Blood in the Water

Deanne Quinn Miller was the daughter of slain CO William Quinn. She had been five in 1971 when her father died. In January 2000, hearing of the settlement for the prisoners, she was determined to get redress from the state for the families of the killed hostages.

Thompson discusses how when news of the prisoner settlement broke in 2000, survivors of the hostages’ families were outraged at the fact that they had gotten nothing. Following a local radio show phone-in, producer Deborah Horton decided that a two-hour live radio broadcast would be dedicated to responses to the prisoner settlement. Held at the Signature Café in downtown Attica, it brought together surviving hostages and families of hostages for the first time in decades.

Whatever their specific views of the prisoners, as Thompson says, “all agreed that the state had treated them abysmally and that it was time for them to come together as a group” (514). As such, a few months after the show, the survivors, families and hostages, joined together to form the Forgotten Victims of Attica, or FVOA. This was a politically mixed group of around 20 to 40 people, meeting every Monday. All were united in the desire to get restitution from the state.