FORT WRIGHT, Ohio -- Barbara Briede waited 25 years for her daughter's killer to get the sentence she'd sought for him: Life in prison without parole.
"That's what we prayed for," Briede said. "What a burden has been lifted for me, that I don't have to worry for the rest of my life for me or my family or anyone else he has threatened."
Carlos Faulkner was convicted in 1992 of stabbing and beating 26-year-old Lesly Briede to death inside the family home. The scene was one of the most upsetting some investigators had ever seen, but Kentucky judges and juries could not hand down a sentence of life without parole at that time.
It only became a legal option in 1998 in response to Barbara Briede's persistent advocacy for victims' rights.
By then, it couldn't help her daughter's case.
When Briede learned Faulkner's parole hearing was approaching, she and Fort Wright Mayor Dave Hatter jointly called for the public to contact the parole board and oppose his release.
More than 1,000 letters arrived in response, and they worked. On Monday, the parole board denied Faulkner's request.
"I think we just protected the community," Daniel Kreinest, who investigated Lesly Briede's murder in 1992, said. "This was a horrific crime that was planned, it was intentional. This is an individual who was dangerous and threatened a number of women."
Barbara Briede will never have the thing she wants most -- Lesly, alive and happy -- but said she planned to continue her advocacy for the rights of victims in Kentucky. Another murder in her family remains unsolved: That of her granddaughter, Michaela, who died May 29, 2013. Michaela's killer was never found.
"Don't give up if injustice is done to you," Barbara Briede said. "Don't give up. Just keep fighting."
