Jan 25, 2009 10:44 am US/Eastern
Memorial Viewing Sunday For Claudine Ryce
Memorial Services Will Be Held On Sunday
Burial Is Monday
See Details Below
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
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Claudine Ryce
George Olsen/2008
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Claudine and Don Ryce with law enforcement trailing team award winner at Florida Missing Children's Day.
JimmyRyce.org/CBS
A memorial viewing will be held Sunday for a South Florida woman who committed her life to the protection of children after losing her son to a sexual predator.
Claudine Ryce, 66, passed away last week from an apparent heart attack. The public viewing will be held from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Van Orsdel Family Funeral Chapel at 11220 North Kendall Drive.
Funeral services will be held Monday, January 26th, at 11a.m. at St. Andrews Episcopal Church at 14260 Old Cutler Road in Palmetto Bay. A funeral procession will then carry Ryce to the Woodlawn Park South Cemetery, at 11655 Southwest 117th Avenue, where she will be laid to rest next to her son Jimmy.
It was September 11th, 1995 when Don and Claudine's 8-year old son Jimmy was kidnapped while walking home from the school bus stop in the Redland. Now, with the passing of his wife, Don Ryce says he's comforted by a single thought "I wish I could be there to see it because I know she is feeling comfort and joy having Jimmy back in her arms."
The little boy's dismembered body was found three months after his disappearance. He had been raped and shot by a farm worker, Juan Carlos Chavez, who now sits on Florida's Death Row.
That tragedy prompted the Ryce's-- both career lawyers-- to become tireless advocates for the protection of children. The Jimmy Ryce Act created new protections against sexual predators. The couple helped push to get bloodhounds for police departments searching for missing children, and they always could be counted on to offer support to other families enduring the hellish torment they'd known.
Ryce said of his wife, "Claudine did not ask for any of this; she did not ask to be a crusader. But she took it up with grace, courage and determination."
Now her husband vows to try and keep a promise they had made to one another. He wants to live to see his son's killer executed. "It is not that we are dominated by thoughts of him," Ryce says of Chavez, "but justice requires he give his life for what he took from our son's."
The Ryce family has asked that flowers arrangements be made with the funeral home. Anyone wishing to make a donation in the memory of Claudine Ryce can contact:
Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction
900 Bay Drive East
Suite 201
Miami Beach, FL 33141
jimmyryce.org
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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