- Amy Watkins
Amy Watkins (1973-1999) was a
social worker fromTopeka, Kansas , who wasmurder ed while walking down the street onMarch 8 ,1999 , inBrooklyn, New York . Her death sparked widespread dismay in New York City, where the murder rate had been steadily dropping since 1990, and days later 300 marchers expressed their grief with a candlelight march on her Prospect Heights street. MayorRudy Giuliani attended her wake.Watkins graduated from the
University of Kansas in 1996, and was a student at theHunter College School of Social Work at the time of her death. Both institutions established scholarships in her name. [http://www.socwel.ku.edu/publications/interface/spring99.pdf] [ [http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/admissions/aws.htm Untitled Document ] ] The New York City chapter of theNational Association of Social Workers also renamed a scholarship in her honor. [ [http://www.naswnyc.org/st4.html Scholarship Fund is Renamed in Honor of Slain Social Work Student Amy Watkins ] ]Police investigation
The
NYPD was unable to make an arrest in the Watkins case for over a year, until August 2000, when one of the assailants boasted of the crime. [ [http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/08/03/student.slain.ap/index.html CNN.com - Two men arrested in 1999 stabbing of graduate student in New York - August 3, 2000 ] ] [ [http://www.brooklynda.org/News/press_releases%202001.htm#016 Kings County District Attorney's Office Press Releases 2001 ] ] Two men were ultimately convicted in 2001, David Jamison and Felix Rodriguez, and both received lengthy prison sentences. [ [http://www.brooklynda.org/News/press_releases%202001.htm#050 Kings County District Attorney's Office Press Releases 2001 ] ] The case also made headlines because, during the course of the trial, Amy's parents Lawrence Watkins, a history teacher at Dominican Academy high school on the Upper East Side in Manhattan and his wife Gayle Greene Watkins, established a close relationship with the mother of the main perpetrator, Jamison. [ [http://archives.cnn.com/2001/LAW/07/02/unlikely.friendship.ap/index.html CNN.com - Parents form relationship with mother of man convicted in stabbing - July 2, 2001 ] ]See also
*
Timeline of New York City crimes and disasters References
External links
* [http://www.kuconnection.org/2003oct/people_1.asp Novelist gives to KU Watkins Fund]
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