I never dreamed I would have to ask the public for help in protecting my children’s lives, but after surviving domestic violence so severe that we nearly did not make it out alive, I am humbly asking for your help with keeping the legal representation we need, so my children never have to see their abuser again. 

I am a single mom with full custody of two beautiful children, an 11-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, who experienced unimaginable terror in early 2025. What started as a winter’s morning where we were home sick with the flu, quickly turned into one of the most frightening days of our lives. We were woken up incredibly early by raging domestic violence, which escalated to my two children and I escaping with little more than the clothes on our back. In the moment of our escape, I went to grab my hidden emergency money, only to discover it, along with other important emergency essentials, were gone. 

We did not want to leave our home, our beloved animals and the life we had built behind that day, but in that moment I truly believed we would not survive if we had stayed. As I drove my children to safety, I did not yet understand just how much abuse they had endured. The details they later shared with the authorities and mental health professionals, were the kind of horrors no children should ever have to live through. 

Without revealing details that could jeopardize the upcoming May 2026 trial, I am able to share that for quite some time the mental, emotional and physical violence in our family had been escalating into cruelty that was meant to terrorize us into silent compliance, which led up to our harrowing escape in February of last year.

Just a few months earlier, in desperation to get help for what was happening in our home, that Christmas I asked for family therapy as my gift. My request was responded to with strong resistance, but as the new year approached, I insisted our family start counseling to see what, if anything, could be done to make our family and home safe. After a couple of marital sessions, our therapist requested to meet with just our children, where she discovered the abuse they were enduring was far more severe than I had ever imagined. 

My children were brave enough together in their desperate attempt for help, to confide in our family therapist details of the brutality they had been experiencing when I was not at home with them. When their session was complete, the therapist requested to speak to me privately before we left the office, where I learned my children’s mental health had declined so severely due to duress, that they required immediate professional intervention. One of my children revealed to the therapist that they struggled with thoughts no parent could ever imagine hearing their young child express, because their home had become an unbearable place of such severe psychological and physical torment. Our family therapist insisted that time was of the essence to get my children and myself out of our home as quickly as possible for our safety.

I stepped out of the family therapy office moments later and looked into the terrified eyes of my children, sitting in the lobby. They knew that I now knew, and I felt the blood rush out of my head, down my body and out of my toes. Fighting back tears, in stunned silence, I walked past our tormenter, grabbed my babies by their hands and walked out of the therapy office, overwhelmed with realization that my kids and I were in need of immediate sanctuary. 

I started making phone calls, only to find the women’s shelters in our area were all full and the waiting lists were long. I worked hard contacting all the resources I could find in our area to help get us safely out and worked with county officials to show them the diligence in my efforts to get my children out of our dangerous environment as quickly as possible. 

No sooner had I promised my children that I would keep them safe, while urgently looking for a place for us to live, than the violence rapidly escalated. It was obvious that our lives were in immediate danger and without our belongings nor preparation, we had to leave without knowing where we would go and how we were going to start rebuilding our lives. We fled with what we could carry, because the only thing that mattered in that moment was that we needed to survive. After escaping to a safe haven, the fear did not end, as our tormentor found and taunted us. We shifted locations in attempts to find safety and make the threats stop, but somehow we were quickly tracked down, no matter where we went. I continually took immediate and serious action, while setting up precautions to protect my children. I kept a diary which had three sets of copies recording what we had survived and the fury of vengeance following us, as we tried so hard to stay safe. The copies were: one for my records, one for a lawyer/law enforcement and one, God forbid, for Dateline NBC. 

Today, just over a year later, we are actively working with many agencies including law enforcement and the district attorneys office, in their investigation of our ongoing, multifaceted, domestic violence. The courts have routinely extended the restraining orders protecting us as we all navigate the complexities of this judicial process. My children are in intensive weekly therapy, under psychiatric care and are going through specialized traumatic therapeutic services. Many days the flashbacks and sudden triggers lead my children to need to come home from school, stay home from school or cancel fun activities that most children are blessed with the ability to enjoy, just so that they can decompress, have me help them with their therapeutic trauma reducing tools and reset their minds and hearts in knowing they are safe in my arms. 

Because of the severity of my children’s trauma, my full-time job is helping them to heal. Their severe distress requires me to be available to them when their frequent and unexpected panic attacks arise or they are jolted by day and night terrors. Both of my children attend weekly therapy appointments, psychiatry visits, trauma treatment programs and more. My older child is diagnosed with and being extensively treated for his PTSD disorder, related to the savagery he barely survived, which is preventing him from living the normal life every child deserves. Being available at all times to support rebuilding and healing my children’s mental health, has led to overwhelming financial pressure. Years of financial abuse lead me to keep a hidden stash of emergency money, which I discovered had been stolen when my kids and I needed it the most. As we were trying to survive the unimaginable, I discovered malicious attempts at blocking me from receiving money that was supposed to help my kids and I get back on our feet. Right now we are and have been surviving on a tight budget as best as we can. Since February of 2025 I have been raising my children all on my own. The court ordered support, a sizable amount of which sits unpaid, would have enabled me to pay rent, put healthy food on the table, buy school clothing and supplies and give my children the chance to feel like other kids their age. Instead, I have struggled to make ends meet, often watching them miss out on the basic comforts and sense of security, every child deserves.

I am blessed to be present for my children physically and emotionally, as they are my number one priority. I have been and continue to make sure I am available to take them to their copious appointments and ongoing therapeutic treatments related to the violence they experienced, by taking out loans and living frugally. The tight lifestyle we live did not award me the ability to keep an attorney, so I have been representing my children and myself during this extensive litigious process. In the fall of 2025, a judge ordered a domestic violence trial focused on making the restraining order protecting my children and I permanent, so that my children could finally move forward in healing their lives, knowing they never have to face their abuser again. 

The judge made it clear for this trial my children and I would need to be represented by an attorney, especially since our abuser has been able to afford and has had a lawyer  at court. Because of this, he was ordered to pay our lawyers fees, but the amount later awarded was barely a fraction of what our legal representation will cost. I am very grateful to have initially secured an attorney for the trial, but I am financially responsible for the minimum $25,000 more in expected costs, which I found out today are due right now.

Since I have no retainer funds remaining, as it stands we will not have our lawyer to represent my children and I at trial, unless I can pay this money immediately. I have been and will continue to work hard to do my best at gathering the money together for my children’s representation, by selling off my personal property and furniture. Asking for your help is incredibly hard for me to do, but I cannot afford to protect my children’s lives without you. 

Without immediate help, my children will lose the legal protection they desperately need!

Every dollar donated will go directly to:

•Our attorneys fees

•Legal preparation for the trial

•Expert witness fees

•Court stenographer

•And all other cost associated with the needs of this trial

This will give my children their fair opportunity at being permanently protected from their abuser. 

Winning permanent protection would mean that while they are in ongoing treatment, my young children no longer have to remain paralyzed by their expressed fear that they will one day be forced back into the hands of the person who nearly destroyed their lives. This protection would allow my children to focus their energy not just on healing the wounds created by their abuser, but also rebuilding their lives and getting to focus on what is most important, the joys of a childhood without fear. As one of my children so heartbreakingly put it, they just want to be able to move forward and live a normal life, without always having to look over their shoulder in fear he is behind them, waiting to finish what he started. 

If you’re able, please consider supporting our family and sharing our fundraiser so it can reach others who may be able to make a difference.

Please stand with me in protecting my children and putting this traumatic chapter behind us. Every share brings us one step closer to reaching the compassionate people who may be able to make a meaningful difference in our lives.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being part of giving my children the chance to feel safe again. With permanent protection, they can begin to truly heal and move forward into a life where they no longer have to look over their shoulders in fear.