Mary Ann DeCrevel Recalled

Douglas MacArthur 1965 graduate Mary Ann DeCrevel listed, in the Cadet yearbook, her activities as Girls Glee Club, Office Assistant, and Office Occupation Club.

Some of us remember her as friendly and always smiling.

After doing researching and finding out the specifics of her death, I wrote an essay here entitled Murder.

I tried to frame it in the context that we should not be surprised that a violent death ended the life of one of our classmates. The details of her death were sad, and certainly not something Mary Ann deserved:

When Mary Ann passed away, the newspaper called her Mrs. Kerry Kuster, 42, of Decatur. She was murdered on Monday, November 13, 1989, in Decatur. At the time, Mary Ann was a secretary for Decatur Blue Print Company. She had been married to Kerry Kuster since 1965. The Kusters had two sons and a daughter. Mary Ann had a sister, and two grandchildren, when she died. Her father passed away before her, in 1987.
The details of Mary Ann's death are not pretty. She allegedly had broken up with her husband and was dating another man. She had gone to the man's grandfather's house to meet this new guy. Reportedly, there the grandfather [Ronald Glas] stabbed the sweet classmate we knew as Mary Ann DeCrevel multiple times. When dead, she was then put into the trunk of her own car. Later, she would be discovered a few blocks from the house of her mother.

The trial was the media fodder of the day, even involving stories about the children who had played in the car being brought forth to testify.

Decatur, Illinois, Herald & Review, April 24, 1990, page one.

Decatur, Illinois, Herald & Review, April 24, 1990.

Decatur, Illinois, Herald & Review, September 17, 1991.

Mary Ann was buried in the North Fork Cemetery, Long Creek, Macon County, Illinois.

Legacies continue. Memories live on.

Last night, Mary Ann's granddaughter wrote, sharing the following with this blog. It was sent as a comment to my earlier May 1, 2010 entry, but I have decided to elevate it to a new posting:

Mary Ann was my grandmother. My mother was pregnant with me when she passed so I unfortunately never got to meet her. Her husband Kerry passed away yesterday [February 20, 2016] and as I am sure you can imagine, a lot of people were speaking of Mary Ann this weekend. It is so nice to hear happy things about her, as she was not spoken of much when I was growing up as my family continues to grieve for her. Thank you for your kind words and memories of her. ~ Emily Ann Kuster

May Kerry and Mary Ann rest in peace. Our condolences to the family and friends of both.

Murder

Murder is a harsh reality of being a human being. It is unbelievable and it is believable.

Murder occurs everyday in America. But it should not, we all feel, because we are civilized, so the thinking goes.

Yet, here we are, members of the graduating class of 1965, and why should we have thought we would be untouched by murder.

Still, when I heard from a classmate that one of the deceased people about whom I was doing research, had been killed, I was taken aback. Sure, in a class of over 350 people, who today are 62 or 63, you'd expect some would have passed away, sadly. These people were gone, I was finding, from accidents, from cancer, and even from Vietnam. But murder?

Statistically, yes, it made sense. But in my heart, in the realm of "this couldn't happen to anyone I went to high school with," no, I didn't want to think murder visited so closely to people with whom I had spent four years of my life.

But it had.

"Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his [her] behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest." ~ W. H. Auden (1907-1973, English-born poet and man of letters).

We all knew her as Mary Ann DeCrevel. Her smile still stares out from the 1965 Cadet, topped by the high-hair style that was beginning to fade, but which you could imagine her mother might have made her wear for her senior picture.

Mary Ann had been born on Flag Day, June 14, 1947. Her mother, Mary T. Stewart DeCrevel, lived long after she had to bury her daughter. Mrs. DeCrevel was born on March 14, 1923, and died September 25, 2003. As it turned out, Mary Ann's body was found near her mother's home.

When Mary Ann passed away, the newspaper called her Mrs. Kerry Kuster, 42, of Decatur. She was murdered on Monday, November 13, 1989, in Decatur. At the time, Mary Ann was a secretary for Decatur Blue Print Company. She had been married to Kerry Kuster since 1965. The Kusters had two sons and a daughter. Mary Ann had a sister, and two grandchildren, when she died. Her father passed away before her, in 1987.

The details of Mary Ann's death are not pretty. She allegedly had broken up with her husband and was dating another man. She had gone to the man's grandfather's house to meet this new guy. Reportedly, there the grandfather stabbed the sweet classmate we knew as Mary Ann DeCrevel multiple times. When dead, she was then put into the trunk of her own car. Later, she would be discovered a few blocks from the house of her mother.

I struggled with how to share this, and decided, reality is not always beautiful. There is no sugar-coating murder. It is awful, disturbing, and yet it occurs.

I am shocked and saddened for Mary Ann, and those she has left behind.

The graduating class has many stories to tell. This is one of them. Most will be ones, of course, with happy endings, like we enjoy in our stories.

But life and death do happen, and sometimes we cannot pick the last chapter.

"Murder is terribly exhausting." ~ Albert Camus (1913-1960, French novelist, essayist and playwright, 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature).