Sister of victim from St. Charles reacts to bin Laden news
The surviving siblings of Andrew Marshall King have different opinions about the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
“I’m glad he’s dead,” said Page Prusank of Deerfield. “He’s a bad man.”
She believes a trial would have dragged on far too long. “I hope the fish get him,” Prusank said.
King, who grew up in St. Charles, was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. He worked as a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald, whose offices occupied the 101st through 105th floors of the North Tower.
He was the son of Wesley and Joan King, and nephew of Merritt King, a former Geneva alderman and local historian.
Andrew King attended Elgin Academy, where there is a memorial garden to him.
Prusank visits that garden, and a memorial bridge her father, an architect, designed for the Geneva Golf Club.
Some remains belonging to King were positively identified about four years ago.
“Mom was really never the same after that,” Prusank said. Some of the ashes were spread at the bridge. The family placed Joan King’s ashes there after her 2008 death.
“I feel like the man killed my mother and brother,” Prusank said.
Monday was her birthday, and several people told her she got a great birthday gift. But she said it is bittersweet. “I’m very happy it’s done and he’s gone, but I’m worried” about possible retaliation against the United States, she said.
Prusank’s brother, Charles Spencer King, had this to say in a written response to request for comment:
“I feel betrayed by (former President George W.) Bush. He was a fool not to ally us with the largest democracy in the world and a proven ally in India rather than Pakistan. No, I have not celebrated, I prefer capture and incarcerating any Muslim terrorist to making them a martyr for their followers.
“How would you feel if on 9-11-2001 your brother was trapped in a building and you and your family were prevented by Bush’s ‘no fly zone’ to reach him? The same evening, three jets of bin Laden’s family were removed from the U.S. through that very zone.”