An Aboriginal boy, taken from his mother at four days, was taken from Australia at five years. Now a convicted murderer in the USA, he wants to return to Australia to complete his 25-year sentence. Keith McEwan, who has experience of Aboriginal adoption, says we should bring him home.
Chance for rehabilitation
Editor, The Age:
Sir, It is reported that James Savage, an Aboriginal man who has been serving a life sentence (25 years) for murder in an American jail since 1989, wants to finish his term in Australia. Named Russell Moore when he was born in 1963 in Fitzroy, Melbourne, he was taken from his 15-year-old mother, Beverly Whyman of Swan Hill, when he was four days old and adopted by a white couple who took him to the USA five years later.
At the time of his trial one of America`s most distinguished psychiatrists, Dr Robert Phillips, portrayed Savage, then aged 26, as a “loveless, lonely boy, taunted by his colour and unfairly disciplined by an authoritarian father whom he feared. He was affected badly by the absence of early bonding with his natural mother and a lack of identity brought on by his adoption. His sense of worthlessness increased with racial taunts causing him to be isolated as an Aboriginal in a white family.”
Surely the rehabilitation of James Savage will be enhanced if he is returned to Australia, under the prisoner exchange scheme, to serve out his 25-year sentence.
– Keith McEwan, CLA member, Bendigo Victoria
Note: Keith and June McEwan adopted an Aboriginal baby in Melbourne in 1961.