Sitting Down with My Best Friend’s Killer - Amanda Carrasco

 

Airdate: September 10, 2025

Julie Rose: What would you say to someone who caused you significant harm?

Amanda Carrasco: One thing for victims is that a lot of them have questions that they need answered. You know, "Why did this happen? Why did you choose me?" I didn't have those questions, but what I did have was a need to tell him how I felt. I wanted him to feel some of my pain.

Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy, a show about sticking with moments that challenge us even when they're uncomfortable. And I know you're probably wondering, "Why would anybody choose to be uncomfortable?" But I know from personal experience, and maybe you do too, that sometimes a little discomfort has benefits if we can stay open and curious about it. So, that's what we're here to explore. Let's get Uncomfy. I'm joined today by Amanda Carrasco. She is a restorative justice facilitator and advocate, and she has just released a new memoir. It's called "Becoming the Brave One: My Journey to Justice." Amanda, welcome.

Amanda Carrasco: Thanks for having me here. I'm very excited.

Julie Rose: We're gonna dive into your story, but first I think we do just need to distinguish between "justice" and "restorative justice." What is the difference there?

Amanda Carrasco: So, restorative justice isa different sort of way of doing justice, and I wanna give credit to, you know, indigenous cultures and traditions that really gave us this. This isn't, like, a new concept, actually, and it's really about bringing the victim back into the center of things, but it's also got a greater way of accountability for offenders. And that piece also gets really missed because a lot of people think that restorative justice is a soft on crime approach, and it's anything but that. It's very hard, it's very uncomfortable, but that's part of why it works and is so effective.

Julie Rose: I wanna dig more deeply into the, into exactly how this looks, and I'm hoping that we can do that in the context of your own personal story. So, would you tell us what it was like for you to sit face to face in a restorative justice setting with the man who murdered your close friend, her name is Susan, she was like a sister to you. Tell us how that meeting came about and what it felt like.

Amanda Carrasco: Sure. Well, like you said, like, I am a registered victim of crime and, um, I mean, I could tell you the data on restorative justice all day, but, um, you'll forget the numbers and the figures, but you won't forget my sister. So, yeah, her name was Susan. Um, I knew her when, since I was eight years old, and she adopted me. She just, I looked up to her. She loved on me. She just kind of took me in, and her family knew me as their sister, you know, it, it kind of spread through the whole thing. And so, when I was 16, um, she actually had legal guardianship of me, so I was living with her and her husband and their children, and her husband decided that he did not want to be a husband and father, and so he premeditatively made a plan to murder all of us, actually. And I'd had an argument with my sister, and that's why I wasn't home that night, and it's the only reason why I'm still here. And so, he murdered her and their children. And so, I was 16 and lost everything, um, and then, at 17, I had to testify at the trial, and so you know, standing outside the courthouse day after day, having to wait until the prosecutor wanted to, you know, having to answer all of his questions and go through a really re-traumatizing experience. And so, I mean, he was convicted, so he is currently in prison, and we fast forward about, you know, 20, 25-ish years later, and we'd gotten to a place where we were actually getting to parole hearings, and so I had a, a worker assigned to me and I explained to her that I'd heard about restorative justice, and she said, "Well, um, you know, that's something that could be an option for you," and I was like, "Ha, that's funny. No, no, I don't wanna go sit in the room with that man, thank you." Um, but as I started to continue to work, and I actually ended up Zooming into a prison in California and then starting to work with incarcerated people, and I saw remorse, true and genuine remorse from people who had committed really horrific crimes and learning from them, building community with them was certainly life changing for me. And I realized that I was actually lacking something because, unfortunately, you know, the man who killed my sister is not taking responsibility, he's not showing that remorse, and so, I mean, I carried a lot of pain and a lot of anger, and that also kind of made me angry. I was like, "You're robbing me of this." Like, I see something that victims could have, like, to have your offender say, "Sorry," to have them, you know, be remorseful, that's huge. So, I saw that I, I didn't have that, and so I came to a place where I thought, "You know what? There's actually things I wanna say to him." One thing for victims is that a lot of them have questions that they need answered. You know, "Why did this happen? Why did you choose me?" I didn't have those questions, but what I did have was a need to tell him how I felt. I wanted him to feel some of my pain, so that was why I finally agreed, um, to go and meet with him.

Julie Rose: And how was the meeting, if at all, different from just a, a regular visit, right? Rather, you know, how was a restorative justice encounter different?

Amanda Carrasco: So, we sat together, there was him, myself, a restorative justice caseworker, and he had asked for the prison chaplain to be there as well, and I agreed as long as the chaplain didn't talk. Like, I, I, I understood his need for a support person. I thought that was super valid. It was just the four of us in that room, and I tried imagining it, but it was really hard, you know? Um, I'd never been in that particular prison before, I'd been in prisons before, but not that one specifically, so I actually went into the room ahead of time, and I sat the chairs where I wanted them to be, and so that way I could see the room, and I knew where we were gonna be. Then we left. They brought him in and then he sat down, because another condition for me, because I was also very afraid of this man. You know, I knew what he did. He killed my sister and the kids, and he would've killed me if I was home, so I had a, a condition that he needed to sit down, that, that at no time was he to stand up over top of me, and he respected that, and at no time did he, and I was like, "Good. You know, like, that's great," um, just, just to help me feel less afraid, help me feel more powerful.

Julie Rose: Was there a specific structure to the meeting?

Amanda Carrasco: So, the meeting is going to be unique depending on who's in it, which is one of the beautiful things about restorative justice, it's very unique to the circumstances. In my case, it happened, you know, after the crime, after conviction, but it can actually come before, and it doesn't have to involve a face-to-face meeting. There can be letters exchanged, there can be, um, surrogacy, you know, in, in cases where you can't meet with the actual victim or the actual offender. And so, in my case, it was us in a face-to-face meeting, and my worker, because he knew my background, um, and my knowledge of restorative justice, you know, I said to him, "Okay, so, what's the script? What are we doing?" And he said, "No, no, no, no. You get to do that," and I was like, "What?" So, I'm on the plane flying there and took out my, my notepad, and it was like, "Okay, how are we gonna do this?" And the things that I wrote in terms of, you know, questions that I had for him, uh, like, I gave him an opportunity, and I said, you know, "What, what don't I know? You know, like, we were family. Like, there's things that I know about you 'cause I lived with you 'cause you're my brother-in-law. There's things that have come out at parole board hearings, but, like, what do you, what do you want me to know that I don't know?" And then, I had the part where I wanted to tell him, like, how much pain he'd left me with, you know, what my life was like, what it is like every day, um, things that happen that are, are triggering, um, why I don't think he's safe to leave the prison and be in our community, all those kinds of things. So, um, it was really up to me, and after we got through the prescribed questions and everything, um, then we just sort of had a, a conversation that naturally flowed.

Julie Rose: At any point, Amanda, during that meeting, did it become less uncomfortable?

Amanda Carrasco: No, well, so I, I mean, that's not true. I, I guess in a way it did, but I think, though, you, like, I kind of got in and I got into a place of, like, a, a stable place where it was like, "Okay, this is it," but, but it, it was always uncomfortable. You know, at no point did I really want to be there, but I also knew that I was learning some things, that I was gaining some things from being there, so it was worth being in that uncomfortable space because of what I was getting out of it.

Julie Rose: Tell me more about why it was worth it, then. So, I mean, you were able to get a few things off your chest. Did, did he, for, did he apologize? Were you able to find some sense of closure? Like, what were you getting?

Amanda Carrasco: Yeah, I mean, I didn't go for closure. I just, I don't ever feel like there will be, you know, like, 'cause nothing's gonna bring my sister and the kids back. Nothing's gonna make this better in any way, so I, it would certainly be nice to get to a place, you know, that there's not, you know, hearings and ongoing things like that, but I don't, I don't know that that will happen, you know, until, you know, maybe he passes away or something, right? But, um, I don't wish ill or harm. Um, I wish that he would take responsibility. I wish that he would, you know, make the changes that he needs to, because I can see what that is in some of my other guys' life. The people that I work with, some of them are still incarcerated, some of them are not, you know, the changes that they've made, they've been surrogates for me to show that true transformation and healing is possible even when you do horrific things, so, that, that's brought me a, a great amount of, of healing and hope. From him, though, I definitely got a release from some of the fear that I always carried because he was supposed to murder me, and it felt almost kind of like, like, chance, luck, you know, whatever you wanna call it, that I ended up not being there, and so it still kind of stayed with me, and, and after testifying against him at the preliminary hearing, testifying against him at the trial, showing up at parole hearings saying, "Don't let him outta jail," you know, I said to him, like, "I, I think that, you know, you would want to, you know, further harm me," and he said, "I, I don't." You know, he said, "I understand why you think that," said, "But I don't." And I don't trust him, but I believed him, and so the effects from that meeting took a while. You know, like, when I walked out, um, like, it took me three weeks to sleep. Like, this was so hard to go and sit with him, um, but after my body stopped reliving the trauma and realized that I was safe and I was okay, the fear level that I had when I walked in was significantly less coming out. You know, there was a, a greater sense of peace that I had by being able to go and tell him, you know, how I feel and what I've done and see that impact him. You know, I watched his body, and you can see, you know, the, the, the body language of when I was explaining to him, and he said, "I, I had no idea that this is what your life is like now." You know, like, I think he just kind of thought we all just, like, carry on, and I'm like, "No, that's not how this works. We don't just carry on. There's moments when I've done really great things, and my sister's not there to celebrate. There's moments that have been super hard, and she's not there for me to call and look to," so it's this ongoing process that is, is really, really hard, and so meeting with him did help change things.

Julie Rose: Were you hoping to be able to forgive him? Have you forgiven him? How does forgiveness fit into this restorative justice picture?

Amanda Carrasco: That is such a, such a word. Um, I do not say that I have forgiven my former brother-in-law. I will say that I don't wish him ill. I don't wish him the same that happened to my sister, 'cause I don't wanna be him, but I, I do still have times of, of anger, still times of, you know, rage, you know, like, against him, but the difference, though, is that we know, like, forgiveness sets us free; it has nothing to do with him. I don't wanna carry that anger, that hatred, you know, those kinds of things because it impacts me. Carrying those will come out into my relationships and out into everything that I do, and I didn't want that anymore, and that was one of the reasons why I chose to sort of take this process to work on these things because I didn't wanna be a person who hated and a person who, you know, is, is angry all the time. Does that happen? Sure, but I'm able to move through it and not live in that place anymore versus staying there all the time.

Julie Rose: How does learning about and living restorative justice, how has it changed the way you think about justice, what it means to punish someone for causing such harm?

Amanda Carrasco: I don't see punishment as a way that it meets victims' needs. You know, punishing someone else isn't gonna undo the harm, right? So, what I see is there's reasons for harm. There's reasons why crimes are being committed, addressing those factors is a significant way that we can reduce harm. Punishment as a deterrent has a very low percentage rate for actually being successful, and it's kind of in our nature. It's almost like we've been raised that, like, "You do something wrong, you get punished." This is just logical, um, and I, and I understand that kind of concept, except that it doesn't really work most of the time. So, do you wanna be "right," quote unquote, or do you wanna have something that actually works and heals and makes safer communities?

Julie Rose: And does imprisoning people then work, do you think? How, how, what, what would you like to see happen, for example, with this man, uh, the perpetrator who killed your sister, what would you like to see prison accomplishing for him?

Amanda Carrasco: Well, I think that our current prisons are re-traumatizing. I think we're putting people, like, if you look at the statistics of people that are incarcerated, the rates of trauma that they've experienced are significantly high. So, as I say, there's a reason why they're doing the things that they're doing, then we put them in prison, which is not safe, not sanitary, like, not, like, prisons are horrible places, and I've been in prisons in, you know, three different countries, and none of them are good and safe and healthy. Um, we can see from, you know, like, Nordic models and things that there are ways that you can do prisons humanely, which, again, like, that kind of flies in our culture because we're like, "No, but you deserve to be punished. You deserve these horrible circumstances," but that's, again, not taking into context, and the fact that I think that how we treat people is more of a reflection of us than a reflection of them, and so when I'm walking around these prisons, and I'm a registered victim of crime, and I see these cages that they put people in, both, you know, inside or, like, out on the yard, and I just go, "Please don't do this in my name. This is not what I want. This isn't helpful, this isn't healing. This is dehumanizing, and the way that my former brother-in-law got to a place that he could take the lives of his wife and children is because he dehumanized them, and I don't want us as a society to be like that. That's not justice." I don't see punishment as equating to justice. It doesn't mean there's not consequences, and sometimes serious consequences, potentially even the deprivation of liberty, which is one of the most serious consequences, but how we're doing it is not working.

Julie Rose: So, what does a restorative justice system look like, then? You've talked quite a bit about how it can, how it centers the victim and the victim's needs, and your ability to get some healing and to also have some input into kind of how things were playing out there, but, uh, as a system, then, what does it look like? Fewer people in jail? More people having one-on-one encounters with victims? Like, talk me through how this isn't, ultimately, a "softer" approach to crime.

Amanda Carrasco: Right. So, I think that you'd have to first look at it holistically. I think that if we have better mental health supports, better housing supports, better addiction supports, we're gonna see lower crime rates. I mean, that's just, that's proven data, and so coming at it from the outset of better support systems for our communities and our families is gonna reduce crime rates, number one. Number two, bringing the victims in at the very beginning. There's a program called Collaborative Sentencing that is being piloted in British Columbia right now. Dave, my restorative justice worker, is a champion of that, and so they've walked cases through where there's been harm, and I, and significant harm, and they brought the victims in, the defendant was going to plead guilty, and so the victim and the defendant worked together with their restorative justice caseworker and decided on a sentencing plan together. They then presented that to the judge, and the judge, in every single case, agreed with the sentencing plan, because the judge has the ability to say, "No, this is too lenient. No, this is too harsh," and in every single case, he agreed with it. You know, they worked on that together. That's not necessarily applicable for every single case, but it certainly could ultimately end up being that way for a majority of cases, and we're gonna see lower recidivism rates because offenders are being held accountable, but you're also in that place to then address, "What happened to this, and what are you gonna do differently," versus, "Just go to prison, deal with that, get out, and now behave," which doesn't happen.

Julie Rose: Amanda Carrasco is a restorative justice advocate and facilitator, and her new memoir is "Becoming the Brave One: My Journey to Justice." It talks about her experience with restorative justice and also very difficult life that she led as a child and the many ways that she has survived to overcome. You can learn more about her work at amandacarrasco.com. Amanda, thank you so much for your time today.

Amanda Carrasco: Thanks for having me.

Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. Have you encountered someone who caused you serious harm? What did you need to say to them? Why was that encounter important to have?What came of it? We'd love to hear from you. Send an email to uncomfy@byu.edu, or connect with us on social media, we are @uncomfy.podcast on Instagram. And if today's conversation has you thinking more deeply about our justice system, you might enjoy listening to an episode of my other podcast, Top of Mind, that we did a while back about the role of prison in the justice system and how we might adapt it to lead to better outcomes for all of us.We even spent some time exploring the Nordic system that Amanda Carrasco mentioned, so we'll drop a link to that episode in the show notes. Uncomfy is a BYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Hyobin Kim and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. Can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.