The public deserves to know why Mark Short slaughtered his family

by Steve Reinbrecht

I asked Berks County detectives for a copy of the suicide note Mark Short wrote after he shot his family to death in Sinking Spring on Aug. 6.

Top: Mark Jason Short Sr.; Megan L. Short;
Lianna G. Short, 8; Willow R. Short, 2; Mark J. Short, 5.

That might sound ghoulish. But I had hoped it would shed some light on the thinking of the ultimate domestic abuser.

The county denied my request, I appealed, and the state denied my appeal.

Here is my reasoning:

The issue is whether the public’s right to know more about this incident outweighs the privacy of Mark Short’s survivors.

The public has a strong interest in knowing the content of the note. It would shine light on the twisted thinking behind actions that grievously wounded the community.

Short was a murderer who gave up expectations of privacy when he planned and carried out the massacre of his family. He harmed the community grievously, and community members deserve to know the cause of their pain and grief.

• He forced first-responders and other public servants to immerse themselves in a crime scene of unimaginable atrocity.
• Wilson School District provided counseling for residents. One of the victims would be in third grade in the Green Valley Elementary School.
• Local religious leaders cited the incident in their sermons.
• Media around the world covered the tragedy.

Releasing the suicide note would give insight into the horrors of domestic violence, a problem that is both pervasive and neglected. If children are murdered, it’s probably by a parent, as in this case.

Women deserve to know all about this case to help prevent a similar attack from happening to them. Much of the horrific event in Sinking Spring followed the typical pattern of terminal domestic violence, so knowing the mental state of the killer through his last written message would be enlightening.

Short killed his wife the day she was moving out, a time that is recognized as the most dangerous point for a victim making an escape.

Typically, there had been few overt signs of trouble, although Megan had posted social-media messages about her marriage and plans to leave.

If he blames her for his actions, if he says he killed her and their children because she didn’t forgive him for past abuse, if he says he killed them all because he couldn’t live without her, well, those are reasons we need to hear.

When I first made my request, District Attorney John Adams was adamant.

“Steve:

The answer is emphatically NO.  I am very disappointed that you would not recognize the victim’s wishes nor any other legal precedent.”

When I appealed to the state Office of Open Records, county lawyers spent their taxpayer-paid hours writing long letters claiming that my appeal was too late and that I did not supply the proper documents. Then the OOR denied my request, citing the exception to the Open Record Law that covers material gathered in criminal investigations.

Supporters of the public’s right to know are targeting exactly the “exception” that government officials cited when they rejected my request for the suicide note.

“The Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association supports loosening provisions in the Right-to-Know Law that give government offices considerable power to turn down requests,” the Associated Press reported in November. [My emphasis.]

“They're known as exceptions, because they are exceptions to the general rule that records should be made public. The exceptions are for criminal investigations, noncriminal investigations and predecisional deliberations.

“The association says the criminal investigation exception has made access to basic police reports very difficult, and the noncriminal investigation exception has been used to shield from public view the final results of agency probes.

“Former state Senate Republican leader Dominic Pileggi, who sponsored the 2008 version of the law as well as the stalled bill to revise it, said changing the exceptions is a good idea but probably not politically palatable.

“No one wants to impede an active investigation, he said, but the exceptions are often overused.

“ ‘There are many investigations that are closed and never really amounted to what most people would consider an investigation, but that reason is still asserted for not handing over the record,’ Pileggi said.”

I feel like that’s what happened to me. I don’t know how my request would affect any investigation. The investigation is closed. Why won’t investigators tell us what they found?