Gift of Bible Lives On

The letter addressed to Ella Foy Riley arrived a week before Christmas and what would have been her 76th birthday.
Nati Marie Saenz was writing from Elsa, Texas to tell Riley how she valued the Bible the kind woman gave her for her seventh birthday, the day her family moved from Abbeville to Texas in 1987. It wasn’t until Riley’s family called her after receiving the letter that the girl, now 17, learned her older friend had been murdered in her home on May 21, 1990.
But the letter, which expressed the inspiration the girl has drawn from the Bible and the woman who gave it to her, made a positive impact on Riley’s family during the holiday season.
“I had been going through a depressed time,” said Pat Jones, Riley’s daughter who found her mother’s body early that Tuesday morning in the spring of 1990.
“But when I got that letter, it was the most uplifting thing to think that Mother had meant that much to her. That’s what Christmas is all about, what celebrating Christ is all about. Reading that letter made me feel really close to Mother.”
Saenz, who hopes to visit Riley’s family sometime in 1999, wanted to tell Riley her Bible helped get her through her own trials, such as the period when she suffered brain seizures after undergoing surgery for a tumor in 1995.
Fortunately, she is now seizure-free and is quite active in her church, where she teaches Bible classes for eighth-grade and first-grade children.
“I want you to know that I treasure that Bible with all my heart,” Saenz wrote Riley in the letter. “I’m sorry for not writing to you for all these years, but I want you to know that I have never forgotten you, and never will . . .
“I always remember you, not only for your kindness, but also for your friendship . . . I’m 17-years-old and a junior in high school, and I’m living a great life because I have the Lord and those wonderful memories of you in my life. I hope you get to read this letter and know how much I admired you and appreciated your kindness.”
Although she had lost contact with Riley in the decade since her family moved west, Saenz said a TV movie aired during Christmas motivated her to write. Then, on the day after Christmas and Riley’s birthday, she received the letter from Jones’ brother Wayne that included the sad news.
“I thought of her like my grandmother, and I was very excited when I got the letter,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in south Texas. “My family thought I was joking when I was reading it to them out loud. We were all shocked, and I couldn’t believe what I was reading.”
Jones was surprised to hear Saenz’s career goals. Since Riley’s murder, Jones has become active in Victims of Crime and Leniency (She serves as president of the Southeast Alabama VOCAL chapter.) as the family has suffered through the prosecution of the two men who killed her mother.
Willie McNair, the Abbeville man who had done lawn work for Riley before the murder, confessed of the crime and was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, and is now at Atmore Correctional Facility.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the sentence, and a Montgomery County jury sentenced McNair to life without parole, but Circuit Judge Edward Jackson overruled the decision and reinstated the death penalty.
Seven of McNair’s 10 death penalty appeals have been exhausted.
The other man implicated in the murder, Olin Grimsley, was only convicted of robbery charges and sentenced to life, which he is serving at Kilby Correctional Facility in Montgomery.
Of course, Saenz knew none of this when she began considering a career in criminal justice. She plans to begin pursuing her degree at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio after high school graduation in 2000.
Although hearing of her friend’s death has provided more inspiration for a career in criminal prosecution, Saenz said her mind has been set in this direction for most of her life.
“Since I was a little girl, that’s all I wanted to be,” Saenz said.