You got to think that Deval Patrick is cursing himself out for ever having been involved with Benjamin LaGuer. As high profile Democrats are being trotted out to stick up for Patrick (though none of them have said they would have sent those letters to LaGuer or the Parole Board), more criticism is being levied at Patrick from a group of victims' rights advocates, the Boston Globe reports.

A group of victims' rights advocates, including some supporters of Republican nominee Kerry Healey, yesterday sent a harshly worded letter to Democratic candidate Deval L. Patrick, accusing him of siding with convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer and ignoring the victim in the case.

``We challenge you to take a hard look at your own conduct in this case and ask yourself why at every opportunity you took the side of the violent offender over that of the victim," said the letter, which was e-mailed to the Globe late yesterday afternoon.

Laurie Myers, one of the cosigners, said that she was the author and the letter was her idea, not that of the Healey campaign. Another of the signers, lawyer Wendy Murphy, said Healey's campaign had asked her to sign the letter. Murphy serves on the Governor's Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence, which is chaired by Healey.

Healey's campaign confirmed last night that some of the people who signed the letter were supporters of her campaign.

The letter was signed by John and Magi Bish, whose daughter, Molly, disappeared from her lifeguard post at Comins Pond in Warren in June 2000, when she was 16. Her remains were found three years later in a wooded area a few miles away.

John Bish donated $200 this year to Reed Hillman, who is Healey's running mate.

The letter was also signed by Annette and Peter Presti, whose daughter, Joanne, was raped and killed, and whose granddaughter Alyssa, 12, was also killed in their Woburn home in 2004. The suspect in the case is a man who had previously been convicted of rape. The other signer was Debbie Savoia, a victims' rights advocate.

It will be very interesting to see how Patrick's position in the polls is affected by the LaGuer story.