THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS\Mother's mercy rechannels rage against killer.

Byline: Susan Goldsmith Daily News Staff Writer

There was little solace for Aba Gayle's unbearable grief after her 19-year-old daughter, Catherine, was stabbed to death.

For 10 years, a decade marked by intense sadness and depression, the only thing to sustain the grieving Santa Rosa woman was knowing Catherine's killer, Douglas Mickey, would be executed for his crime.

Then, Gayle's life took an unlikely and dramatic turn.

Inspired by church teachings and friends who preached compassion, Gayle renounced her hatred, forgave Mickey and made it her life's campaign to save his life.

"Killing Douglas is not going to bring Catherine back," said the 62-year-old Gayle, whose daughter was murdered in 1980. "After these executions, the survivors don't get better. You don't get healed by such a monstrous act."

Now a staunch critic of the death penalty, Gayle took part in a vigil outside San Quentin Prison last week to protest the killing of serial murderer William Bonin. Inside the prison, her daughter's killer awaits his own execution.

"The forgiveness came very slowly," said Gayle. "But I finally realized that if I didn't let go of the hate, I was going to have a heart attack from all the stress I was carrying around."

Gayle is a member of a group called Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, a group founded about 20 years ago by Marie Deans, a woman whose mother-in-law was murdered in South Carolina.

The group - which claims 3,000 members nationwide - is often misunderstood, said Pat Bane, the executive director.

"Society expects that victims' families want revenge," said Bane, whose uncle was murdered. "When people don't want that revenge some people consider them traitors and feel they are betraying their loved one who was murdered."

But group members find a kind of relief in embracing forgiveness, Bane said.

"Those who have forgiven the murderers seem to have found a real peace and feel they have memorialized the person they lost in a very positive way," said Bane, adding that the organization is nondenominational and members come from all faiths.

Barbara Biehn, whose 16-year-old son Steven Wood was murdered by Bonin in 1980, says she is astonished that parents of slain children would even consider forgiving killers.

"It's beyond my comprehension what they're doing," said Biehn, whose second son was so distraught over his brother's death he committed suicide at age 29 in 1989. "I'm not looking for satisfaction and revenge from this execution. I want to know he'll never, ever get out of prison."

Bane and other group members insist they are not a bunch of bleeding hearts who think horrible crimes should go unpunished. They believe some criminals should be locked up for life, but they do not understand the logic of trying to proclaim murder wrong with more killing.

"I don't want the memory of my beautiful child besmirched by an execution," Gayle said. "That's a horrible thing to do to someone's memory."

Although many members of Murder Victims' Families are ostracized by family and friends for reconciling with their loved ones' murderers, Gayle's decision was embraced by her two other children.

"My children were amazed and thought it was beautiful," she said. "But my niece said she could never forgive anyone who murdered her daughter."

Gayle's daughter, Catherine Blount, a student at Sierra College in Rocklin, was stabbed to death along with her roommate, Eric Hansen, 29, on an Auburn-area ranch on Sept. 30, 1980.

The killer, Douglas Mickey, did not know Catherine, but was a friend of Hansen's, said Gayle, who never did learn what the dispute was about.

Mickey, 47, was sentenced to death for the murders but an execution date has not yet been set, San Quentin State Prison officials said.

After Catherine's death, Gayle discovered a kind of balm for her pain in darkened movie theaters, watching "Dirty Harry" movies about vigilante justice and revenge killing.

Her journey of forgiveness started with a 1992 letter she wrote to Mickey as an exercise to help her deal with her grief. In it, she talked about her youngest child, Catherine, a petite woman with long, blond hair who loved taking care of animals. Gayle told him how devastating her murder had been on the family and about the many years she spent consumed with grief.

Before closing the letter, Gayle wrote that she forgave Mickey for what he had done even though she did not feel he was "innocent or blameless for what happened." Although she did not intend on mailing the letter, she finally did.

Even though she did not expect a response, within a few days Gayle received a letter from Mickey in which he expressed remorse for the murders. He thanked her for forgiving him and wrote "that he was so sorry about what he did he would willingly give his life," Gayle said.

Months of correspondence eventually led to a face-to-face visit at San Quentin - a meeting that profoundly moved Gayle.

"We talked about Catherine for 3 -1/2 hours. I cried and he cried," she said. "When I left the prison, I said to myself - If it takes the rest of my life I'm going to let people know this is a human being, and if they execute him they will execute my friend."

Bob Leach, president of the Malibu-based Justice for Homicide Victims, says Gayle and other members of Murder Victims' Families are clearly in the minority in wanting to forgive violent killers.

"We feel that in appropriate cases the death penalty is thoroughly justified," said Leach, whose 21-year-old daughter was shot to death in 1983 by a former boyfriend. "It is not for survivors to forgive the murderer. The only person who can forgive the murderer is the victim himself."

Gayle, who has offered to testify in a clemency hearing on behalf of her daughter's murderer, says she is certain Catherine would approve of her decision.

"My daughter would be happy I am doing this because she wouldn't have wanted me to go through life full of hate and rage," Gayle said. "Love and forgiveness is the only way to make the Earth a decent place."

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Photo (color) Aba Gayle holds a photo of her daughter Catherine Blount, who was murdered in 1980. Jeff Kan Lee/Special to the Daily News