I recall when it was about to become the year 2020, everyone was saying that was the year for vision. As in seeing. 20/20. I can’t even recall the last time I was able to actually see that well, lol. Spiritually, however my vision has become a lot clearer. It’s been a rough couple of months since having to have two eye surgeries and not being able to properly see to read my bible. I don’t know that my corrected vision will ever be the same unfortunately. When we stay in God’s word and focus on him, the Holy Spirit leads us on the right path that we need to be taking. Psalm 119:105 tell us that “the word is a lamp onto my feet and a light onto my path.” When we stay in God’s word, it definitely keeps us on the right path and away from the devil.
The most recent eye surgery that I had, has left the vision in my right eye blurring but manageable. I’m very disappointed in the outcome and feel that I wasn’t told everything that could possibly happen. Otherwise, I may have chosen a different type of surgery to undergo to fix it. Before Thanksgiving, I had the oil removed in my eye that was inserted to fix the retinal detachment. I noticed immediately that things appeared to be hazy. I could see what looked like bubbles still floating around. I mentioned this several times to my surgeon, but he didn’t seem to be concerned. I finally took it upon myself to google, “hazy vision after oil removed from vitrectomy”. Wow, I was shocked to see a few things actually pop up. According to the website that I found, it all made perfect sense. Years ago, when I had my first retinal detachment, I had to then have cataract surgery. They implanted a lens. My guess is that they implanted a silicon lens, but I am not sure about that. What happens when they injected the oil into my eye for this last surgery, there is no guarantee to remove 100% of it. On top of this, the oil is known to adhere to the lens in cataract patients. Essentially, I am now walking around with a dirty lens. I saw the regular eye doctor 2 weeks ago and he confirmed my suspicions. I went back to re-read the article I read because he wasn’t sure what the plan of action would be to fix it. It was disheartening to read that they could “possibly” flush the eye, or I could end up having to have a lens replacement. The problem though is that if they don’t get the oil out 100%, this would just happen again. My eye Dr’s fear was that no other doctor would be willing to even try to replace the lens because of my history. I too think that it would be risky because if they removed the oil, there could be a displacement of fluid and then cause the retina to pull away again because of shrinkage. Lovely huh? Currently the best he was able to get my vision was 20/40. Even then, I struggle with very small print, and also some details. Certain letters, I mistake for another. For example, D look like O’s, R’s and P’s can be tricky. I now have to learn how to adjust my world around my new vision. I’m thankful to the Lord that I can still see and I’m not 100% blind. Had this all occurred in prison, I can assure you that I would be blind. Again, praise the Lord for bringing me home.
I can rely on the doctors to guide me to what happens next in my physical vision journey, I trust in the true healer and physician for my sight.
I don’t like this date and I wish it never happened. Unfortunately, none of us were given the power to go back in time and change things. We can only move forward as best as we can and hope not only us, but others learn from our mistakes. They never said goodbye. Every time they ever left our house, they would tell us goodbye. Today, they didn’t do that. They left and never said a word. Never told us they were leaving, Nothing. It was a little after 6:00 pm when our youngest son told us they left. SH’s dad called and told him he had to get home to do chores and feed their dog. He wanted to know what was taking them so long, and SH told him that they needed to help get NA home because he drank too much. Drank without asking permission, drank by stealing something that wasn’t his. They all trespassed after leaving several times and not having permission to return. They left NA’s parents’ house after his mom, dad and sister were with them. DG drove them back to our house to get their cars. He let them leave to drive home. CH was with them and let them leave to go home. We saw them. All of us from 4:00 pm until a little after 6pm saw them and no one was drinking during that time frame. Remember SH, CH and our youngest son without our permission was at a convenience store. The clerk there and anyone else who might have seen them didn’t report them being intoxicated. My guess is that they did go there though to throw away trash they had at our house because there were no signs of anything when we or NA’s dad were there earlier. From the point that they left our house, we were told that they reached out to NM’s parents to see if he could go to SH’s house for dinner that night. After several requests my lawyer did NOT request phone records from NM’s phone or his parent’s phones. We were told NM called, but we have some family members or told us that they actually stopped at the house that day to ask permission. The stepdad was asked this question during the premilitary hearing and the mom was seen mouthing, “say no” as he testified on the stand. I asked to get copies of the video recording in the court room that day, but that was ignored too. My requests were ignored and thought irrelevant, I guess. Two people saw her mouth these words. So did they stop at their house and by doing so then would have shifted the blame off us and onto them. Hmmm. My phone rang at about 7:30pm. It was SH’s mom. I couldn’t understand her, she was crying. She asked me who was in SH’s car when they left our house. I told her I only knew of NM. She thought my older son was with them as well as NA because their book bags were thrown on the street and found. I kept asking her what happened. She said there was an accident. No one would tell me anything. Some lady got on the phone, and I gave her NM’s parents information to call them. Why wasn’t anyone telling me what happened? I went online to where you can look up 911 calls. There it was. A single vehicle accident on the road 1 minute from where SH lives. My knees buckled, county 50 had been called. County 50 is the coroner’s office. Please God, tell me that this is wrong. Later, NM’s mom called to tell me what happened. My poor baby boy was there. I don’t think he was every really the same after this day. How do you spend a whole day with people that are now no longer here? Just like that? How do you explain that to a 10-year-old? How am I going to call my older son and tell him? He’s at camp hours away. I was asked to go pick her daughter at work. I called DG’s mom and told her what happened so she could tell DG. I asked if she would go with me to get LM, NM’s sister from work. Do you know how difficult it is to drive 30 minutes in a car with a girl asking questions that you had answers to but couldn’t tell her? That was her parent’s place to tell her. We pulled in the driveway, and she ran inside. We all stood outside and waiting. Me, my husband, my youngest son, DG and his mom. I can’t get the scream out of my head. I wanted to puke, I wanted to run upstairs and grab her and hug her. Why did this happen? How? They weren’t drinking. They weren’t drunk. We stayed the rest of the night until very late. Other relatives were already there. We would spend the next several days with the families. All of us just wanted to be together and to try to make sense of this. How do you wreck a car on a road that you have lived off of your entire life? How do you wreck a car on a road one minute from your house? How do you drive almost 40 minutes from our house to this location and wreck? If you were drinking, they could’ve wrecked the car way before this. During one of many visits to SH’s house, the dad told me that apparently, they stopped at a convenience store down close to where they live. A friend of theirs saw SH and talked to him there. This never was investigated so again, no evidence now for us. No one wanted to question the parents or people associated with them. It was wrong to question them and make them look like they were at fault. Apparently, juries don’t like that. I was told anyway. Apparently, a red truck was seen speeding away from the scene. I can bring this up later in another post. It was brought up in court that they were text and snap chatting during the time of the accident. The 911 call went in at 7:11pm. They were text and snap chatting to a girl right up to the time of the accident. She wanted to testify. It was argued on side bar for almost an hour. Anything that pointed away from us, from me was argued. The judge would agree on the DA’s side. This was an unfortunate accident, but according to the DA someone had to pay. That someone became me.
Again, I’m sorry for leaving you all hanging for so long. The title says it all. This isn’t easy. After everyone left to take NA home, it was just myself, my husband and our younger son. We stood there for the longest time just staring at each other. Wondering if what just happened, actually happened. My husband started then texting our oldest son who again was away at cheer champ. He was almost 2 plus hours away from home. My husband starts laying into him about why his friends were still at our house? Why were they still here? Did he know they were here drinking? It was 20 questions crammed into text after text from my husband to our son. Needless to say, he was clueless and had no idea what we were talking about. While we are texting him, he starts texting a group chat to his friends. I have a copy of the text that was NOT allowed into evidence. Again, we don’t understand why. Our son proceeds to ask, “what were you guys at my house”? To which a few responded that it wasn’t them because they weren’t there, or they were at work (DG for example). SH started texting and stated, “Dude why are you mad at me, I’m sober AF”. I think this statement said it all right there. He was sober as Fu##! We didn’t know about this text message until after the fact. I’m not sure since what happened next, that my son recalled even sending it. My husband and I decided to order pizza because after all of this, I was not in the mood to cool. We were still trying to gather our thoughts on what to do next. As far as we knew, everyone left and went to NA’s house with NA’s dad and sister to get NA home. We were no longer in charge or “care” of them. They were now in the “care” of NA’s parents. They stayed at NA’s house for maybe half an hour. I was under the impression they drove there, but later it was said that they didn’t drive there. They rode w/ NA’s sister. (She was never called upon to testify on my behalf or the states-isn’t that odd?) While they were at NA’s house, DG called to see where everyone was. Someone texted him to state what happened and so he apparently went to the A’s home. He then drove SH, NM, and CH back to our house to retrieve their cars. Let’s stop here for moment. Think about everything that has happened in this time frame and the amount of people that they have been around, including CH and DG. Even if you took CH out of the mix since he was at the house w/ SH and NA that day, that leaves DG, NA’s mom, dad and sister, and my husband and I all seeing them. That’s six of us that saw them, talked to them, spent time with them. All saw them carry a huge kid who was intoxicated into his parents’ home. Remember prior to this DH and CH took our youngest son w/o permission to a convenience store. So, anyone at that store or waited on them saw them. That’s a LOT of people from approximately 4:30ish until they left our house around 6:00pm. So, they came back to our house to get their cars. CH never came back inside. We never saw him again after that. DG lied in court to say that he came back to the house and heard me tell my husband that in front of NA’s Dad “I’m the boss and we do what I say”. This appeared in the paper I believe, and several people asked us about it. He wasn’t even there when NA’s dad was at our house. I also don’t speak this way to anyone, let alone my husband of 29 years. You don’t stay married for 29 years talking to people like that. SH did come back inside with NA for a few minutes. We were still in shock. We asked them to sit down. We wanted answers. We again asked what happened and why they were at our house. SH answered telling us the exact same story NM told us earlier. That NA grabbed a bottle of rum, guzzled it and no one could stop him. I said you know he could’ve died. Why did you not call us or your parents? They had no answers. I did tell them that I was going to talk to their parents about what happened. NM was very upset. Knowing what we know now, I understand he had reason to be worried. My husband asked both of them if they had been drinking that day and they both said no, only NA. I even said, please tell us the truth because at this point the jig is up. I just need to know if you’re intoxicated or not. Neither appeared to be. Neither smelled of alcohol and the house when we got home did not look like a party occurred. There was nothing displaced, no trash, nothing. Only people who didn’t belong. I’m still confused how they left the house that day not once but 3-4 times and came back, and it was NOT considered trespassing. It was even thrown in our face that DG had the garage code. He had it because there was a time or two when we let the dogs out when were away for the day. We’d pay him to do so. I believe that giving someone permission to enter your home once isn’t a carte blanche forever. SH and NM walked outside because SH was getting texts from his dad. Eventually his dad called him when they walked outside to say goodbye to our youngest son. His dad told him to get home he had chores and his parents wanted to see him before going to a football camp later in the week. Now here’s something that wasn’t brought up either. His dad was asking him why it was taking so long. SH told him that they had to help with NA and what happened, He told his dad that they had to take him home because NA’s dad wouldn’t come get him. Hmm.. So, if he told his dad what occurred that day, why did his dad not call us fuming and asking us questions? Why did he call NA’s dad fuming? We heard through the grapevine that for the longest time SH’s dad was pissed at NA’s dad because of all of this. Until I guess they decided to throw shade my way and make me the fall gal. But heah, later the parents all claimed they had no idea about this, about the past, everyone all of a sudden became ostriches with their heads in the sand.
Any decision that we make: right, wrong or indifferent affects our lives. What we don’t consider is how those decisions affect others as well. Even the young guys involved in all of this mess were fully aware of this too. They were preached this ideal from the Football coach with his F.A.M.I.L.Y. mantra. (Remember, I brought that up before?) These boys knew right from wrong; they knew what they were and weren’t allowed to do. I also, thoroughly believe that they planned out this entire day knowing fully well what their intent was going to be before they ever came over the night before. When I was going through my discovery packet and disks that our lawyer sent us, it was clear that those parents were told the exact same thing that these boys told me son. All of the parents wrote in the testimonies, and it’s on other reports (I’ll discuss later) that these boys were going to or attending football practice earlier that day. There are text messages from the SH’s mom to him asking him about shirts and clothing she was buying for him to take along to attend the camp where he was being scouted from. The morning of June 16, 2015, she texted him to see if he was awake. She told him that, “he better not be late for practice, because if the coach calls his dad, his dad will be upset”. He replied that he was getting up and heading to practice. (He lied, he never got up and went to ANY football practice). Later that day, she asked him how practice went, and he proceeded to tell her that, “the coach had them running up and down hills and he was exhausted”. (He really piled it on). He then asked if it was ok if he went back to our house to swim with our son. (Which he never left our house, and our son wasn’t home). Instead, they took it upon themselves to stay. They stayed and never left for any football practice. They did however leave. The left our house not once, but about 4 times to go to a convenience store. Here’s my question right off the bat? If I gave them permission to stay overnight and was told they were leaving by 8 am to go to work/football, once they left didn’t that permission end? Who gave them permission to levee and keep returning? We didn’t! Someone tried to tell us that our younger son who was home at the time gave them permission. I’m not buying that either. I think they bullied him to keeping quiet and I’ll tell you why later. Sometime around 11am, they decided that it was going to be a good idea to start drinking. They then videotaped themselves on snapchat doing so and posted it. I didn’t know this until we received the discovery info. SH is seen taking a shot of something quoting the tv show Jackass. My younger son was told they were pretending and drinking water. NA apparently was very upset about his grandfather passing away recently before all of this. He grabbed a bottle of rum that we bought on the cruise we just came home from. It was still sitting on the counter to be put away. Remember, we just got home 2 days prior? We had it sitting there because some of the bottles were going to be gifts. He took a bottle and drink pretty much the entire thing from what we were told. He then passed out in my son’s bed. NONE of those boys thought about calling us, their parents, NO ONE! I believe that once NA became intoxicated that they decided to hang out and wait for him to sleep it off. This is when they decided to take several trips to the convenance store for food, tobacco, etc. As the day wore on and NA still wasn’t awake, I think they came up with a plan. They knew that they had to get out of our house before we got home. There was a time when my youngest son heard me talking about all of this to my mom weeks later. He asked me why I told his Mamaw that NA was drunk. I asked what he meant. He told me that the boys all told him that NA was sick from eating bad meat from the convenience store. (This is how they were going to hide it so my son wouldn’t say anything to us or if he did this was what he’d say). As the clock ticked, they had to call someone to get NA out of there. He wasn’t waking up, so they called his sister CA to come get him. When she arrived and couldn’t wake him up, she did the right thing and called her father. During all of this, CH, SH took my younger son AGAIN to the store to get him out of there. I also believe that they took this little trip to throw away any trash that was laying around. (There wasn’t any when we got home). This day in particular, my husband and I didn’t work a full day. Otherwise, we’d have not gotten home until 5:30 or later for my husband. Instead, we both left work early this day because we had another appointment at 3pm. When the appointment was over, we followed each other home. We stopped at the end of the driveway to get mail and my husband asked me whose car was in the driveway. I had no idea. We walked in to find NM sitting at our kitchen table. He looked like the cat that swallowed the canary! My exact words to him were, “why the hell are you here in my house?” He stammered around and I heard noises coming from my son’s room. I saw a girl peak her head out and of course I think someone is in there having sex. By this time NA’s dad walks in not even 2 minutes behind us. I apologize to him, explaining that we just walked in and weren’t sure what was going on. I told him that we worked all day and came home to “THIS”. He actually started explaining to us how his daughter called him that NA his son drank alcohol and passed out. The guys used NA’s fingerprint to open his phone to call his sister. I believe that they were all hoping that NA would be gone before we got home, they could leave, and we’d never know they were there. They didn’t take into account that they wouldn’t be able to wake him up and have to call his dad. I tried to call 911 three times and was asked not to by NA’s dad. See NA was up for different football awards, scholarships, etc. This would not look so good on him if his name was associated with drinking. I then insisted that we force NA to sit up and start drinking water. Once we did this he started vomiting and coming around. During this time, it was only NM, CA, NA and his dad and my husband and I in the house. NA’s dad was questioning NM ALOT about the happened that day and how his son ended up like this. We were told that NM grabbed the bottle and guzzled it. NM at the time was over 6′ tall and close to 280 or more. I’m leaning too more. NM said, who was going to stop him. He was bigger than all of them. I asked why they didn’t call someone or their parents? He had no answers. I was asking where my son was and was told he went to the store w/ CH and SH. Right on que the three walked in. SH had the guiltiest look on his face. He was shocked to see that we were there, and that NA’s dad was there too. We again asked them what happened and received the same story. NA’s dad then told NM, SH and CH that, “you clowns are going to help me take my son to my car and help me take him into our house”. My husband looked at me and said, “this has got to stop”. Referring back to the conversation we had on the cruise about not allowing people over anymore. These boys then proceeded to help lift NA out of the bed and had carried him from the bedroom, down our long driveway to the dad’s car. Can drunk people carry someone that heavy?
Sorry, that I haven’t posted as often as I should be. This next piece is very difficult for me, so I need to make sure that the words that I write, express the right things. I can’t tell you how overwhelmed I’ve been with all of the support that I’ve received from my blog. I’ve known who has supported me through this entire ordeal, but to see people I don’t know has been uplifting. As I continue to post and provide the story in my own words to you, the reader I need you to know something. I’m worried and afraid. From the time that all of this came out after the arrest, the victim’s families have been relentless. They have contacted the DA, probation, now parole, and anyone they can to spew lies to hoping for someone to believe them. Unfortunately for someone like me, victims have a lot of sway due to law in Pennsylvania giving them a “Bill of Rights”. (https://www.pccd.pa.gov/Victim-Services/Documents/Bill%20of%20Rights.pdf#:~:text=Passed%20by%20the%20Pennsylvania%20Legislature%20in%201976%2Cthe%20Pennsylvania,of%20crime%20support%20a%20program%20to%20benefittheir%20victims.) I completely get it, and if I was on that side of the fence, I would want protection and rights too. The problem occurs when some take advantage of it for their own gain. So much so that my attorney at the time had to send a letter to the DA’s office asking for the one mother to be investigated for infringing on my due process by not allowing witnesses to talk be questioned. Also, by threatening them in various ways if they did. I have the letter my attorney sent; however, nothing was ever done about it. She went on to then purchase roundtrip airfare for DG’s sister to fly home. When he was questioned about it in court, he got irate with my lawyer stating, “it was none of his damn business”. Until the Judge told him he had to respond, to which he said, “yes”. The two mother’s purchased lavish gifts for some, including engraved watches and paid for graduation parties for at least two of them. That was laughed off by the DA/Judge because they didn’t’ get to do this with their own children. No! That’s not ok, they were witnesses in a criminal investigation. NO ONE should have been able to have access to witnesses let alone buy them off. (This was all recorded in court by the court stenographer). They were all hanging out, exchanging stories I’m sure, and attending gatherings together. When I was originally arraigned. I was told to not have ANY contact with the victim’s, their families, directly or indirectly. The only information the lawyer was given at the time was a paper with initials on it. No names. So, some of the people I had no idea who they actually were. (The DA will claim that I did and basically make it seem like i was playing dumb). I honestly didn’t know who some of them were, even after receiving actual names. Remember CS, how I told you the guys stopped hanging around him because he was smoking weed? Well, I was friends well most all of these people on Facebook. Most either by this point blocked me or I blocked them. However, since there were some, I wasn’t sure if I did miss one or two. One of the boy’s parents posted a picture on Facebook and I commented on it. I then started chatting with her on messenger. I don’t recall the exact conversation, but it eventually ended with me asking if they’d be willing to talk to my lawyer. I was wrong about this person 1000% and the entire thing was bait. Dummy me took it. Next thing I know we were back in court to have to now report to pretrial probation. Unfortunately for my husband, he did too even though he did nothing wrong. I was the one that conversed with her. The argument however was that we had no idea WHO the victims were because we never received a list from the DA’s office. They didn’t care. So, when we reported to the probation office, they asked what happened. She asked me who the victims were so they could update their system. I explained to them that we didn’t know. She asked if we had the list, they gave us. We said, that’s the problem. We never received it. She looked online and through the paperwork. She said, you are correct. There is NOT a list anywhere. She said how where you supposed to know who not to talk to? EXACTLY!!! Nevertheless, we both stayed on pre-trial probation until the actual trial/sentencing. This then opened the door for the one mother to find anything possible to snag me on, hoping I’d end up in jail pre-trial. I closed down my social media pages so there would be no issues there. I provided proof of doing so to my probation officer. I’m sitting at work one day and get a call from my PO that I need to come in asap. There’s a problem. She knew it was BS. I still had to leave work and go in to address the problem though. Someone from my lawyer’s office met me there. Apparently, in messenger there was an email chain that included this one mom. At one time, I was part of this chain as well since back then were all friends. Another person used this old message chain and somehow tagged this mom with it. Well, she said I was contacting her. You could clearly see the message didn’t come from me. We have no idea how or why it occurred, but it was resolved that IT WAS NOT ME. That evidently ticked her off, because then not long after I get called again. This time by my PO’s supervisor. I have to come in for an administrative hearing. This was in front of the Judge. Someone went to great lengths to actually set up another Facebook account with my name. The problem was that it wasn’t spelled correctly, there was no photos and no friends attached to it. My Facebook was still showing as turned off. I had several people go in and try to look to see if I was showing up on their friends lists etc. I wasn’t. They had no proof where this new page came from. Again, my PO knew that it was garbage because heck someone with my same name in another state could have started setting up a page. I would have gotten no benefit from opening another page. You can’t see much if people have their privacy set to certain things. My lawyer and PO even said that I could have had better luck just using someone else’s page to go on and be nosey. The Judge ignored it. What we did find out though is that the other victim’s family has a relative that works in the probation office. I immediately brought that to my PO’s attention and my lawyers. Technically in my opinion my probation then should have been transferred to somewhere else to be handled. No one cared. When I was finally sentenced and sent to jail to start my prison sentence, they no longer had access to me. They weren’t satisfied with the fact that I was already behind bars. Instead, they decided to now go after my oldest son. It started by stating that he showed up at some address where her son was at this particular day. She said that my son pulled up and got out of the car and threatened her son that if his mom didn’t back off that he would hurt or kill him. (I can’t recall which, but she claimed he threatened to harm her son). She filed a protection order against my son to stay away from the entire family, not be within so many feet, etc. Of course, she then made sure that it was published in the paper by her news reporter friend at the time. My husband and son showed up to court and was told to basically accept it and move on. She had no proof he said this, no witnesses, no proof her son was at this house or that my son showed up at this house. We had proof that in fact it was impossible for my son to be there because he was with my husband and my in-law’s eating crabs. Prior to that he was working. After receiving his PFA, a few weeks or so later he went to a high school football game. Next thing he knew, he received a call from the High School resource officer that she was claiming he followed her son around the stadium, stalking him, harassing him, etc. She was trying to get him arrested for violating the PFA. The resource officer called us because he wanted us to know that he already contacted the DA’s office. Why? he went in and pulled the video footage for the entire evening. He said that our son arrived at the stadium, walked over to the bleachers, sat down, talked to some friends and left. Her son was nowhere in sight! She would never be held accountable for filing false reports. They didn’t care. Just take the lumps and move on. The paper wouldn’t rescind the story because, “people don’t want to know the truth.” Remember, I told you that before? Well, here it is. They eventually stopped bothering us. The PFA ended when her kids graduated school. My best friend, who WAS her sister made sure that the Judge, DA and anyone who listens knows that this lady is NO LONGER her sister. She wanted to be sure that her and her family weren’t somehow included in that PFA. My best friend has stood by us even to this day. She even made sure to call my current parole officer to let him know who she was and filled him in on some of the details she felt they needed to know. Every day, I would pray for everyone involved in this entire situation. Why? When you let stuff like this fester in you, and you don’t forgive people, you are the one that suffers. You forgive for yourself, so that you can have peace. Otherwise, not forgiving is like getting up and drinking poison hoping that someone else gets sick from it.
After getting home from work and adjusting to being back after a week in paradise. Ugh. We just wanted to come home and fall asleep. Our son started pestering us if his 5 closest friends could come over for the night. I repeatedly said NO! After, being bugged for the longest time I finally said to him, “Look! you need to get at and be at the school the next day before 7am. I need to get to work and so does your dad.” He proceeds to tell us that the guys just want to come over and see each other because they won’t be able for almost 2 weeks. It was a week with him being away prior, the one boy, NA was leaving I believe it was that Wednesday for a week’s vacation. One boy was going to a football camp for a college that was scouting him. Also, that the next day NA, NM, and SH had to go to football practice at the High School. One boy CH was going home, and the other DG had to be at work that morning super early. I asked then why they wanted to come over if they all had plans? He said because they wanted to see each other. I was told they were going to be watching movies in the basement and then go to sleep. We had an above ground pool. Our son, NA and their girlfriends were swimming before the other guys came over later. I believe that NM, CH, and DG came close to 7ish. By this time, no one was swimming. No other people were there, and no one showed up that I or my husband was ever aware of. In fact, I was in bed and never saw SH come in. My son came up some time around 9-10ish to see if I could take his girlfriend and NA’s girlfriend to her house. He didn’t realize that I went to bed. He never asked me to take her home, I assume her parents were coming to get her. I knew they weren’t spending the night. What happened was that SH arrived and our son then asked if he could help him take the girls to his girlfriend’s home to drop them off. SH was his girlfriend’s cousin. I was then told by her mother, that when they boys got there, they came inside for a little bit. SH hadn’t seen the parents in a while and wanted to say hello. Her mother testified that neither appeared to have drank or to be intoxicated. Neither girl came to their house smelling of booze, wasn’t drunk, etc. They stayed there and chatted about a half hour or so with her mom and the dad popped his head out to say hi. The boys left and returned to our house. Now this part confuses me a lot and I’ll tell you why it makes NO sense to me! SH’s house was 19.9 miles one way or 30 minutes one way to our house at the time. Apparently, he had just came from there before realizing he was going to be asked to take the girls home. The girl’s house was maybe 15 minutes away in the opposite direction-one way. The DA claims, that the kids said that night that SH, left our house. He drove then to beer distributor that I mentioned before that he’d go to in another county (and was caught at by a family member). Depending on which way he took, he would take him 40-50 minutes one way from our house at the time to this beer distributor. Not only that, but according to their hours now, they close during the week at 9pm. He never dropped of the girls until almost 10! That’s simple police work so someone is lying! To pad the case, what they then did was had the kids say that the alcohol that. I so stupidly bought in April had leftovers. That was what they were drinking. Um, no that’s not the case either, Sir! What I did provide to my attorney and AGAIN IT WAS DISREGARDED was screenshot of a text message where CH went to this same beer distributor and purchased a case of beer just a day or so before. He was questioned on the stand if he knew where this place was and he said, “um, uh..I’m not sure, I believe it’s across the Norman Wood Bridge somewhere”. Well, he knew where it was when he shared a text with his buddies bragging how he purchased a case of Bud. (I apologize the quality is poor because it’s a screenshot of a screenshot). I was NOT part of this text. I was given this by someone who was. So, it would be nice if this person was reasked, “do you know where this business is? I advise you not the lie under oath!”.
So again, according to the police/DA and these kids that were now changing stories about what occurred they stated that several people came over that evening of the 14th. If you listened to the story in court, they were apparently drinking around a campfire, jamming to loud music (which would have been right outside my bedroom window), but apparently, I was awake, and they were walking around the house back and forth to the basement with drinks. I believe the did try to state that my husband was sleeping. Which again begs the question, wouldn’t he have heard the noise and came out to see, “what was going on?” So, I can assure you that there was no loud party going on. Do I believe it’s possible people can be at your house, and you don’t know? Yes, I can. After, I was arrested, someone was talking to me about their son. They happened to mention in the conversation how their son got up and went to work. She thought she was alone. She went to the basement to do laundry and here a friend of his was sleeping. He was at work! Now again, this was a person who they knew well. So, I stopped, and I looked at her. I said so you had no idea he came over, and that he was there? Do you know if they were drinking the night before? She said no. (Now her son was of ae, but she knew why I was asking). I was trying to make a point. I remember growing up and I would go to my one friend’s house that lived a few blocks away. There were times her parents went away or mine would go away. No one ever thought anything of it. So, to me being raised this way-I didn’t find this strange at all. There was no beer cans or trash thrown around. No loud music. That next morning, I woke up and got ready for work, my husband was up getting ready, one boy left like he said he was going to. That was DG. My son came upstairs and said he was ready. I was worried I was going to have a hard time waking him. He told me again that the other 3 guys were getting up soon to leave for football practice. The other CH was going home. I dropped my son off at the High School before 7am on the 15 of June, 2015. I was to work on time and thought it was just another day.
Our cruise was over after 7 beautiful days aboard a Carnival cruise ship. We went to Cape Canaveral, Nassau Bahamas, and to Freeport Bahamas. My husband and I had been to Nassau several times before, but Freeport was a first for all of us. The boys had never been out of the country let alone the Bahamas. The day leaving a cruise is always tiring. There’s a debarking process, that seems to have actually sped up since the first cruise we ever took. It still seemed to take forever though just to get off the thing. We then went through customs in Baltimore, then had to sit and wait for our ride to take us home. I have the cutest picture of my youngest son leaning against the suitcases with his straw hat he bought. He looks exhausted, but it’s adorable. I called it “the weary traveler”. My husband and I both had to return to work the next day, Monday. So, we were all anxious to get home, changed and unwind to prepare for the week ahead. Our oldest son had been asked to join the competition cheerleading team as a lifter. He and 2 other boys that he hung out and played football with joined the squad. Also, his new girlfriend at the time was on the team as well as one of the other boy’s girlfriends. They ended up enjoying it more than they expected. When we got home on June 14th, our son had to prepare to leave for a weeklong cheer camp leaving bright and early on Tuesday June 16th. The other two boys ended up not being able to go to this camp because the one was leaving to go on a week’s vacation with his family June 17th, and the other boy’s parents didn’t want to pay the expensive fee for the camp plus the $300 for the required clothing. I admit, we weren’t excited about it either. They were able to raise some of the money through fundraisers. My youngest son was out of school for the summer. We were just starting to allow him to be able to stay home alone. I worked about 10 minutes from home at the time and he knew he could call with anything he needed. Honestly, he was and still is one of those kids that would sleep most of the day, so I didn’t have much concern of him getting into trouble. When he was awake, at the time he was playing video games. He knew how to microwave himself certain things, I would buy him lunchables or he’d eat cereal. All things he really liked. I remember going into work that Monday and so excited to see my friend Jess. We’re still friends to this day! I showed her some pictures from our trip, she filled me in on the latest and greatest gossip from work while I was gone. There wasn’t much her and I didn’t share with each other. I think it made some people mad how well her and I got along. Over time of getting to know each other, we discovered that our stepdads were work partners at their job, she knew my cousin and his wife through a side hustle she’s done since she was a kid and where her dad works. Then years later, we found out that my nephew and her brother were friends all through high school. So yeah, we were meant to be friends and in each other’s lives. She would become one of my supporters through this ordeal. She was one of the ones that saw the entire thing unfold the day it happened. She told me recently that she still remembers that day like it was yesterday. How wrong the police and DA got it. To hear the media make it seem like I didn’t care or wasn’t remorseful. She is the one that saw me come to work and bawl my eyes out at my desk. She was the one that helped pull me together while at work. The days that I called out because it was too hard to get up and come in. Was I worried about me? NO! Remember they never filed charges until almost 1.5+ years later. I can never thank her enough for her love then and now. For her families love and support of all of us. I’m stalling to tell you what took place next. It’s hard. It hurts and sucks a lot. It makes me feel sick to think about it again. Everyone keeps telling me it’s WAY overdue to tell my story. I pray they are right. I pray that you are ready to hear it with an open heart.
I’ve been struggling the last few days. I’ve had a lot going on since I got home in June, good and well stuff that’s a pain. Not long after I got home my retina detached in my right eye AGAIN. I had two retinal detachments in the past. One in each eye. When this occurs, you eventually then need to have cataract surgery because of the trauma to the lenses in your eyes. I had that done back when I had the original retinal detachments. After the one in my left eye occurred, I developed scar tissue that needed to be removed. When you have cataract surgery, you develop a film eventually over the eye that needs to be zapped off with a laser. That’s NOT fun. It’s like someone snapping a rubber band in your eye. Luckily, I guess you could say that when I had the scar tissue removed, they took care of the film in that eye too. So, I didn’t need to be “aware” when that was being done to that eye. The surgery that I’ve had in my right eye this time has been upsetting to me. It’s not what I expected at all, and I’m frustrated. When you have a detachment, they go in and fix it a few different ways. One of the ways can end up with a gas bubble which is what I had before or an oil bubble which is what I had this time. There are definitely differences to both. Gas, I had to lay face down and it took months to absorb to go away. You also can’t see through it. The oil, you can see through it. You need to then have another surgery though to have the oil removed. Apparently, they will NEVER be able to get 100% of the oil out. I have been fighting constant eye pressure issues ever since the original surgery in June. I went to see my family in November and ended up getting sick on the plane because my pressure went crazy. It also seems that my hip and knees want to act up. They have been hurting constantly. I’m sorry, I’m complaining to all of you. It all just hit me yesterday and I was depressed. I’ve been through ALOT, and it just never seems to end. I’m not sure what the secret is to just not having one problem after another. I finally went and laid down on the sofa after working and fell asleep for a while. Today, I put on my big girl panties and I’m giving it another go. Wish me luck!
Mother’s Day long passed, and we were getting excited as a family to go away. We decided to take the boys on a cruise to the Bahamas. I was also excited, because one of the stops was in Cape Canaveral, FL which meant that while others would be rushing off the boat to shop, I was going to see my friend Chris. Her and I have known each other before my husband, and I were a couple. We lost touch for a while, but then when I was working on the other side of Lancaster County, I ended up finding out that she was living close by. We met up for lunch and haven’t lost touch since. Our Cruise was going to be out of Baltimore for 7 days, June 7-14th. School was going to be out; we took off work. Everything was planned. We had another friend taking us to the airport and had arranged to make sure the dogs were taken care of. While we were on this trip, one of the many conversations we had with our older son was the fact that when we got back things were going to be changing regarding his friends coming over. Again, if you remember we went from the occasional sleepover and stop in, to them stopping by whenever they wanted. I would come out of my bedroom and there would be a kid lurking around with my son. I just didn’t like not knowing that someone was in my house without me knowing about it. I mean, what if I was half dressed? I didn’t make a habit of that, since we had sons, but you understand what I mean. We explained to him that, “this has got to stop”. Enough was enough. We felt taken advantage of and couldn’t figure out why they were clamoring to come over so often. I also, didn’t care for the fact that NM’s mom wanted to blow up my phone looking for her son that she couldn’t find. I had asked my son several times about this, because something just wasn’t sitting right with me. I had this feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right, but Stephen just said I was being overly dramatic. What I later found out was that this poor boy was afraid to go home. He was bouncing between our home and his aunt’s home, so he didn’t have to face his step father. From what I was told by family members, firsthand was that a few nights before this incident that I’ll get to later happened, his stepfather beat him with a 2×4. I don’t see anything wrong with spanking a child on the rear end but beating a kid with a 2×4 isn’t punishment. NM confided in my son and told him this. He tried to bring it up when he was on the stand but of course the DA shut it down immediately. No one wanted to paint the parents in any sort of bad light in front of the jury. Unfortunately, had we all known that this was one of many reasons that he didn’t want to go home and liked staying where he was loved, could laugh and feel safe, well There was even a time after we were arrested that two of NM’s sisters were not speaking to their mother. They went in front of the original judge and told him that they were not associated with her and were going to be testifying on our behalf. Some of the evidence that we received came from both of them during that time. The evidence that they provided to us, I will disclose later. Right before we went on this beautiful vacation, our oldest son fell in love. It just so happened that this girl’s father and SH’s father were cousins. NM’s aunt and I are best friends. This is a fact that no one ever knew and would barely come out. He spent a lot of our cruise trying to Facebook message or Facebook call her. We seemed to become instant friends with her parents and remain friends with them to this day. If I did something so terrible, would the family members like the cousin, great aunt/uncle of one boy and the aunt/uncle/cousin and numerous other relatives want to even talk to me? From the day that this all happened, instead all of them rallied around us and tore the case apart. Uncovering the lies, defending us when we didn’t even know about it. There was a time when I recall being at this girl’s graduation party. (My son’s new girlfriend). One of her dad’s aunts came up to him and apologized to him. She said, and I overheard it, so I know I wasn’t hearing incorrectly, she said, “I have found out a lot more about this case that I knew before and I’m sorry for the way I acted. I wish I would have known all of this before it was too late.” I don’t know who told her, how she found out, but someone set her record straight. This has happened continuously for us. I just wish that everyone that could see between the lies and crack were one of the twelve on the jury.
Mother’s Day weekend in 2015, my husband decided to go away to the beach with his sister and mom. I stayed home so they could enjoy their time together and bond. I decided that I wanted to try to surprise him and have some things outside taken care of before he got home on Sunday. I offered to pay my son and a few of his friends to help. One of these tasks was laying stones around our pool outside. Later these boys would testify that I never paid them, which I did, and the work wasn’t even completed 100%. From this incident, I learned to not pay until the job is completed. (Or at least only pay for the portion of work that was done). I had someplace that I needed to be later that day, my son and his friend NA were leaving to go to a minor league baseball game and the other boys of course wanted to get home to be with their mom’s. I ran to store to pick up some fried chicken and some “drinks”. I say “drinks” because this was twisted around to be beer, wine coolers, etc. No, this was my way of saying “something to drink”. I wasn’t able to say or show anything that NM or SH said or texted, but yet the DA allowed CH to testify that one this date that NM come downstairs and woke him up to tell him that I bought chicken and beer for everyone to drink. He claimed that when he came upstairs there was chicken and, in the garage, there was a fridge with beer in it. There may have been beer in that fridge, but I can assure that that I didn’t buy it for them or give it to them. The DA actually painted this picture for the jury that DG was riding around on my husband’s tractor with a beer in his hand mowing my grass. DG was in fact riding on the tractor. He had a radio flyer wagon hooked to it and was pulling around my younger son. They were also using the wagon to load items they were using for things they were completing for the yard. I mean let’s think about this, it’s Mother’s Day. Do you think that I was going to get kids drunk or even tipsy, then send them home to their moms? I knew I had to leave. I knew my son and his friend were going to a baseball game with his parents. I knew these other boys were going to be driving home. There were no photos of any of this happening. Other than the one that the DA was putting into everyone’s mind, all because a bunch of kids “said so”. Later that day, I did in fact go to my parent’s house because this was the day that my sister and brother-in-law announced they were pregnant with my nephew. The DA wanted to make it sound like this was an all-day affair that I was hosting. This really irritated my mother because she knew that I wasn’t around for the entire day. The bottom line in all of this mess is that we should not have been allowing these kids to be over as much as they were. The parents are the time didn’t seem to take any issue with it, the one parent asked if I was going to be adding their son as a dependent to our tax return. It was often, but it wasn’t excessive by any means. I just wish that it could have been property portrayed that they were at times coming to our home and then leaving to go to this other friend’s house that lived across in the other development. I knew that my son was there, but again I don’t know if these other boys told their parents that they were going there. I can understand that if they said they were going to our house, then as their parents I would expect them to be where they said they were going to be. I recall when my son first met NM and started hanging out with him. This boy’s mother would call my phone constantly. A few times, I would be out grocery shopping and she was asking why her son wasn’t answering the phone. She’d ask me if her son was at my house. It seemed clear to me that she had no clue where her son was, and he didn’t want to be found. I finally asked my son, “what is this kid’s deal?” I started to get the impression that something was going on with this kid that his mother was calling all the time asking about him, checking in on him, etc. I was getting frustrated because again, these were 16-17-year-old. I felt that if I needed to run to the store to get something, can’t kids this age be left alone? According to the DA, I was their babysitter, and their care was entrusted to me. I wasn’t aware that I was considered a babysitter or a caretaker, but hopefully all of you who are entrusted with the “care of someone else” take this into consideration so you aren’t found negligent down the line. I want to go over some definitions and explanations with all of you so you can keep this in context as we move forward in the story. I think that technically we can all agree that the legal definition of a child is anyone under the age of 18. So, when does a “child”, know right from wrong? I think again we can pretty much come to an average agreed conscience, but I decided to look. According to this NEWSWEEK article (https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/ETHICS_TEXT/Chapter_2_Moral%20Development/Learning-Right-From-Wrong.htm#:~:text=To%20the%20legal%20system%2C%20the%20answer%20is%20clear%3A,so%20can%20be%20held%20responsible%20for%20their%20actions.): To the legal system, the answer is clear: children have the requisite moral sense–the ability to tell right from wrong–by age 7 to 15, depending on which state they live in, and so can be held responsible for their actions. If a minor commits a crime, they will not hesitate to “charge them as an adult” and say “he/she knew what he was doing”. In my case, they kept referring to these teens as minors (which they were), and how I corrupted them. How they got the impression that what they were doing was ok because of the time that I allowed it prior. They wanted to portray them as these young, helpless kids that didn’t know right from wrong. That I led them down this primrose path of destruction. You can’t have it both ways Mr. States Attorney’s everywhere! You can’t say that someone can be charged as an adult because it suits you to want to get a stronger penalty. You can’t say “they knew what they were doing and acted recklessly”, therefore we are charging them as an adult. Then you want to come back and when it suits you differently (ie: my case) and say that these was children, they were young and impressionable. They didn’t know, they weren’t adults. Where is the standard? Here is another fun fact, I bet many of you didn’t know. At least in the state of Pa, if a minor is 14 or older did you know that as their parent or guardian that you have NO say over their mental health? None, nada. When a minor needs to see a mental health specialist or have anything do to with mental health in general, if they are 14 or older as a parent you can’t sign for them, call for them, do anything on their behalf without their consent. (This was enacted in 2020 called Act 65 which replaced Act 147-https://www.paparentandfamilyalliance.org/mental-health faq#:~:text=In%20September%202020%2C%20PA%27s%20mental%20health%20consent%20law%2C,not%20be%20overridden%20by%20their%20parent%2Flegal%20guardian%27s%20refusal.) So again, if a “child” can make their own mental health decisions-aren’t we treating them in a way that shows that they have some sense of right and wrong? That they are mature enough to make certain decisions? Aren’t we also giving them keys and a license to drive a car? To get behind the wheel and make life changing decisions every day?
Pennsylvania definition of corruption of minors explained:
§ 6301. Corruption of minors.
(a) Offense defined.–
(1) (i) Except as provided in subparagraph (ii), whoever, being of the age of 18 years and upwards, by any act corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor less than 18 years of age, or who aids, abets, entices or encourages any such minor in the commission of any crime, or who knowingly assists or encourages such minor in violating his or her parole or any order of court, commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.
(ii) Whoever, being of the age of 18 years and upwards, by any course of conduct in violation of Chapter 31 (relating to sexual offenses) corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor less than 18 years of age, or who aids, abets, entices or encourages any such minor in the commission of an offense under Chapter 31 commits a felony of the third degree.
(2) Any person who knowingly aids, abets, entices or encourages a minor younger than 18 years of age to commit truancy commits a summary offense. Any person who violates this paragraph within one year of the date of a first conviction under this section commits a misdemeanor of the third degree. A conviction under this paragraph shall not, however, constitute a prohibition under section 6105 (relating to persons not to possess, use, manufacture, control, sell or transfer firearms).
(b) Adjudication of delinquency unnecessary.–A conviction under the provisions of this section may be had whether or not the jurisdiction of any juvenile court has attached or shall thereafter attach to such minor or whether or not such minor has been adjudicated a delinquent or shall thereafter be adjudicated a delinquent.
(c) Presumptions.–In trials and hearings upon charges of violating the provisions of this section, knowledge of the minor’s age and of the court’s orders and decrees concerning such minor shall be presumed in the absence of proof to the contrary.
(d) Mistake as to age.–
(1) Whenever in this section the criminality of conduct depends upon the corruption of a minor whose actual age is under 16 years, it is no defense that the actor did not know the age of the minor or reasonably believed the minor to be older than 18 years.
(2) Whenever in this section the criminality of conduct depends upon the corruption of a minor whose actual age is 16 years or more but less than 18 years, it is a defense for the actor to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he reasonably believed the minor to be 18 years or older.
1978 Amendment. Act 104 added present section 6301. Former section 6301, relating to the same subject matter, was repealed November 28, 1973, P.L.341, No.117.
Cross References. Section 6301 is referred to in sections 3104, 6105, 9122.1, 9122.3 of this title; sections 5329, 6344 of Title 23 (Domestic Relations); sections 5552, 5920, 5985.1, 5993, 62A03, 9718.1, 9799.14 of Title 42 (Judiciary and Judicial Procedure); section 6138 of Title 61 (Prisons and Parole); section 3113 of Title 63 (Professions and Occupations (State Licensed)).
I’m also pretty sure that stating, “they were already corrupt” isn’t a viable defense. What are your thoughts so far on all of this mess?
The Carpenter’s Daughter 
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