Justice, the family has realized in the year since Chappell allegedly killed Moulton at the mental health group home where she worked, has moved far more slowly than any of them would have liked, ensnared in a labyrinth of legal procedure and government bureaucracy.
In the last year, the family has proposed a bill, to be called Stephanie’s Law. which calls for installation of panic alarms in mental health facilities. That proposal lingers in a committee.
The union that represents social workers has been pushing for a bill that would improve the oversight of community group homes. That legislation, introduced just weeks before the killing, has also stalled.
And the state Department of Mental Health said it is still reviewing recommendations of a safety task force that it created after the killing.
Moulton’s family members and a close-knit community of mental health workers who support them plan three vigils across the state today, which would have been her 26th birthday, to call attention to the tragedy and the cracks they are hoping to fill. They say too much time has passed.
“We just don’t want anyone to forget Stephanie,’’ her mother said. “We don’t want it to happen to anyone else.’’
Moulton’s father added, “It’s Stephanie’s voice.’’
The killing occurred Jan. 20, 2011. Moulton, an aspiring nursing student who was engaged to be married, was months into her job as a social worker at a group home in Revere run by the North Suffolk Mental Health Association, a state contractor.
Chappell was 27, had a history of mental illness and violence, including the vicious beating of his stepfather, for which he served a prison sentence. According to court records, his family raised concerns with the group home days before the slaying that he was not taking his prescribed medications.
Moulton knew none of his history and was in the home with him alone.
