Victims of Crime : Memorial: Survivors who are still suffering help dedicate a monument to their loved ones.

BREA —  They were somebody’s sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers. What they had in common was that their lives ended abruptly and violently--shot by gang members, strangled by strangers, struck by drunk drivers.

On Sunday at Memory Garden Memorial Park in Brea, about 300 survivors of crime victims--many of whom had lost several relatives--helped dedicate a memorial to their loved ones. Dressed in cutoffs and sandals as well as silk and pearls, they filed past a five-foot-high stone marker and placed roses on granite plaques engraved with 96 victims’ names. Many took pictures.

“You hear about the murderers constantly. Not the victims and the victims’ families. We suffer so much,” said Jean Pascale, whose grandson Jeffrey Oxford-Pascale, 10, unveiled the Crime Victims Memorial Monument to the applause of other survivors. His mother was shot to death by her husband in 1985. He is up for parole this year, Pascale said.

Some survivors, whose relatives’ bodies were cremated or never found, left flowers at a memorial for the first time.

“This will be Scotty’s first grave marker,” said Collene Campbell of San Juan Capistrano, whose only son, Scott, was strangled and thrown from an airplane off Catalina in 1982 in what prosecutors allege was a drug deal gone awry. His killers are now serving time in prison.

In addition, Campbell’s brother, race-car driver Mickey Thompson, and Thompson’s wife, Trudy, were shot to death five years later. No arrest was made.

Campbell’s 92-year-old mother, Geneva Thompson, also came to the dedication. “Some people say time heals everything. Those people have never had a loved one murdered,” Geneva Thompson said. “There’s no way you can ever accept a murder. There’s no end to it. The long trials, appeals and parole hearings. . . . “

The monument for the first time provides a memorial for many victims who have never had a grave site before, or whose killers have not even been identified. It also symbolizes the survivors’ struggle to find meaning in the violent deaths and to fill a need to take action, speakers at the dedication said.

Campbell, founder of Memory of Victims Everywhere, an organization dedicated to justice reform, invited other survivors to join her in promoting public awareness of victims’ plights and in streamlining the justice system. Most of the victims memorialized Sunday were killed by convicts on parole or suspects awaiting trial, she said. Other organizations that helped raise $15,000 for the marker and participated in the ceremony included the Irvine-based Victim-Witness Assistance Program, Parents of Murdered Children, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

In a prepared speech, state Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) said that efforts of victims’ rights groups are helping to change the way people look at crime. “Today for the first time, we see a recognition of the price paid by victims. We’re hearing a message that victims are not forgotten,” he said.

One woman who asked to remain anonymous circulated a petition asking members of a parole board to keep her daughter’s killer in prison.

Elsewhere, she has had to explain her efforts to potential signers, the woman said. On Sunday, people signed without asking any questions. “They’re well aware of what you have to do to get justice in sentencing,” she said.

Gloria Stratton of Garden Grove placed a framed portrait of her daughter Tracy Lee Stratton by the granite marker bearing her name. The girl was abducted when she was 16; her remains were found near Big Bear. The monument is a place Stratton said she can come to remember her child.

Though more names can be added to more plaques, with a $50 engraving fee, she said, “we don’t want to add names to it; we want to stop crime.”

Lisa Sharp of La Habra came with other relatives to memorialize her brother, Kevin Iossi, who she said was stabbed by gang members last year.

“They still haven’t found the murderer,” she said. If an arrest is made, she said, “then hopefully we can give it a rest. Until then, it’s hard to find any meaning in it.”