wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Minister's killing rocks Florida community

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Note #8757 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05299
June 6, 2005

Minister's killing rocks Florida community

Murder-suicide baffles friends, colleagues of Port Orange couple

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - The murder of a female Presbyterian minister in north Florida
earlier this month was like so many other deaths related to domestic
violence: 

	No one saw it coming.

	The Rev. Cheryl Rosenberg Malcolmson, 37, was murdered on May 11 by
her husband, William "Billy" Malcolmson, 47, who then shot and killed
himself. Their bodies were discovered by Cheryl's 9-year-old daughter,
Rebecca Rosenberg, when she returned home after having dinner with her
father, Cheryl's first husband.

	Few people were aware of the couple's arguments. Or of their
problems. Or of secrets being kept in their home in a quiet subdivision in
Port Orange, FL. 

	A spokesman for the Port Orange police said Malcolmson killed his
wife and himself with a .40-caliber handgun.

	"We knew things were not all well, but we had no idea they were as
bad as they were," said the Rev. Bob Anderson, the pastor at United
Presbyterian Church in Daytona Beach, where Cheryl was a parish associate for
nearly two years. "A couple of people in the congregation knew some parts of
what was happening. Some of us knew other parts."

	But nobody put it all together.

	According to a story in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, some of
Cheryl's friends said she intended to divorce her husband.

	Domestic violence counselors say that is the most dangerous time -
when a woman tries to leave. More than 75 percent of domestic
violence-related deaths occur then, according to the denominational network,
Presbyterians Against Domestic Violence.

	Now people are wondering what they should have seen, or saw but
didn't understand.

	"Our whole agency is trying to grasp that something of this magnitude
could occur," said Chet Bell, the director of the Stewart-Marchman Center,
where Malcolmson ran the recreation department for substance-abusing youth,
and his wife counseled families coping with addiction and related problems,
including domestic violence.

	"We're a helping organization, and no one (here) was in a position to
have the knowledge of what was happening, to intervene in any way," Bell
said. "That's the question for all of us: What could we have done
differently?"

	The center's 300 employees are grieving. And wondering.

	Anderson said he's encouraging congregants not to wonder too much.

	"We're trying not to go back and speculate on what could be different
if we had known, if we could have known, if we should have known," he said,
adding that counselors and hospice chaplains have helped the youth group -
which was under Cheryl's charge - and other members begin sorting through
their grief.

	"Cheryl had more training, more resources than most women do," said
Anderson, who described his former colleague as likeable and competent. "That
may have been her downfall: She thought she could handle it. I tell women
(here), 'Don't wait to get help.'"

	Anderson said Malcolmson was hoping that United Church - a newly
merged congregation - would hire her as associate pastor in a few years, so
that she could leave her secular job. "That would have been a good dream to
realize," he said. "It's sad it didn't happen."

	Malcolmson, a native of Fort Dix, N.J., moved to Florida in 1997 from
San Anselmo, CA. She was a graduate of Beaver College in Philadephia and of
San Francisco Theological Seminary. She was a former associate pastor at Port
Orange and Highland Presbyterian churches.

	She co-moderated the Presbyterians for Disability Concerns Network
from 1997 to 2001. The network is part of a coalition of 10 working groups
that address specialized ministries known collectively as the Presbyterian
Health, Education and Welfare Association (PHEWA).

	Survivors include Cheryl Malcolmson's daughter and a son, Andrew,
both of Port Orange; her mother, Phyllis Cusack, and a sister, Christine
Cusack, both of South Daytona. Memorial donations may be made to the Domestic
Abuse Council, P.O. Box 142, Daytona Beach, FL 32115.

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