Dear Prudence,
My father was murdered over 30 years ago when I was 6 years old. His murder was never solved or investigated, to my knowledge, although his death certificate lists his cause of death as a homicide. This was in Detroit during the ’80s, and I was always told it was a robbery gone wrong. Around my 16th birthday my paternal grandmother, on her deathbed, told me that my uncle—my mother’s brother—murdered my father. Apparently, the event that led him to strike a blow to my father’s head was over money. I was shocked at this revelation but powerless to do anything about it, and her confession was a burden I didn’t want since I had mostly gotten over my father’s death after years of struggling with grief. My father, although he was a great man, had a heroin problem. The uncle who supposedly murdered him is a strung-out dope fiend who has had very little to do with our family except for popping up occasionally to beg for money or cause trouble. We’ve had run-ins, and he knows I know what he did but, but he just rambles about my father’s drug problem. I’ve learned that my mother and her siblings have known about this. Last week my mother called and said her siblings were attempting to reconcile with this uncle and that she wanted nothing to do with it. She was thinking about going to the police about the murder allegations and asked if I wanted to get involved. This tore open an old wound, and I’m trying to figure out if I want to go down this rabbit hole. I’ve left Michigan and have a very good life. I’ve escaped the crime and poverty that I believe led to my father’s death. I want justice and revenge for my father. I feel as though I owe it to his side of my family, with whom I am very close. But I don’t know if it’s worth pursuing or what damage I may cause to my mom’s side of the family. I need an outsider to bring some perspective.