My name is Chrystal and my story is a true modern day book of Job. This is a long one so please, more than anything, please share. I need exposure to call and demand for a real change and to stop what’s occurring. What’s happening to me is criminal and I know I can’t be the first or sadly the last victim. The laws need to be rewritten.
My father, a twice served retired Army combat Vietnam veteran and retired County Communications passed away intestate in Monterey County, California late 2023 and the state is aiding the theft of my rightful inheritance to a fraud because the current law is written as such. Never in a million years would I have thought to create a GoFundMe account but my situation is dire and time is limited as the state is evicting me from my father’s paid off home in less than 3 weeks so that the fraud could reap the rewards by the sale of the home.
My father was married to his first wife September 17, 1967. He was drafted to the Vietnam war effort on February 14, 1968 however, he was able to delay his induction date to April 4, 1968. He shipped off to Ft. Lewis WA for basic training and advanced combat training where he remained until July 19, 1968 before he could return home briefly before deploying to Vietnam. He shipped out for war on August 17, 1968.
His then wife called Red Cross to deliver him the news that she had given birth to a girl March 28,1969. Following that birth that child became gravely ill and another Red Cross message was sent to my father and he was returned stateside in June of 1969. Within days the child’s health improved and my father was sent back to war where he remained until November 5, 1969.
While he was away his two most prized possessions, two different Corvette Stingrays, had been stolen and chopped. He had also learned that his then wife got involved in drugs. It was this reason he never returned to his wife. Instead, he went home to his parents and filed for divorce for extreme cruelty. His then wife did not appear in court for the hearing and the divorce was granted. Custody of the child remained with the mother and my father was ordered to pay child support. Following the divorce he reenlisted and volunteered to serve another tour in Vietnam.
In his military career my father met my mother at Ft. Ord and they married in 1975. They had me in 1978 while they were serving in Panama. When they were both back in country they became drill Sargents in Missouri at the same time for the first time in history. Military life took its toll on the relationship and my parents divorced in 1982. Custody was awarded to my dad because that was his wish.
My father, feeling torn and distraught, heard from his hometown high school girlfriend and learned she too was recently divorced and as you would suspect, they married in 1983 as did my mother. It was during this time that I was neglected and suffered at the hands of physical, emotional, and mental abuse. I became withdrawn and wouldn’t eat. My dad, upon returning from an overseas tour in Korea, learned through a neighbor that his wife moved another man into the home while myself and her daughter were away on summer break. The result was divorce in 1988. The wife was a court reporter at the presiding Monterey courthouse that handled the dissolution and that gave her the (illegal) advantage. She walked away with both the San Jose and Monterey houses and a portion of my father’s retirement while my father received the Marina home.
As a minor I experienced two incidents of sexual molestation by adults, one while on the job (we were allowed to work as minors <16 back then). When I brought awareness to this that employer responded by having me arrested for theft of sauce (distributing more than the allotted amount to a customer). As a freshman in high school I attempted suicide for bullying and being unaccepted by all and upon release from the hospital I went to stay with a caring teacher for a while. My sophomore year I became pregnant and after receiving a whooping I endured an agonizing two day late term abortion against my wishes. I graduated hiding another pregnancy and while staying with my mother was involved in a serious car accident at 8 months gestation.
The father and I married in 2001 and while he was home on break having graduated from Marine boot camp 9/11 occurred. He returned to MOS school when for reasons of deceit and misunderstanding I was jumped by four women. In 2002 I birthed our second child and days later he shipped off to war during which time my first child was hit by a car in front of my father’s house but walked away unscathed by the grace of God. By the third deployment I gave my kids to my mom so that I could enlist in the Marines. I was a third phase broken recruit when my then husband convinced me to return home honorably and medically discharged.
Once we were a reunited family of four evidence of infidelity were present. My spouse brought his married mistress into our home and I reacted in an unbecoming manner. I was arrested days later and a stay away order was in place. Having to couch surf from one coworker to another it was this time what little I had left, all my heirloom jewelry and entire music collection, was stolen from me. Acquaintances had introduced me to an alternate lifestyle. Without my children I did not care to live however, it was my children who grounded me and gave me purpose so I pursued through the court proceedings and eventually was awarded custody. It was then at the end of 2008 my children and I returned home to my dad who didn’t want us living in low income housing. This served a dual purpose as my father was handling 5 cancers and a type of frontal temporal dementia.
In 2010 a fire ripped through the garage, kitchen, and dining room of our home consuming my father’s vehicles and motorcycles. It was alarming that personal property that wasn’t affected by the fire was also stolen in the latter days. Needless to say we were displaced for the year. I am eternally forever grateful and thankful for the community and schools rallying to collect and give us donations at our time of disparity and need.
On New Year’s Day of 2011 I received news that my mother passed away from her (non smoker) lung cancer at her home in WA. In WA if a person passes without a will or trust and is married then the spouse takes 100% control of property unlike here in CA where a spouse takes 50% and children take the remaining 50%. In March my Great Dane had to be euthanized following a surgery from his stomach flipping and come May I was hospitalized for a week in quarantine nearly losing my life having caught bacterial meningitis. I was discharged but had a catheter in my arm pumping antibiotics to my heart round the clock for several months following.
In 2012 I was taking my kids to school when a semi truck came uphill and around a bend at high speed and blew through the intersection striking my truck and sending us 150 feet in a different direction. My son is a living miracle, my daughter was sitting behind him. The steering wheel and dash reconfiguration broke my wrist and knee. I had a witness call my father to the scene and the driver of the semi never approached our vehicle to offer aid or check if we were alive. Instead he lied to the police claiming I failed to stop at the intersection. My father was enraged by the drivers lack of remorse that he aggressively approached the driver and grabbed his shirt. Police knew he was lying just by the scene and from witness statements but instead of issuing any form of a citation for major bodily injury they arrested my father for battery. Even worse than the surgeon not helping me for lack of medical insurance was having a really lousy attorney not work for me but instead work against me. Not disclosing to me that he was going through his own personal divorce it seems he took my case for an easy quick paycheck. My attorney pulled me to the judges chambers where the judge and my attorney advised me to not pursue a jury trial over my case because they said “Monterey County is very conservative in terms of lawsuit payouts and basically my children and my lives didn’t really amount to anything.”
In 2014 I was in my second trimester when I began bleeding profusely. I was rushed to the hospital nearly losing my life by the loss of blood and I did lose that pregnancy. I suffered several more first term miscarriages before making it to my second trimester yet again in 2015 only for the first ultrasound to reveal a problem. My daughter was presenting with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare congenital heart defect that requires surgeries and/or transplant. I was advised to abort but my heart wanted to give my child a chance so I continued to carry the pregnancy coined “bucket list baby.” I kept bleeding which revealed I was experiencing placenta previa and so a c section was scheduled early as going full term was too risky as I could bleed out and lose my life. Unfortunately, c section would also end the pregnancy and it was me keeping my baby alive. My daughter was born 2-3 weeks early but loud and thriving better than the staff had prepared me for. They thought they were going to send us home but after assessment they learned her aorta wasn’t formed either. She passed away two days later in my arms. The next day her father’s work visa ended and he returned to Canada so I essentially lost two people. The following month my older daughter attempted suicide and luckily failed. She was sent to a center in Concord for a few weeks. Two months later I myself had been admitted into the hospital willingly just to decompress.
Over the next few years my family thought I was immobilized with depression but in fact it was my health that was again fleeting. After many tests and images I learned I was suffering from hyperparathyroidism. I had surgery and what was thought to be a grape sized tumor ended up being the size of a cherry tomato. Good thing I got better because my father’s health declined. He was experiencing heart attacks, strokes, and falls frequently.
I lost my father rather unexpectedly and quickly in August of 2023. He never made a will or trust that I’m aware of which wouldn’t have been his nature. He sat in the morgue for several weeks and they were calling me to warn me that a daily fee would be incurred if I did not have a burial or cremation order in place by a set time. I had no access to any of my father’s funds so without help I pressed my luck in quietly applying for a loan of $20,000 which thankfully was approved. I was able to give my dad a proper burial in an Army casket with floral arrangements, a bagpiper, a pastor, and veterans present. Given that services were held a death certificate was issued and to my surprise I received notification that a petition to administer my father’s probate by the child of the first marriage. I was caught off guard and blindsided.
No wonder why she didn’t help me, not even for a floral arrangement, she let me spend my money so I couldn’t afford an attorney for what was coming. She was rushing the probate, my father wasn’t dead and buried a month before she pounced on the opportunity to seize my father’s money. To add insult to injury she and I had learned in 2022 that she wasn’t even my father’s child. I had bought several Ancestry DNA kits in hopes of finding my father’s biological dad but instead it revealed lies and deceptions. She had also revealed to me that an unknown close relative had reached out to her. This relative went on to explain the story of how they were related. Apparently my father’s first wife, hanging out with her best friend, had an affair fling with the best friend’s brother when my dad was away at boot camp. She learned she was pregnant and she told the friend and the friend’s brother. A meeting was had between the then wife and her parents, the friend and friend’s brother and their parents. It was agreed upon to swear to secrecy and let the then wife pass the child off as my father’s since they were newlyweds. As you might remember I did say my father was able to visit his wife after boot camp before going to Vietnam. This is how the deception occurred.
Wouldn’t you know the non biological child was welcomed into her newfound extended family with open arms and weekly meetups all the while she’s wreaking havoc in my world. I had to take another $20,000 loan to hire a lawyer who grew impatient with me and my cause that he quit before final judgement. My dad’s prized fleet of motorcycles and vehicles taken from his property and liquidated for little to nothing of their value to give to the non biological child. Having presented the facts, dates, locations, stories,
and arguments the judge was not in my favor and she declared my father’s estate 50/50 as 50% to the non biological child and 50% to me. She stated that because my father paid child support and did not dispute the paternity that makes him her father. I tried, without a lawyer, to argue that he was not aware to know to even dispute the paternity. California limits challenging paternity to the first two years from the child’s birth. Hogwash if you ask me. My father was at war for the first nine months and once he was home he was traumatized by what he had just seen and been through, it’s all circumstantial. Thinking his wife had an affair or that her kid was not his kid was not forefront on his mind. He didn’t even know his wife had the affair.
All this exploitation of DNA being widely used didn’t help me one bit. All this advancement yet my case seems stuck in prehistoric times. California doesn’t even recognize or punish paternity fraud. Everything imaginable working against me. Now the state wants me to buy her out of the home that I’ve lived in with my father and my kids. But how? My credit has plummeted with the unfolding of these events. The house didn’t pass inspection and I don’t have money or credit now to do the necessary required repairs in order to take a loan to buy her out. Time is running out and I’m scared. I’ve fought the good fight not just for my kids or myself but for my father. My father is the true victim of paternity fraud here in California. He got scammed out of 18 years of child support and many more years of money embezzlement by force of guilt. Everything he earned and paid for taken from him and now me, his true heir. Not only is he not biologically related to who the state recognizes as an heir but he never raised her or had visitation while she was a child. She came into his life as a scorned revengeful adult. None of my father’s family, friends, coworkers, or neighbors ever met her. None.
I’m so scared and desperate that this is how I’ve come to make this GoFundMe. Whether I actually earn donations or just get this story out the residents of California should hear how their tax dollars don’t always work for justice. Finding a lawyer to take my case was and is damn near impossible. Interviewed more than a dozen and they either said I don’t have a chance or they don’t have the time or manpower. This just isn’t fair and my time to appeal is closing. My choices are to find and hire an attorney to appeal, to fix the house to pass inspection so I can take a home loan to buy out the non biological, or to simply buy out the non biological. If I can’t do either of the three then I will be evicted and forced to move out and my father’s home will be sold and divided amongst myself and the non biological which isn’t enough and it isn’t fair. This isn’t right.
If you’ve made it through this entire post I can’t thank you enough for your time. It’s embarrassing and I don’t mean to put my business out there like this but as I said before I’m hopeless and desperate right now. My situation has left me feeling like a victimized orphan and I hope to spread awareness and to reach an audience. I’m not asking the commoner for money if they simply don’t have it, I get it. Gas prices are high. I’ve put off my own health, dental, and car maintenance because of this legal battle from hell since my father’s passing, I get it. If a philanthropist wants a good cause, here it is. Great! Yes please! I ask again to please, more than anything, please share my story. I need a voice, I need an audience. If you see me and want to extend a hug, I’ll take that too. It’s a lot. If you want to say a prayer, please do so. What happened to my father is criminal. What’s happening to me is also criminal. The system has got it all wrong and changes need to be made. Paternity fraud should be recognized and punishable. Men should have rights. True inheritors should have rights. Please spread awareness and thank you again for your time.