Killer's Card Upsetting
Ellie Sutter
Published: June 28, 1992
EDMOND - The picture of Patrick Sherrill, the man who murdered 14 Edmond postal workers and injured six others, is now featured on a baseball-type trading card offered for sale.
"I feel sorry for the people who want them. They must be very lonely," said Kay Nimmo, wife of Edmond postal worker Bill Nimmo, who was shot and critically injured in the 1986 massacre.
She looked at the card, shook her head and said the cards will be offensive to a lot of postal families.
"Anything people can do for money. ... I don't think I'll need a collection of these," she said.
She is only one of the people closely affected by the Edmond post office massacre who is angry a trading card depicting Sherrill is being sold.
The card features a blood-spattered color drawing of Sherrill and comes in a package with 11 other cards depicting killers.
Catherine Yronwode, editor in chief of Eclipse Enterprises in Fosterville, Calif., which publishes the cards, said the cards are "a legitimate educational medium. " Sherrill, a part-time postal worker, went on a shooting rampage inside the Edmond post office early Aug. 20, 1986. After killing 14 of his co-workers and injuring six others, Sherrill killed himself.
A short biography of Sherrill is printed on the back of the card, No. 105 in the "True Crime Series Two: Serial Killers & Mass Murderers. " Linda Rockne, wife of slain postal worker Mike Rockne said, "I think it's just crazy. " She said she did not think there is a need to give mass murderers more notoriety.
"I don't think it is good to get the kids to buy them, either," Rockne said.
Bill Nimmo said, "There is always somebody sick enough to buy anything. " Nimmo, who was sitting shirtless in his home working a crossword puzzle when interviewed, still bears a physical reminder of the attack. A wide scar begins in the middle of his chest and disappears under his belt buckle. He was shot, at close range, by Sherrill. The bullet passed through Nimmo's left arm above the elbow and entered his chest.
Doctors gave him only a 40 percent change of survival, said his wife, Kay.
He said he can understand baseball cards, but not the mass murderer series.
Neither can Edmond police Capt. Ron Cavin, the acting police spokesman the day of the massacre.
He said until he was shown the trading card picture, the last time he had seen Sherrill's photo was when he viewed crime scene photos of Sherrill and his 14 victims.
"It's a memory I won't forget," he said.
He said the loss of friends and loved ones still is very serious to people in Edmond.
Some of the murdered workers have children old enough to be interested in trading cards, he said.
The Nimmos said they had watched a TV program about two months ago and a discussion centered on the cards.
"They said on TV that these cards won't be sold to children under 18," Bill Nimmo said.
But Yronwode said, "We sell them to stores and the stores sell them to whomever they choose. " She said her company has been printing trading cards since 1988.
Yronwode said the company has done true-fact trading cards that feature things like the Bush administration, Iran and the demise of communism.
She said the cards, which are targeted to baby boomers, have the same legitimacy as newspapers.
"I don't consider them any more controversial than the 'Settlement of the Ohio Valley' " cards, Yronwode said.
The reason Eclipse prints this type of trading card, she said, is because human beings are curious.
When questioned about the blood spatters on Sherrill's card, she said she gave the artist, Jon Bright, "artistic license. " "It was the artist's choice," she said. "In retrospect, it was not the wisest thing to do. " BIOG: NAME:
Archive ID: 508070
