This isn't going to be an easy read. In fact, you may want to wait to read it until you have a moment of quiet. A moment to pause. It's going to be raw and maybe a little rough.
It's been a year tomorrow that our sweet girl was kidnapped by an online sexual predator. 1 year! It's been a year of ups and downs, highs and lows, and lots and lots of emotion. It changed our families trajectory. It changed us. All of us!
On February 18th, 2018 our 11-year-old daughter walked out of our home and into a strangers car. She left willingly, although we know now not totally by her own choice. We know now that she was threatened, stalked, and manipulated. In doing so he convinced her to leave us. Something we NEVER thought could happen to us.
She met this so-called friend on a children's gaming chat room. It's one that I had approved for her to be on. I regularly checked the people she would talk to and I was very aware of who was on there and when. So, when a 13-year-old girl named Violet came on the scene I was a little suspicious. I talked to our daughter about who this person was. I even spoke to this person myself. It sounded like a 13-year-old and, the picture that was sent was of a 13-year-old girl. I had no reason to believe otherwise. Our daughter is somewhat of a computer genius. She has taken classes at a local tech school and she always outlearned the class. So, I trusted my instincts and onward we went.
Over the course of the year, I noticed that some of her other friends were falling into the background. She just wasn't talking to them as much. I asked her what was going on and she said that she a violet just had a lot in common. I then spoke to Violet again and expressed that our daughter needed to be on the computer less and that she would be limited in her time spent in the chat room. I found out later that this didn't go very well with Violet. I told our daughter that I didn't care, she was our child and what others did with their children was none of my concern.
Our daughter, unbeknownst to me, gave her cell phone number to this person and then began to text. We did NOT give her permission to do this. She had her phone so young because she was away from me at times and I needed her to be safe. Little did I know I had dug a really big hole.
Looking back I can tell you that our daughter became depressed, withdrawn, aggravated. She didn't want to leave the house, she didn't want to hang out with her friends, and she didn't want to be without her phone. It became quite ridiculous. However, I still had no clue as to what was going on.
One night, about a month before she left us, she came into our room scared to death. She said she couldn't sleep in her room alone anymore. She was scared and trembling. So for the next week, she slept on our floor. In fact, she wouldn't leave my side. I know now that he had revealed himself to her and he told her he was watching her all the time. Especially at night through her window. He told her he was outside our house and that he could take her at any time! Ahhhhhhhhhhh
The night she chose to leave he had manipulated her to the point of terror. She left convinced that he was going to hurt all of us. She also left thinking that in some deranged way she loved this so-called Violet. It was horrible. I am just sick as I write this.
The morning that we realized she was gone is the most awful, horrifying, nightmare moment of our lives. We went to wake her for church and she just wasn't there. She had snuck out at 12:30am the night before. We looked everywhere! We called the police and they were here in 5 minutes. It was a whirlwind as I tried and tried to imagine what had happened. I just cried and cried and cried. I was a hysterical mess. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breath........
I would have rather have died than to go through this. In fact, I told my husband that if something had happened to her I wouldn't make it. I just knew I wouldn't.
The FBI showed up next, they brought a bloodhound. They tracked to where she had gotten on into the car. The helicopters were swirling, there were 50+ police at our house. They questioned everyone, went through her room and searched our house upside down and backward. It was so scary.
I went into her room and shut the door before I let them in. I knew there had to be something. My husband had taken me aside a few minutes earlier and taken my face in his hands and said to me, "you know where she is, I just know you can figure it out." So, I took a deep breath, gathered myself the best I could and tried to remember what I knew.
I knew she had been obsessing over Violet, I knew she was withdrawn, I knew that ..... there was a journal! That was the key. The key to everything. It showed her struggle about how she felt, it showed that she was at her wits end about what to do, it showed the torment, it showed that she was cutting to drown out the terror, it showed EVERYTHING! It was heartbreaking and awful.
I realized I had a lot of information at that point. I had this person's address, I had this person's phone number. I HAD cracked it. So I went to the police and shared it all!!!
They began to try to ping her phone, every 5 min. They began to ping his phone every 5 min. One of us was watching Instagram, one was watching the phone, one was watching for any other sign. Then, we waited. We just waited. That was HELL!
We have amazing family and friends. We really do. The internet was buzzing trying to find her. Facebook, Instagram, the local news, it went international! However, all I could do was cry. Cry from a depth inside me that I never knew existed. Cry and cry and cry. My husband cried too. Almost as much.
At 2:00 pm that afternoon our middle son called me and told me he had seen her online. I ran to the detective and told him and they pinged her phone again. At around the same time, the FBI had pinged his phone. However, at the time they couldn't tell us. Around 5pm that afternoon the SVU detective, who had disapeared from the house about 3 hours before reappeared. He looked me straight in the eye and said they had found her. Her brother and the FBI had found her!
She was safe, she was unharmed and she was with the FBI in Macon Ga.
I think I passed out. I just couldn't breathe. The thoughts about where she could be, whether or not she was alive had all been washed away in one single moment. It was a miracle. God had truly answered our prayers. We had prayed all day and He came through.
So we gathered ourselves and my husband and I left to go get her. In Macon, Ga. On the way we cried a lot, we prayed, we got really angry. It was the longest 6 hours of our lives, next to the hours before. We were grateful, tired, and a little delusional. We were going to get our daughter back. We are amongst one of the luckiest families in the world. She was coming home. Alive!
We arrived in Macon around 2 pm. We went to the counseling center where they were holding her. We sat and talked to the FBI detective that we had talked to during the entire 6-hour drive. She had to be examined at a hospital. The counselor that they assigned to her and the FBI agent went with her. They held her hand, they prayed with her and they walked her through one of the scariest moments of her life. The best news of all is that she was UNHARMED physically. Praise the LORD! She was, however, harmed mentally.
They talked to us for about an hour and then, finally THEN, we had her in our arms.
WHEW!!!!
I was crying and so was her dad but she was stoic, I really do not believe that she was fully aware of all that had happened. It was a blur, a fog, a dream. We went to a hotel and my precious girl and her Dad slept for 18 hours. The hotel protected us from the press. Her brother and uncle protected us from them at home. We waited for 2 days and then drove back.
At home, the greetings were teary and solum. what now? The next few days were full of police, the FBI, and visiting a trauma counseling center. Plus, we slept.
A LOT!
I would like to tell you that everything has been ok since then. It's just been different. Life changed to a new normal. We got her a new phone. Yup, we did! It had caused problems but it had also saved her life. We got her a new computer, we went back to school, to church, to regular life. We weren't going to let this person take one more moment of our lives away from us. So, we haven't!!!
She's doing GREAT!!!! She's better than before. She's riding horses, voice acting, writing, she rescued an adorable pocket parrot named Yoshi. She's going to be ok. God is good and He is healing her heart one day at a time. Best of all her joy is back. Her laughter and her smile have returned.
As for him. He's in jail here by us. He will be for most of the rest of his life. We go to trial soon. We have forgiven him for our sakes. However, we never want him to get out. He had tried this before. He would try it again. So we will move on in spite of him.
It hasn't all been happy. DCF was called, our lives were invaded almost daily for a while. We were harassed by total strangers. It settled out eventually. It's getting better.
We lost a lot of people along the way. The judgment of others almost did me in. I was diagnosed with PTSD. Gratefully there is help.
Family, and true friends have walked closely by our sides. Their still here and by Grae of God Almighty so is SHE!!!!!
So is SHE!!!!
