Ritcheson

Tuck knocked Ritcheson unconscious with one crack that broke his jaw, the ER physician who treated him said in court.

The Wages of Hate 2007

Ritcheson told members of Congress that God had spared him the memory of what happened that night, but “today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter.”

The Wages of Hate 2007

Yet Ritcheson did seem to be slowly mending himself.

The Wages of Hate 2007

On Sunday, Ritcheson, 18, died after leaping from the upper deck of a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Wages of Hate 2007

But in hindsight, Leon adds, Ritcheson “obviously internalized a lot of the pain he was feeling … None of us realized that his struggle was as difficult as it was.”

The Wages of Hate 2007

“You could see that he was a young man who had made some bad choices in the past,” says Mike Trent, the Harris County assistant district attorney who worked closely with Ritcheson to prosecute the case.

The Wages of Hate 2007

Ritcheson spent the next three months in the hospital, where he underwent more than 30 opererations.

The Wages of Hate 2007

Ritcheson was about to start a new job this summer and finish the last credits he needed to graduate after missing so much school.

The Wages of Hate 2007

Ritcheson, a popular football player and onetime freshman homecoming prince, endured one of the most brutal hate-crime attacks in recent history.

The Wages of Hate 2007

“I appear before you as a survivor of one of the most despicable, shocking and heinous acts of hate violence this country has seen in decades,” Ritcheson said.

The Wages of Hate 2007