Surviving attempted murder. I am THE VOICE OF ALL WOMEN!

This is part 1 of my series. I am the voice of all women. I declared that to God and to everyone at the courthouse! I told them keep treating me this way. It's ok. This is giving me a higher purpose. I speak up for all the women who've ever been silenced. I speak up for all the attackers who were never held accountable for their actions. My greatest misery has lead me to my soul purpose. WE CREATE LOVING RELATIONSHIPS NOW!

June 13, 2020 was the night I was almost murdered in the backseat of my car by my ex-boyfriend. Not only did he stab me up and down my left side with 2 knives, he trapped me in the back seat of the car bleeding out for hours, trying to decide what he was going to do with my body. Also, he was yelling and screaming at me, blaming me for what he had done to me and trying to act as if I deserved what had happened to me. Like what he had done to me was my fault and I owed him an apology. He was threatening to dump my body off in the woods of the Indian Reservation, and then go to my house and murder my kids. This is part 1 of my series. I am the voice of all women. I speak up for all the women who've ever been silenced. All the attackers who were never even held accountable for their actions.

So the evening of June 13, 2020 my ex-boyfriend picked me up down the street from my house. I let him borrow my car the night before, (as I often did) and he picked me up in my car. We were going to spend some time together in a motel, since he wasn't allowed near me due to a restraining order from an incident back in January of that year.

Backing up 6 months earlier to January 22, 2020, there was a pending case of domestic violence from when he held me down in my bed and pulled a knife on me. He didn't put the knife against my body, but he held me down and was threatening to kill me. He was on top of me and holding me down with his left side and had the knife in his right hand. I was praying and pleading with him to spare my life. He finally let me go. I went to work and he went to the courthouse for a traffic violation case. I went and showed a house to a client, I was working in Real Estate at the time, and after I finished I texted my friend and told him what happened. He convinced me to call the cops on my boyfriend. I really didn't want to, but he said if I didn't he would never stop. He said that was a major violation. He wasn't trying to tell me what to do, but if I didn't report my ex, he said he would continue to control me through fear and violence. I listened to him and called the police on my ex. He got arrested at the courthouse on the way to his traffic ticket trial.

After he got arrested, I was doing fine and getting back to taking care of myself and enjoying life on my own. Little did I know he was stalking me. He would wait outside of the convenient store by my house, hoping to run into me, because he knew I always walked by there. The owner of the store said that not even one month after he got out of jail he was already seeing him outside of the store. I ran into him in front of the store in April 2020. I saw him sitting outside, but he didn't see me. Fear overtook my body, but I went inside the store anyways. I stood inside the store for a minute waiting to see if he would leave, but he didn't. So I went outside and he saw me. To my surprize he was being extremely nice and charming. I didn't know what to expect because before he got arrested he was ruining my life. It was like my whole life revolved around taking care of him because I "threw him out on the streets". Which of course was a lie.

So I fell for it. All the old feelings of "love" I had for him came back and we got back together. From that moment on I was hooked. I found myself sneaking out to see him everyday like a 16yo hiding from their parents.

He stalked me hard core in the time we were separated. He knew all the details of my life. He knew who had been to my house. He could describe the cars that were parked outside my house and everything. He said he would walk past my townhome apartment complex as well and watch my home from a distance.

After we got back together, he would talk about killing me ALL the time. Most people would see that as an instant red flag, but I didn't think he would actually do it. I didn't believe him. We were together for 4yrs and he never hit me during our entire relationship. So I just brushed those words off as anger. All the time he was grooming me. Always talking about the people he's killed in the past. I'd come to pick him up and he had all kinds of weird weaopns displayed on the counter, little screw drivers and different things to stab people with. It's funny how I just grew accustomed to these things and shrugged them off like they were nothing. I really didn't think he would do it. I thought oh it's just talk. I guess because I couldn't imagine killing someone unless I really had to. Like a life or death situation. I just didn't think he was capable of murder, but little did I know he was capable of that and a lot more.

On June 13, 2020 he actually acted on his words. After he picked me up and we arrived at the hotel, we went and got some food. Then we came back and started arguing. We were drunk, I was getting kind of loud and he was afraid someone would call the cops and he'd get arrested because of the restraining order. I just wanted to go home and he wouldn’t let me go. So he said get in the car let’s go to my house in Marysville. I went, but I didn't feel I had any other choice. He wouldn't let me leave him.

We parked in front of his house. He went inside (I’m not allowed in because of his daughter) and I got in the back seat. He entered the back of the car and sat down next to. He was holding two knives in his hands which he grabbed from inside the house. He started stabbing me with the knives. First in my left hand, then all over my left ear, all down my jaw line, on my left shoulder, and the back of my left arm. My ear got slashed in half, my salivary ducts were cut, my facial nerves paralyzed, the pain was excruciating. The whole time he was stabbing me he was getting extremely angry that I wouldn't die. He was mad that the police confiscated his big knife back in January. He was yelling, "I wish I had my knife you'd be dead right now! I can't do shit with these littel knives!" If you ask me, I think he did a lot. I'm extremely lucky I survived those stabbings. I could've easily died from any one of them, if he would've been off a little bit more he would've cut my juggular and I would've died. He came so close to stabbing my major arteries and I could've bled to death. I'm so lucky he had bad aim that night. I missed death by a centimeter I'm sure.

I was screaming for help. He was on top of me stabbing me. There was blood all over the car, all over me, and all over him. Then his neighbor came up to the car and shined a flashlight inside the window. It was his landlord and back yard neighbor. He said “is everything OK?” And my ex goes “yeah everything's fine you can leave”. He said, "Are you sure? There's a lot of blood in there?" The whole time I’m screaming, "help help help, save me!" It's obvious something isn't right. I'm being held down, and my ex is on-top of me. I'm screaming, blood everywhere, I'm cut up it looks like a murder scene in that car. So what does his neighbor/landlord do? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Doesn't call the cops. Doesn't call for help. He just turns his flashlight off and walks away. Leaving me there. Saying nothing. He could've saved me from a lot of pain and torcher, but he turned the other cheek. He did nothing and he still lets my ex rent from him.

So my ex starts driving back to the hotel. He put the child locks on the windows, he grabbed my cell phone so I couldn’t call anyone, and he reclined the front seats back so I couldn’t get out or move. He trapped me in the back of the car bleeding out for several hours. We drove around for a while as well as stayed in different parking lots. The whole time screaming at me telling me that I was the love of his life. But not anymore he was done and he was going to kill me and then come back and kill my kids. He was threatening to kill me he was saying he was going to dump my body off on the reservation. Going over in his head how he would hide my body. I was nothing more than evidence that would get him in trouble. A liability he had to dispose of. The whole time when I could talk I was begging for him to let me live and telling him I have kids. I’m a single mom. He said he didn’t care and after he killed me and disposed of my body he was going to come back to my house and kill my kids.

I was so weak and lost so much blood. All I could do was lie in the backseat and breathe, but soon I wouldn't even have my breath to keep me going. He stopped at 7-Eleven because I was always asking for water. We sat there in the parking lot. He didn’t want to get out and get me water because he didn’t trust me. He didn’t want me to escape out of the car. I found some pepper spray on a keychain in the back of my car so I pepper sprayed him. But I also accidentally pepper sprayed myself. He got angry and said, "you pepper sprayed me! I'm your driver and you pepper sprayed me!" As if he was doing me a favor by driving me around. I would've rather jumped out of the car while it was moving than have him drive me around like he did. He dropped the knife and I tried to grab it with my left hand but that was the hand that he had stabbed me down all the way to the bone, so I couldn’t grip anything. He grabbed the knife out of my hand and stabbed me in the back of my left breast. When he did that, I thought for sure I was going to die. That stab punctured my lung. Before that I was in a lot of pain, but I could still breathe and lay on my right side. After that I couldn’t lay down, I couldn’t sit upright, and I couldn’t breathe. There was no remedy or escaping my pain. I knew I was going to be dead soon if I couldn't convince him to get me to the hospital ASAP. My lung almost collapsed. That was the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. I told him I was going to die right then if he didn't take me to the ER right away. I couldn't last any longer.

I was finally able to convince him to drop me off at the Swedish ER in Edmonds. He made me make up a story of what happened to me, because he didn’t want to go back to jail. He told me to tell them that I was mugged on Hwy 99 and that I was walking down the street and someone brought me to the hospital. He said if I told on him he the truth he was going to kill me and my kids.

So he dropped me off in front of Swedish ER in Edmonds in my car and drove off. As he was dropping me off he yells, "Oh and I'm keeping your car." I said, "Go ahead you can have it." My car was the least of my concerns. Right after he drove off he got arrested. He was on camera dropping me off in my car. I almost collapsed walking into Swedish and just started screaming "help me, help me". I was surrounded by nurses and the police. My white dress was completely red with blood. My hair was soaked in blood. It was full of blood clots and it was all matted in my own blood. I looked like someone literally out of a horror movie. I was in so much pain. I must have lost over a pint of blood. The doctors and nurses immediately started cleaning my wounds and sewing me up. I couldn’t lay down. I was uncomfortable because I couldn’t breathe. They put me in some machine where I had to lay down for around 10 minutes and stay still. The pain was excruciating. I had to hold my neck a certain way which was awful, but my chest hurt so bad lying down and I couldn't breathe at all.

My children were woken up at 4:00 AM by police officers saying their mother was in the ER and telling them what happened. They didn't even know I was gone that night since I snuck out. Their Dad came up and took them to the hospital to try to visit me, but there were no visitors allowed because of COVID. I'm grateful they weren't allowed to see me. That would have been so traumatizing for them.

When they were doing x-rays at the ER in Swedish, they saw that there was air around my left lung so they needed to monitor it and make sure it was stabilized. Swedish Edmonds didn't have the proper trauma unit so I was taken to Swedish Everett by ambulance. I stayed in Everett for three days while I healed and they monitored my lung. I had the nicest nurse's aid while I was staying there. I couldn't use my left side at all. I had dried up blood all over me and my hair was matted and saturated in blood and blood clots. She gave me a shower, washed my hair, brushed my hair, made sure all my wounds and stitches wouldn't get wet and dressed me. I'm so grateful to have her. I couldn't even wash my hair or raise my arms up.

I went home from the hospital because they said my lung was stable, but then another serious complication arose. At the ER, they sowed up what they could on my visible skin. They did what they could immediately to stop the bleeding and save my life, but the cuts went pretty deep. I soon noticed that I was drooling out the side of my face everytime I ate or drank anything. It wasn't just a little bit of drool either. Saliva was pouring out of the side of my face. I had to put a towel to sop up all the saliva and the towel would be soaked. He had cut my salivary ducts.

I went back to Swedish to talk to a specialists and they told me to go to Harborview ER immediately. I would need to have surgery and the only people qualified to do that surgery were the UW doctors.

I checked in and stayed there for another three or four days. I had my surgery and then went home to recover. To my disappointment, my face was still leaking and it was leaking a lot just as before the surgery. I was really scared it wasn't going to get better. I called the doctor and they had me go back to the hospital again for Botox shots so that they could deaden the nerve. She also wrapped my face up with bandages so I looked like a QTip. That didn't stop it, however. I got home and my face was still leaking. The doctor said that it would get better, so I was hoping for the best. Fortunately, it did get better even though it took several weeks after my surgery for my face to finally stop leaking saliva completely. Thank God the surgery was successful. That would've been hell to live with the rest of my life.

So now, after being in and out of hospitals for the last 2 weeks and being hospitalized twice, I'm home trying to recover. I was in so much pain. My lung had not healed all the way still. I couldn’t even lay down on my back. I had to sleep sitting up. If I tried to lay down on my back I couldn't breathe and my chest would hurt so much.

My whole left side was in excruciating pain. I couldn’t use my hand for the longest time because that was the deepest stab. I couldn't open a jar, can or bottle. I couldn't grip anything. That stab wound went all the way down to the bone. My hand was in so much pain for months after the attack. Also, I couldn’t lift anything or raise my left arm because he stabbed me there. It took a long time for me to do just simple day to day tasks. I had to do everything with my right arm. The worst pain out of them all was the stab to my lung. Not being able to lie down or get comfortable was horrible. You can go along time without food or water, but try going without air. That's rough.

I'm grateful that my family was there to help me and cheer me up. My children were such a blessing. They took care of me while I was healing. They cooked and cleaned the houes for me. I'm so grateful that I had them. My brothers were terrific. They came over and helped. They checked in on me and asked if I needed anything. They were there for me thank goodness. Right after the incident happened I couldn't be alone. It would make me think of what happened. The memories would come flashing back and having people around me really saved my mental health. They cheered me up and kept me out of my thoughts.

To this day, my face and ears are still numb. My ear is sliced. I can't wear earrings. My face is forever paralyzed. I can’t smile because he cut the nerves in my face. I had torn ligaments in my left rotator cup. I was in physical therapy for over a year after this attack happened. I will never be back to how I was before physically. Instead of being down about it, I own the scars on my face and my crooked half smile with pride now. People say it gives me character and I'm still just as pretty as I was before. I look in the mirror and I see a strong woman. A strong survivor. An inspiration with a story to tell.

It took me a long time to look at this attack and see the positive in it. For a long time, I was a mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical wreck. I couldn't function. Especially, after what went on in court, at the trial, and at his sentencing. I thought for sure he was going to be found guilty and I wouldn't have to deal with him anymore. Justice would be served and I could go on with my life without any fear. Boy was I wrong, and it was the shock of my life.

He chose a jury trial scheduled on Thursday, November 12. The whole time before the trial, there was no communication. As a victim you can't contact the prosecutor directly. Communication has to be done through a victim's advocate. Advocate was very unresponsive. There was barely any communication at all with her or the prosecutor before my trial. I asked to speak with them over the phone. I never got a phone call. The only form of communication was through emails. When she did respond to my emails her responses were vague and confusing as if she didn't know what she was talking about.

I met with them once for a pre-trial prep and all they said was that they were going to have me testify first so I could get it over with and not have to keep dealing with it. They made it sound like they were trying to "protect me from further trauma". There was no plan. No strategy discussed. Absolutely nothing for me to go off of. I was pretty naive when it came to criminal court so I just trusted them. I didn't think I had anything to worry about since the evidenc proving him guilty was astounding.

I did a video interview with the defense lawyer which they attended, but only because I asked them to be there. That was the extend of my repersentation before the actual trial.

The prosecutor's actual trial prep was in the hallway in front of the courtroom door, right before my testimony. She told me not to say anything about the other cases against him because that could be a mistrial. She told me not to answer any of the defense lawyer's questions except with a yes or no. She said only say yes or no and wait for me to rebuttle. So on the stand I naively did what she told me to. Thinking she had my best interest in mind.

When I went to testify I walked into the court room and my ex winked at me twice as soon as he saw me. Then he sat there and glared at me the whole time I was talking trying to intimidate me. I glared right back at him. The funny thing was, as soon as the defense lawyer questioned me, in his first couple of questions he brought up the other case I had against him and the restraining order. The very thing the prosecutor to me not to talk about because I would get a mistrial, he's allowed to mention right from the start. No threat of mistrial what so ever. THE TRIAL WAS VERY SUSPISCIOUS.

After I testified, the case went on without me. I never heard a word from my advocate or the prosecutor. I asked what was going on in my case and I got no response. My emails were left unanswered. No updates whatsoever. I was shut out and left completely in the dark as to the events of the trial after my testimony. There was no communication whatsoever until they told me the jury deliberated and they were waiting for them to come back with the verdict.

The charges he was facing were: Assault 1, Kidnapping, Unlawful Imprisonment, and Violation of a Restraining order. The advocate tells me he’s found not guilty of Assault 1 and kidnapping. He was found guilty of Unlawful Imprisonment and Violation of a restraining order. Which were both considered NON-VIOLENT crimes! How could he be found not guilty of any violence whatsoever when he not only stabbed me, he trapped and torchered me for hours in a very sick sadistic way. It wasn't just the fact that I got stabbed, he torchered and tormented me for hours! I was trapped in the back of my car wounded with no way out listening to him scream at me. That should've been assault, kidnapping, attempted murder and who knows what else!

She tells me since this is his first felony, he is going to get out at the sentencing for time served. That's exactly what happened. At the sentencing, he was released after serving 6mos in jail.

To be continued.....