April Slaughter's Fight to Keep Her Home

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April Slaughter's Fight to Keep Her Home

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Enough; my children and I have had enough.

The battle I have been forced into for more than three years – the battle for an end to my abusive marriage and to retain the right to keep our home – has taken a devastating turn.

After consulting with my attorney following the recent filing of a Motion to Enforce (filed 06-25-2024) against me in the Fourth Judicial District Court in Utah County, Utah regarding my Divorce Settlement Agreement (finalized on 03-05-2024), I am forced into appealing to family, friends, acquaintances and strangers alike for help… again.

As my every action is undoubtedly closely monitored and scrutinized by the individual(s) that drafted and filed the motion to enforce, I must choose and condense my words wisely. I am both shocked and disgusted that it has come to this point. That being said, I am unintimidated and will remain, as ever, honest in my disclosure of the circumstances that have brought me here.

Despite my wish to keep the depths of my personal life private, I refuse to keep what my family has been subjected to hidden or weaponized against us for one moment longer.

Here are the facts, all of which I have an overwhelming body of evidence to prove.

The man I dated (2017), got engaged to (2018), married (2019) and ultimately divorced (filed July of 2021, finalized nearly three years later) was not the person he presented himself to be. From the moment I mistakenly said ‘I Do,’ John Alleman took on an entirely darker persona than the one I’d come to know and love. I hold myself accountable for wearing the rose-colored glasses he’d handed me, but I hold him entirely responsible for every deception and emotional injury that consequently followed – and that is still plaguing my life, to this day. The unfortunate series of events has occurred as follows:

• During my engagement to John Alleman, he purchased our home and knowingly and willingly added me to the warranty deed as Joint Tenant, therefore gifting me equal ownership of the property. It was not at my request, but at his sole insistence that this was what he wanted. The legalities were repeatedly and thoroughly explained to him AT LENGTH at closing in 2018, and he was given the option of a ‘Tenancy in Common’ deed instead of ‘Joint Tenants,’ which would NOT gift me half-ownership or right of survivorship to the home. He declined that option.

• John expressed to me on several occasions prior that he did not want his parents to be involved or even informed about the purchase of the home until after closing and we’d moved in. I didn’t understand why the information would be of any concern or consequence to them at the time, but it was his decision – as a grown man – to exclude them from his plans, so I respected his wishes and did not speak to them about it until the matter was final. It was the same with an $80,000 (give or take a few thousand) brand new Ford Raptor truck he purchased for himself as well. He did not want it discussed with his parents until after he’d brought it home.

• Once we had moved into the home, I received a call from his mother Marilyn who was quite obviously inebriated and enraged that John had put my name on the house. For close to 90 minutes, I endured her rant as she hurled insults, threats, and false accusations at me. When the call ended and I had informed John as to what had transpired, it became clear to me that this level of disrespect and unimaginable cruelty toward me as his fiancé and future wife was acceptable, and he would not be establishing boundaries with his mother when it came to how she was allowed to speak to or treat me. It would be the first of many such calls or interactions with her to follow. Their mother-and-son relationship was destructive, and wildly inappropriate, as I would discover throughout the entirety of our marriage.

• John was an alcoholic. This is not a personal judgment, but a fact. The degree to which he abused alcohol did not fully become apparent until after we were engaged and had moved into our home. In 2017, he had been arrested for a DUI resulting in an accident (thank God no one else was involved, injured, or killed), which I was aware of when we began dating. I was repeatedly assured his drinking would not be a problem moving forward in our relationship. I took him at his word. I was terribly naïve.

• During the 18 months we were married before we separated, John continued to drink (and drive) excessively. He was emotionally and financially abusive to me and my children. He forced me to quit working for a friend of mine simply because he was male. He isolated me from all male friends and accused me of engaging in affairs with these individuals. There were no affairs.

John asked for the divorce. He abandoned the home, taking with him his dog Izzy who we had loved and cared for in our home for years. John would then go on to refuse to participate in many of the proceedings that were required, resulting in an unnecessarily lengthy and expensive litigation process. I filed in July of 2021, and a settlement agreement was signed on March 5, 2024. His divorce attorneys rarely heard from or dealt directly with John and were largely directed by his father.

• I have been no-contact with my ex and his family for the entirety of the process due to the abuse my children and I have suffered, save for a couple instances when a family member reached out to me to acquire some of John's personal items.

• During this stressful time, my mother’s health declined and she was placed on the donor list for a new kidney. I was in the process of being assessed to donate one of my own to her when she decided to cease all treatment, and she passed away in June of 2022.

• In the midst of all this, my daughter Jordyn was undergoing exhaustive testing and treatment for her Epilepsy that resulted in brain surgery.

• The terms of the divorce settlement agreement between John and I were to be fulfilled by May 31, 2024. A payment was to be made to me ‘on or before’ that date, at which time I would need to vacate the home and quitclaim the property back to John.

• On May 4, I was informed that my ex-husband was deceased by a friend of mine. I researched and confirmed that John had taken his own life on April 24. (There are additional details from this incident that are abhorrent, but that I will not be sharing at this time.) John died without having a will or making payment to me prior to his death. I reached out to my then-attorney who assured me that the warranty deed automatically gave me the Right of Survivorship. I did not vacate the home, though I had been actively packing and preparing to move. It was not I that had defaulted on the agreement, despite their best efforts to claim otherwise.

• Payment was never made to me. Instead, it was withheld (and remains withheld) by John’s father and his attorneys. In recent filings, I am accused of refusing payment. This is entirely untrue. They were specifically told to send the check to the home via mail (or any courier I could sign proof of receipt with) and that was never done. I thought this nightmare was finally over. It wasn’t.

• By May 6, the home was legally and lawfully placed solely into my name.

• I was never directly informed of John’s death either by his family or their attorneys until after a Motion to Appear or Appoint New Counsel was filed with the family law judge that had finalized our divorce. No documentation to prove anyone had been given authority over John’s estate had been provided until this point either, well after the May 31 deadline. I was given no opportunity to plead to the probate court with an objection.

• John was immediately cremated following his death and no obituary was written or published. I’ll allow you to draw your own conclusions as to why.

This litigious assault launched by my ex-husband’s family has once again placed my children and I into yet another financial crisis. While I have retained a new attorney (one who I believe is actually working for me, not against me) I need assistance in keeping the fees paid in order to continue to fight against this injustice. The Alleman family does not need my home or the financial gain they would acquire in selling it. They are more than financially secure. In my opinion, the aim is to maintain control and further punish us for decisions John Alleman made throughout his life. We have been nothing but kind to everyone in that family, and yet these assaults just keep coming.

Jordyn’s continued healing and stability are paramount, and should these people be allowed to take our home from us, it puts her well-being in direct danger. In court, it is their position that because my children are not John’s biological children, Jordyn’s well-being is none of their concern. In other words, money is the priority, not Jordyn’s life. I do not understand why the Alleman family cannot just let us go, to live in our home and to just move on. We are in no way responsible for the consequences John’s decisions have created, so the battle rages on.

What we as people allow is what will continue. Please help me put a stop to this. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right, and I refuse to teach my girls that money and power are more important than the health and well-being of others. My case also has the potential of setting precedent law to protect others in the future who find themselves in similar situations.

Any and all donations to this fundraiser will be transferred directly to my legal counsel, and receipts of payment will be posted in the updates to keep every cent accounted for and transparent for donors.

Thank you for your kindness, compassion and support. We absolutely cannot prevail without it.

All my love,
April

    Organizer

    April Page Slaughter
    Organizer
    American Fork, UT
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