Murder, Forgiveness, and Redemption

“I kept thinking, this is a nightmare,” Roseen Ortiz said while thinking back to the tragic moment that changed her life forever. “At some point I'm going to open my eyes, I'm going to wake up. My husband is gone, my son's gone. All I have is my faith in God.”

As Pastors, Roman and Roseen Ortiz raised their son, Malachi, in the church, instilling in him a strong love for God and family. However, once he got to high school his attitude took a dramatic turn.

“Any little thing, he would just get real angry,” Roseen said. ‘Now all of a sudden we can't question you on why you're not going to school or why your grades are failing?’ We just couldn’t pinpoint what was going on with him. It was very hard, the lack of communication. I even told him that you have a calling on your life, son, and you're running. You're running from that calling.”

Active in sports, Malachi had recently been treated for injuries and prescribed pain pills. The Ortiz’s hadn’t made a connection between drug use and his behavior until Roseen found a small plastic bag among Malachi’s things. 

“I opened it and I was running it through my fingers,” Roseen said. “I kept thinking, what is this? I called my oldest daughter. She said, ‘I think it's heroin.’ I flushed it down the toilet. I said, ‘You know, Malachi, the next time you bring drugs into my home, I'm going to call the police.’ At that point we were very concerned. And then the physical effects started showing. The dark circles and the weight loss. It just progressed. It got worse.”

Roman and Roseen took steps to help Malachi break his opioid addiction, but his mental state continued to slip. He even tried to end his own life on several occasions. It all came to a head one fateful night. 

“Malachi came home drunk and he's just making noise,” Roseen said. “I went to the sink and I heard a gunshot. I could see Roman and Malachi and they were just kind of like wrestling for the gun. The gun went off again, and I don’t remember how many times. I just remember seeing the flashes. So, I got around and I was able to pry the gun out of Malachi’s hand. When I turned to look at Roman, he collapsed on the floor and I realized he was hit. I remember the sound of everything just started fading out. Roman had died on our living room floor.”

Roseen believes Roman was trying to stop Malachi from using the gun to kill himself when it went off. To this day Malachi claims to not remember what happened. He took a plea deal and was sentenced to 16 years in prison for second-degree murder. Roseen was devastated yet still held onto her faith and love for her son.

“I didn't have any unforgiveness toward him, not even the slightest bit,” Roseen said. “I know that he didn't do it intentionally. I needed to be there for him, to walk him through forgiving himself. I needed to be there for him to receive God's forgiveness and to move past the guilt and the shame. I didn't want my son to take his life. My prayers for him were that his life would be spared and that he would just surrender everything to God.”

Now sober in prison, Malachi came to terms with the reality of what he’d done.

“’Mom,’ he said, ‘I decided to fast and pray. God dealt with me, mom. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything.’ He just poured his heart out,” Roseen said. “He got in The Word. He got into church programs. He got into everything that he can get in there. It was a life changing moment. Malachi surrendered his life to the Lord and it's been nonstop since. It makes me happy and I'm grateful. I'm proud of him. I’m so proud that he didn’t give up.”

Malachi has since become an ordained minister and plans to start a youth ministry with his mother once he is released from prison.

“There’s no amount of words that I could put into a sentence to explain how sorry I am,” Malachi Ortiz said. “All I can do is just wake up every morning and strive to be the man that my dad raised me to be, that God called me to be. It was reflected in my mom, just the true example of what Christ was like. All she said was that she loved me and that I’m her son and nothing would change that. I just rededicated my life back to Jesus Christ. There’s nothing that He can’t redeem. Just know that He has your back and He loves you.”

In spite of everything she has been through, Roseen holds fast to her hope in Christ and still works to share a message of love and forgiveness.

“I'm at peace knowing that I'm going to see my husband again. I'm going to see him again, but here I'm still running my race. I’ve continued to minister to women. I hold Bible studies here now in my home. I walked next to Malachi’s father for 22 years in ministry, and now to do that with my son, I mean, it's a blessing. What I always say to the addict is that there's so much hope for you. God will restore your life if you just turn to Him, surrender to Him. And to anybody who has a loved one who's an addict, don't give up on them. Keep trying no matter what.”