Delaware County Daily Times - Mar 27, 2000 Article

The appropriate penalty for Robert Rivera (editorial)

Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA) - Monday, March 27, 2000

Delaware County District Attorney Patrick Meehan has a decision to make in the next few weeks. He has to determine whether Robert Rivera should face the death penalty if he's convicted of murdering his 20-month-old daughter, Katelyn Selena Rivera -Helton.

It shouldn't be difficult, if convicted.

By his own admission, Rivera is a monster.

The 33-year-old Boothwyn man freely admits he snatched Katelyn from her day-care center Aug. 10, 1999, in the midst of an acrimonious breakup with the child's mother, Jennifer Helton.

Witnesses can attest to his whereabouts from the time he took the child until about 7:15 that night, when he and Katelyn drove away from a gas station at the intersection of routes 1 and 100.

That heartbreakingly beautiful baby --- that innocent --- has not been seen since.

The only traces that have been found are a diaper and a tiny sock and rhinestone-studded shoe.

Rivera 's story has changed several times.

First, he implausibly told police he gave Katelyn away to a couple of strangers he met at Longwood Gardens.

Later he told the Daily Times' Rose Quinn his daughter was alive but "only me and God know where Katelyn is."

The contradiction inherent in those statements is chilling.

Last November, according to authorities, as he sat in prison on kidnapping charged, a county detective asked him where Katelyn was.

"If I told you, I would spend the rest of my life in jail," he allegedly replied.

By any account, Rivera talks too much. He talked himself right into the first-degree murder charges that were filed against him last week.

Even then, the megalomaniac couldn't keep his mouth shut.

As reporters asked him where Katelyn was, he said, "When the trial comes, I'll tell."

If Rivera takes the witness stand at his murder trial, he can stick to his story about Longwood Gardens. That should take a jury about 30 seconds to disregard.

He can invent a new tale, maybe about Katelyn 's awful, accidental death that came as a result of her head hitting the doorjamb at her day-care center as he carried her away.

Or he can stay silent. That might be the most damning admission of all.

Because it's evident that a man so despicable that he would rip a child away from her mother -- to settle a grudge -- would scream her whereabouts at the top of his lungs if she was out there somewhere, alive.

District Attorney Meehan surely knows the law regarding the death penalty. For it to be applied in a murder case, the state must prove certain aggravating circumstances.

One allows death to be sought if the murder victim is a child.

Another says it's appropriate if the murder occurs in conjunction with a kidnapping.

The authors of the Pennsylvania death penalty statute couldn't have fit this case more perfectly if they had entitled it the "Justice for Katelyn Act."

And it's justice that must be served, if Rivera is convicted. For that sweet, smiling face. And for all of us.