Church memorial helps couple heal from tragedy

As a tangible sign of that forgiveness, Shirley and Arthur Brown will lead the dedication of their Memorial Garden for Lisa at the Mesa Palms Seventh-day Adventist Church, 6263 E. Thomas Road, Mesa.

It is an outdoor meditation setting for the congregation and community to visit, with walls for names of people’s loved ones to be remembered.

Lisa Fischbacher was 48 on Oct. 5, 2006, when she returned home to Tucson from the Valley and was confronted by her husband of 23 years, Henry Fischbacher. Henry, who suffers from a bipolar mental disorder, apparently went into a rage because Lisa didn’t get home sooner, according to Shirley Brown. He allegedly beat her with a flashlight, then left her body in the swimming pool.

She wasn’t found until the next day, only after Henry had fled to his native Canada where he then called his sister to report that he had killed Lisa the day before. Henry was found in a Canadian motel by police, the victim of a suicide attempt near where his mother was buried, according to news reports. Henry was hospitalized, and it was only then that law enforcement officers made the connection to the murder in Arizona. He remains in jail in Parry Sound, Ontario, 125 miles north of Toronto, where he awaits extradition.

“They had to take first-degree murder off because Canada won’t send people back to any state that has the death penalty” as Arizona has, Shirley said. But Rick Unklesbay, chief trial counsel for the Pima County Attorney’s Office, said the man remains charged with first-degree murder, “but we did have to assure the Canadian government that we would not seek the death penalty.” The U.S. Justice Department is working with Canada to allow the extradition, he said.

Shirley has talked to Henry by phone. “He’s up and he’s down because of his disease, but he is very, very repentant. He has just kept saying over and over again how sorry he was,” she said.

“We were very close as mother and daughter,” she said. “In the last months, I had said to her, 'Please take care of yourself.’ My whole life revolved around her, and when I lost her, I really lost something.”

The Mesa couple realizes “this is behind us,” she said. “We can’t change it. We love him like a son, so we’ve lost two people.”

The memory garden, which will be dedicated at 3 p.m. today, features benches with the names of Lisa, plus Rodger Brown, their oldest of three offspring, who died of a heart attack, at the age of 50, five years ago. Behind them will be a massive granite slab engraved with the words “They Have This Hope,” a central dictum of Adventist teaching. “Someone has made it a song that we sing,” Arthur Brown said.

“This memory garden is planned as a church community place,” Arthur said. “We want it to be more than a place to remember, but to be a relaxed place for people to meet.” He said he thought “there ought to be a place” where people, such as winter visitors, for example, can come to sit and remember a departed loved one whose remains are elsewhere. They would be invited to purchase a bronze plate to permanently honor them.

“We want our church and neighborhood to be able to commune with God and come away refreshed,” he said.

Henry Fischbacher had once worked as vice president for collections at the University of Chicago Medical Center in Chicago. He had been in and out of hospitals, and his bipolar condition took years to diagnose.

The couple moved to Tucson to be near the Browns, and Lisa became human resources director for M3 Engineering and Technology Corp. “She loved human resources,” Shirley said. “She couldn’t solve her own problem, but she could help others. She was a very caring person.” She typically asked those who questioned her staying with her abusive, but mentally ill, husband, “If he had cancer, would you leave him?”

About 100 co-workers from Tucson traveled to Mesa for Lisa’s funeral, and the company assigned an architect and engineer to design the 1,000-square-foot memorial garden with flagstone and walls. A fountain will be added, and shrubs will be planted.

Shirley said Lisa’s murder has strengthened her faith.

“When this happens, a lot of people say, 'I’m mad at God,” she said. “I was never mad at God. I always said, 'God, you will tell me why this happened.’ I said, 'I know I loved her, and I hoped I never loved her more than I love you,’ but it is a wake-up call for me, as well.”

“It has strengthened me so I can witness to others,” Shirley said. “The forgiving of Henry was the best thing that came out of all of this — if there is a good thing. When we talked to him, our hearts were lifted up, and we knew how much we loved him, and we knew he was a child of God and that God still loves him, too.”

In the summer of 2006, Pastor Terry Darnall had encouraged Art, a retired landscape horticulturist, to help landscape around the entrance of the church, which was built in 2004. They decided to wait until the fall when plants could better survive. Then came the tragedy, and an unfolding desire to remember their daughter by expanding the project into a memorial to honor others as well. He said the church has had a spate of family tragedies in recent years, and the creation of the memorial gardens is a fitting way to help other families to heal.

“Even though they (the Browns) had a great loss, they are a very giving people,” Darnall said. “And I think through this whole tragedy, it has really shown the type of Christians they are. They have not been hateful.”

The project is helping the healing “and helping all of us to move on,” the pastor said.

“This is a place of healing, a place for meditation and prayer,” he said. “We definitely want the community to know it is here.”