BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The daughter of one of the nine people killed in the 2015 Emanuel AME Church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, is in Buffalo to speak out against the death penalty.
Rev. Sharon Risher's mother, Ethel Lance, was among those killed in the racist attack. The killer, Dylann Roof, was sentenced to death following a federal trial and remains on death row.
"Killing someone is not what my faith would have me to believe in. And killing him would not bring my mother back," Risher said.
Risher believes Roof should not be executed and that the appropriate punishment is life in prison without the possibility of parole. She is urging people in Buffalo to consider the same outcome for Payton Gendron, another hate-filled mass killer.
Risher says she hopes to meet with some of the 5/14 family members while in Buffalo.
"There has been some talk. I don't know if that's gonna happen, but I'm quite sure with your interview and everything else I'm doing, hopefully they will see me and hear my voice and know that everything in me understands what they're going through. We might have differences of opinion, but I love them. We're in a group of people that nobody should ever want to be a part of," Risher said.
Risher says sitting through the trial of her mother's killer was excruciating.
"I saw where my mother was shot 11 times. I didn't know that. Sitting in that courtroom and looking at that blown up picture of her body and where the bullets hit her, I felt like my body felt the sting of every one of those bullets," Risher said.
WATCH: Daughter of 2015 Charleston church massacre victim visits Buffalo to speak out against death penalty
She says every time the killer has a court hearing to appeal his sentence, there is a fresh wave of pain.
"There is never gonna be closure. Understand this. Never. There is never gonna be total healing, not when you had to have gone through such a horrific thing. You learn to navigate your way through life the best way you know how, but there is no closure and there is no total healing. I believe I will have total healing. Because I believe that I will see my mama again in heaven, and that's when I will be healed," Risher said.
Jury selection in Gendron's death penalty case in federal court is set to begin in October.
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