What if everything you believed about your family was a myth? The Secrets They Kept provides valuable insight into the struggle all families of mentally ill people face. As a psychiatrist, I understand that such decisions can be the only way out for some people struggling against overwhelming odds. The truth is, none of us can really “feel the pain” a mentally ill person experiences.

1. The Secrets They Kept: The True
Story of a Mercy Killing That Shocked
a Town and Shamed a Family
Suzanne Handler, M.Ed

2. What would compel a devout Jewish
father to take the life of his own child?

3. Here is a brief summary of the story:
• In 1937, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, my maternal
grandfather, Sam Levin, shot and killed his 16
year-old daughter.
• The girl, Sally, had been diagnosed with
dementia praecox (mid-century term for
schizophrenia) and was to be sent to an insane
asylum.
• Sally begged her father to end her life, as well
as his own, in a joint murder/suicide pact.

5. Stigma of Mental Illness
• Due to the stigma of mental illness then, as
well as now, and the nature of my
grandfather’s unimaginable crime, this story
remained a secret in our family for over 70
years.
• Following years of research and soul
searching, I have now, at long last, come to
the place where understanding meets
forgiveness.

6. Reception
• I am humbled that The Secrets They Kept: The
True Story of a Mercy Killing That Shocked a
Town and Shamed a Family has sold over
8,000 copies, and is currently #1 in Mental
Health and #7 in Jewish Interest in the
Amazon Virtual Book Store.
• View my Book on Amazon