It would take a few days for me to understand that Aunt LeeLee and Robin and Trent had been murdered. It would take months after that to put the pieces together, since nobody wanted to talk about it. And it would take years for me to get the whole story, once I was old enough to look it all up for myself on the Internet.
The murder of a mom and two young children, in their own home, in a quiet small town, was big news in Alabama. We occasionally saw flashes of the story come up on the news when the investigation was going on, and later when the trial was going on, but my parents always changed the channel. They couldn’t take it. And clearly, they wanted us to forget about it, too.
But I couldn’t forget. Even though it scared me, I wanted to know more. It’s just how I am. I remained silent and blocked it out for quite a few years, but I eventually found the strength to google the case. And the clearer and clearer the story became, the more horrifying it was.
When my mom told us that somebody had come into their house and “hurt them,” it terrified me in the deepest parts of my heart. Like I said, I didn’t know the whole story with all the details until years later, but coming that close to something so awful, so terrifying—it was a turning point for me. It changed everything. I was no longer living in the innocence of an untouched childhood.
