For over 14 years, I was in an abusive relationship with my youngest two daughters’ alcoholic dad. We met when my oldest daughter, Alyric, was three. Like other women who have been in an abusive relationship, I was afraid to leave.
I was scared of him, but on March 11, 2016, he said he was going back to Mexico. I was happy because now my daughters and I would be free of him. However, on March 12, 2016, he had been drinking with one of his friends. My girls and I were going to our uncle’s, but their dad was drinking and got mad and started fussing and yelling at me in the front yard. So we didn’t go.
I told the girls to just go in the house: We weren’t going because their dad was drunk. He then pulled out a gun and told me I was going to die. He shot me. He shot an 80-year-old man who stopped to help us, and he shot and killed my oldest daughter, Alyric. She died saving her sisters because he was going to shoot them too. He then shot and killed himself.