Pubdate: Sat, 08 Apr 2006
Source: Post-Standard, The (NY)
Copyright: 2006, Syracuse Post-Standard
Contact:  http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/686
Author: Paloma Esquivel, Contributing writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

MURDER VICTIM'S MOM SPEAKS TO STUDENTS

Darlene Tallman urges Shea pupils to consider choices, help make difference.

Almost four years after her son Eric was beaten to death in a 
drug-trafficking scheme gone bad, Darlene Tallman still makes his 
favorite food, macaroni and cheese with stewed tomatoes, on his birthday.

She still wears his earring and sleeps in a quilt made of his old 
clothes. She's kept every newspaper article written about her son, 
about his killers, about his death.

Friday, the pictures, quilt and articles were displayed in the 
auditorium at Shea Middle School in Syracuse as Tallman told some 80 
eighth-graders about her son's death.

"Please pay attention to my words," said Tallman, an English teacher 
at Shea. "I'm paying the ultimate price and my husband is paying the 
ultimate price."

She asked pupils to consider that the choices they make can affect 
others for a long time.

Her son, Eric Tallman, 24, was beaten to death Nov. 27, 2002, over a 
drug deal and was mauled by a pit bull at a mobile home in Dryden. 
Authorities said his killers thought Tallman had stolen 50 pounds of 
marijuana from a smuggling scheme to bring the drug from Texas to 
Central New York.

Three people were convicted in Eric Tallman's death.

"How did this happen?" Tallman asked the pupils.

Tallman told the pupils her son started having problems in middle 
school. He hung out with a "bad crowd." At 16, he was arrested for 
stealing a car stereo, she said.

"I watch a lot, I listen a lot and I know many of you have the same 
kind of pain inside of you," said Tallman, who lives in Cayuga County.

In a neighborhood plagued with drugs and violence, Tall-man said she 
wanted to give Shea pupils a different perspective.

She asked the pupils to return to their communities during spring 
break and find a way to make a difference.

Several pupils said they were moved by Tallman's story.

Demetria Boatwright, 14, said she would remember that the wrong 
choices can deeply affect the lives of others.

"He was making the wrong choices and just not thinking about how it 
would affect his family," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman