About Us

I joined MISS over 1 ½ yrs ago. My journey is not like most of yours, but I can now tell my story as difficult as it is. It is still raw. I joined to see and listen to other moms and their journeys. I wasn’t really an active Mom on here ( I was in shock and grieving) but enjoyed joining in with the Holiday Card List.  I am going to be 65, divorced and live alone. I worked for almost 16 years as a Supervisor as a vendor for a retail company as well as did my son. We were extremely close but I worked on the north side and he was on the south side. My oldest daughter has lived in Ireland for the past 14 yrs and I have 6 grandchildren, two of them are autistic and the last baby is down syndrome. My daughter is a wonderful mom. My son is the middle child. He is the most compassionate, sensitive and always looking out for the underdog. He is an artist, painter and photographer but has worked for his company as a Regional Mgr for the past 16 yrs. He doesn’t have any enemies, everyone loves him. My youngest is my daughter who recently married and graduated from college with her Master’s degree and now working as a Social Worker.

On August 18^th a year ago, my daughter married. My son proudly gave her away in marriage and just cried. He brought a close friend he has known for the last 6 years to the wedding.  It was a lovely wedding and everyone was so happy. My son’s friend were talking about moving in with him. She was having issues at home. Her mother had remarried and the stepmother and her didn’t get along. She stayed at my son’s home 6 out of the 7 days but went home in the late evenings. They were a wonderful couple. She also worked as his Team Leader.

My son was born premature. The chord was wrapped around his neck and it delayed his speaking. He said his first word at age 3. By age 5 he was seeing Speech Therapist due to severe stuttering. He also had language and reading disabilities and was in special classes for them. He was a boy who was bullied yet was a sponge for learning. His 5^th grade teacher (which I just found out) used to start his class stuttering, making fun of my son. My son never told me. We didn’t have names back then but I knew my son was ADD and possibly autistic.  He excelled in math and science and the arts. In high school he was the “funny” guy, the guy who ran the assemblies, and even became Prom King. He still was a stutter but admired by all. His home life though was another story. My husband around the age of 10 started to become abusive to me and my son. He would on several occasions beat him when I was at work. Once I had to leave my job (I had worked at a hospital) when I got the call from my then youngest daughter. He verbally and emotionally abused the girls. My husband suffered from PTSD from the Army then turned to alcohol. We separated then he walked out of the children’s lives and never looked back.  I never thought my son would graduate let alone go to college but he did and got his BFA at a prestigious art school. While he was in HS he started to smoke marijuana. I didn’t know for the longest time and when I found out I always told him not to do it. He said it calmed him down. He wasn’t a big drinker, occasionally a few beers here or there. Six months before the wedding he wanted to get healthy. He was also a positive person and really big into the Answer and Law of Attraction. He began juicing and lost 40 lbs in 6 mos. His friend wanted him to stop marijuana because she was 6mos pregnant. The baby was not his but he offered to be the baby’s father and love the child like his own. They were getting a nursery together before the wedding. He stopped cold turkey week  before the wedding. He started to have horrible nightmares and insomnia. He started to have a few beers to calm him down. I never knew this was what he was doing because if I had known I would have told him he needed to go to rehab. He thought he could do this himself. He later told me he read it would take 16-28 days and thought he could handle it.

I have learned our lives can change in a second. As I said the wedding was beautiful. He took his friend a few days early to a resort so she could enjoy the lakes and scenery as she was under stress from her friends dropping her because she wouldn’t get an abortion and the stress from her mother and step mother. At the reception, it was open bar. My son was drinking like everyone else having a good time dancing and enjoying himself. At the end of the evening my daughter and myself were concerned with his friend driving home and she said she would be fine but he had too much to drink to drive. Then the unthinkable happened. The next morning I was called and had to meet the police. My son had murdered his friend. One minute I am celebrating a wedding the next I couldn’t put in words. My son and his friend came back to hotel and she went to bed. He started to have black outs and drinking more. What really was happening as we later found out was he was withdrawing from the marijuana and consuming a deadly amount of alcohol. She has woke up and he started to have conversation, he only remembers his hands around her neck but nothing more. He passed out in the hot tub and when he woke up he couldn’t believe she wasn’t alive. He tried to commit suicide but it didn’t work. The first trial he had it was a mistrial. They tried to charge him for 1^st degree intentional but the jurors didn’t agree. The money ran out. He then had to have PD’s. but this town was politically corrupt and a month before the trial they were still a no show. I had researched a trial lawyer who was top of the line and was a Super Lawyer every year. He was really interested and we worked out a deal. Because I had no money. I sold my father’s home. I wanted my son to have a fair trial. He was also charged with 3^rd degree sexual assault but there was NO findings on this but the DA was someone I never could call a human being. He lied, he was dramatic, he told the first attorney that he had just lost a big case and my son’s case was going down within 5-10 min of a jury deliberation. He was wrong and now more vengeful than ever not to mention the JUDGE. He was as equally dishonest. We found out the the PD’s were planted to be a “no show” for the mere purpose of him winning the 2^nd trial. They were going to show up after 16 mos to say they were not prepared and the judge was going to say they had enough time to prepare and the trial would have ended that way. As many moms have learned there is so much corruption. What they didn’t expect is to have another attorney surface. When the Super Attorney went in front of the judge to get an extension the judge told him no. We had written certified letters to the judge about the PD’s and their responses but no feed back. When I was finally able to sell my father’s home it was 6wks before the trial. The judge denied the motion even though the lawyer had prepared a 9 page letter with statues and so forth for my son to have a fair trial. The judge said the only way was to take the case in the next 6 weeks of which he could not due to other cases. When he met my son and studied the case he knew there were too many things illegal and told my son he was going to get him another outstanding lawyer if he was able to clear his schedule. The judge was shocked when the lawyer stated he was going to take the case. He worked day and night and spent his Easter wk at the jail and everyday for  11 hrs with my son. He had is investigator. He knew immediately my son’s confession was tampered with along with the Sheriff’s investigator. The lawyer said it would take him 3 yrs for this case but he was going to do the best he could. He did. The DA still was a snake. My son’s previous attorney even came. The issue was the jury. The jury as older folks, not professional people. The DA showed pictures of the fetus before and after birth. There was a lot more going on but I told my son after finding out about the PD’s and how the DA and Judge was connected I had to hire an outstanding attorney for a fair trial. This tragic accident would never have happened if he hadn’t just stopped using marijuana after 18 years and drank alcohol to the tune of nearly alcohol poisioning.

The Judge would not allow the attorney to have his expert witnesses. Only one could speak but not give his findings. Both of the experts stated that in no way could this be intentional with the alcohol and withdrawing of marijuana….it was a deadly combination that he could not be responsible for his actions.

Although the new attorney sited the changing of his statements, tampering of the evidence and many more he was found guilty just after 2.5 hrs of 2 counts of 1^st degree intentional homicide. I found out how grief is different for all of us. The press tore this apart as did the victims family. You would try to show compassion and understanding but  the deception was overwhelming. I remained silent while this went on. My daughter’s mother in law when this first happened tried to tell her son to divorce my daughter. She later went to meet with the victims family and went to the DA earlier this year to say my daughter lied on the stand. She wasn’t even at the trial nor did she know my son or his friend. My daughter and her son disowned her but my daughter said she is extremely evil and was afraid of her as the worked together at the same hospital. My daughter was extremely vulnerable and ended up calling the DA to say she didn’t lie and before you know it she was involved with the victim’s family. Sadly, she sat on their side at the trial and as the lawyer and family members said she was being sucked into this all because of the in law and her job. She has severed our relationship because of the pain. I feel like I lost 2 children. My son is extremely remorseful and said if he didn’t stop using then this would not have happened. I am home now only 2 days and now have to wait until sentencing where my son will go away for life. Through this all he said, “Mom is just want every one to have kindness and forgiveness.” I have no one except my nephew and my son’s former counselor who came to the  trial every day. Incidentally, she was fired after the first trial and wasn’t allowed to testify at the second trial. She knew too much. Most of my story is told but the sadness and heavy heart is the worst pain I will ever feel. I will be moving to wherever he goes. I have to. I cannot let him have this journey alone. At sentencing I will finally be able to speak. I want the victim’s mom to know as mom’s I understand her pain but I will always love my son unconditionally. I hope I am not judged here but it is healing to tell finally tell my son’s story. His counselor said I have a story to get out there and when time is ready I need to write a book. I have to live my son’s philosophy ANON….alway’s now only now. I have to learn take one day at a time. I am always worrying about the future for my son.  My son writes poetry and soon I will put on his poem before the and during the trial. If anyone wants to send him only positive thoughts I will give out his address. I am still in a terrible shocking state of mind and is hard to cope by oneself, but thank you for allowing me to get my story out there and hopefully I will not be judged.