Support Kevin's journey after heartbreaking and tragic loss

Kevin McLean is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Greetings everyone from sunny Northwest Florida!

I hope that whoever happens upon my story is having an amazing day and a joyful, fulfilled existence.

I am writing this post and creating this fund for emergency purposes. Thanks to mental health issues following my mother's murder this past year I have reached a point that necessitates my dipping into an emergency fund that unfortunately does not exist.

My name is Kevin and I was born in 1990 near Pensacola, Florida. I was a very lucky child, having been blessed with amazing parents who brought me into this world and raised me (Harold and Laura, as shown in the pictures.) My father was a Market Manager for Winn-Dixie for 25 years, my mother worked intake at our local hospital, SRMC, as desk clerk; the very first face you'd see in a moment it's often most needed. She was a very intelligent woman who loved people and would have done anything for anyone in a time of need. An incredibly patient soul who put others' first until her last breath.

Making this Gofundme page and writing this post is a thing that I do not find simple, or easy, at all. I've started the process several times only to wind up talking myself out of it. Call it pride, or pessimism. Hopelessness? Perhaps some cocktail of many negative things. But my hope is to turn this very terrible story into one of redemption, and positivity.

The last time I saw Denise, my mother, was on mother's day of last year, 2023. I'd taken her a carrot cake (her favorite) and a book, as she was an avid reader, as a gift. Her, I and my sister sat and talked for a couple of hours before leaving that evening. My sister had long headed home to celebrate with her family and I stayed with my mother. Hoping to talk her out of the place she was staying with her boyfriend; a futile effort that has become my most costly failure. I remember opening the door to my car, turning and looking back at her, and being struck with this haunting feeling I had no means to understand then; that I had just said goodbye. Not see you later. Not call me soon. Goodbye.

Sometime between the day after Mother's day,, and the 28th of May when her body was found, she was violently murdered in cold blood by her "boyfriend" a man named Jeffrey Stahler. This subhuman abomination took her life, and then lay in hiding with my mom's lifeless body for days, attempting to dispose of it in various ways before finally giving up. He didn't turn himself in at that point. Instead, he continued to try to cover up his crime- even going so far as to pretend to be her on facebook and in replies to text messages I'd sent my mom...asking how she was and her opinion on a business idea I'd had. He left her there to rot and there I was thinking everything was fine. I should've known. I should've somehow been able to stop or prevent this. My family was not able to lay her to rest in a typical casket, instead having no choice but to place her remains (already in decomposition) into what amounts to a biohazard container. She will never return to the earth. Just one of the many things that was taken from her, and from my family.

Since then, despite my best efforts to keep my head in my work and off of my grieving, and my loss.... I found, and to an extent still find myself in a diminishing state of mental health. Following the death of my older brother, Jeff, who passed in 2022 after losing a long battle with addiction, my mother and I had gotten closer than ever. My mother was my best friend, times two, and the only person on this earth that understood me. Kept me grounded and made me feel a sense of belonging. I haven't felt that I belong since I got the phone call. I lost my job in July, after nearly gravely injuring myself in a machine I was employed to operate and since then I have exhausted every bit of the very modest 401k I had with my former employer. I have recently filed tax returns for the past 3 years but unfortunately it is taking the IRS a long time to process my return.

This is the main reason I am here humbly requesting your support today. I am requesting assistance to catch up with my bills and current needs in terms of food, shelter, etc. in hopes that I may receive enough to support myself as I continue on my endeavor to start the same business that I had texted my mom about in May of last year. I will include a link to my Kickstarter for this entity once it is complete.

If you are unable to help I'd like to sincerely thank you for at least taking the time to read my story and your thoughts and prayers are as precious (and more) to me as any account balance, etc.

If you are in a position to support my fundraiser then I truly can't express my gratitude. Just know that it will go to the best of uses, which are those that provide for basic living expenses and/or ways that commemorate the life and person that I still hold so dear, taken too soon. Gone but never forgotten.

Kindest regards,

Kevin McLean