grand Jury convened on November 9, 1937, my grandfather pled guilty to all charges. The jury indicted him for manslaughter in that he did “willfully, knowingly, unlawfully and feloniously kill the said Sally . . . contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the United States of America.”

Through his attorney, my grandfather applied for probation, a relatively new judicial option at the time. As a result, extensive interviews by a court-appointed probation officer for the District of Wyoming were held prior to his sentencing. These findings were submitted to the court for consideration and proved instrumental in determining my grandfather’s fate.

On November 17, 1937, three months and one day after Sally’s death, and just prior to rendering his sentence and judgment in the case, Federal Judge T. Blake Kennedy spoke these words: “With one who was so obsessed with the love for his child that he himself would lay down his own life with hers, it can scarcely be said that he is devoid of the sensibilities of life; that he is possessed of genuine criminal instincts; or that there is in him a remote degree of danger of future lawlessness along this or other lines.”

In his judgment, Judge Kennedy further stated “The sentence and judgment of the Court is that the defendant be committed to an institution to be designated by the Attorney General for a period of five years, but that the sentence be suspended and the defendant be placed on probation with the duly designated Probation Officer of this Judicial District for a period of five years.”

My grandfather requested and was granted permission to serve his probation in California. Within weeks of the sentencing my grandparents, along with their youngest child (age 14), packed up their belongings and followed their other children (including my mother) to Southern California. A new life awaited them, far from the backward glances and whispered accusations that followed them everywhere they went. Only Sally, alone and forgotten, remained behind.

My goal in telling Sally Levin’s remarkable story, at least at the outset, was to honor her memory and give voice to her life. In closing, I also wish to acknowledge my grandfather, for I now believe him to be a misunderstood man in many ways. Like countless parents before him, Sam Levin was a desperate father with limited understanding of his child’s devastating, incurable mental illness. For his deplorable actions, he must have suffered endless torment, yet he soldiered on, existing the rest of his days on a meager diet of sorrow and remorse. Although Sally was a victim of life circumstances beyond her control, it may have been inevitable that she would die an early death—either by her own hand or by another’s. Whether right or wrong, my grandfather’s role as Sally’s “mercy slayer,” or as her murderer as some will choose to see it, saved his child from a life of pain and disgrace.

As for me, I find myself thinking of Sally nearly every day, not so much for how she died, but rather for how she lived—as a daughter, a sister, and a child of another time. Doing so has brought me to a place of peaceful reflection, a place in my heart where Sally now lives in blessed memory.

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“A Forgotten Life” is based on Ms. Handler’s book, The Secrets They Kept: The True Story of a Mercy KillingThat Shocked a Town and Shame a Family.