Hope in the Pain- Voices Against Filicide with Hope Hooton

This weeks episode on Turning the Korner with Kline’s Korner S3/Ep17 and S3/Ep6 on True Crime with Tiff Kline features Hope Hooton of Hope In The Pain and Voices of Filicide Podcast 

A STRONG resilient woman with a heart of gold- working tirelessly to protect children and Arizona and more state to come! She and her tribe got the HB2995 bill passed which strengthens protections for children in family courts. In May 2024, her 7-year-old son, Alec, and 6-year-old daughter, Lydia, were tragically killed by her estranged husband in a murder-suicide during court-ordered, unsupervised parenting time. The Alec and Lydia Act (HB 2995): Hope helped craft and champion this family court reform bill in Arizona. 

The legislation requires courts to prioritize child safety over equal parenting time in custody disputes, mandating that a history of domestic violence or abuse be treated as the primary factor when determining whether parenting time should be supervised or unsupervised.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi guys, this is Tiff Klein. Thank you for tuning in. Tonight is a very special podcast, and it will be airing on not one, but two of my podcasts: True Crime with Tiff Klein and Turning the Corner. Tonight I interview Hope Hooten, a woman I had met Cremcon. In the true crime community. And I had the pleasure of meeting Hope in person back in the end of May at Caesar's in Vegas for KremCon. After being a social media friend for the past year since Denver when we were out there for KremCon, yes, we travel around and we'll be going to Orlando in 2027. Through this true crime community, um, I have met a lot of strong women and men. I have listened to a lot of stories. I have shed a lot of tears, but this one this one gave me hope. This one gave me faith. This one gave me a message that I needed to hear that I didn't know what I was looking for. And Hope Hutin and I agree that people do cross your path for a reason. You meet everybody for a reason. And what I didn't know is I needed to talk to Hope today. Because she did give me hope. And things are aligning. And she's just an amazing human being and mother. And I wanted her to share her story tonight because I feel she's doing amazing things through the trauma and tragedy she's endured. She is out making changes to builds in different states, like Arizona and currently working on Michigan, to change the laws and protocols with domestic violence and child custody cases. Because her children, Alec and Lydia, their lives were taken by their father. And then he took his own life. And Hope is here to give us her story, tell us about who Alec and Lydia were, what she's been doing to keep their legacy alive, what she's been doing to help keep other children alive. You may be familiar with her. She is a resilient woman, courageous advocate and social media influencer, known as Hope in the Pain across social media. She is the host of the podcast Voices Against Phillicide and the founder of the movement of the same name, dedicated to raising awareness of child safety, domestic violence, philicide, and family court reform. Recently, near the publishing of her book, she has been championing the Alec and Lydia Act in Arizona legislation, and the bill just passed in June 2026. She is currently working on Michigan. And through sharing her deeply personal journey, she includes the preventable deaths of her children. Alec and Lydia hope inspires audiences with a message of resilience, faith, and hope. And she continues to push for change, advocating for stronger child safety laws and family court reforms to protect families and children, empowering communities to take action and prevent tragedies before they happen. This can be very emotional. It could be triggering. So there is a warning that what Hope discusses tonight could be very heavy. And we talk about abuse, suicide, and child loss. But there's still hope. And I'd love to introduce you to Hope Putin, who survived the odds and grew up navigating life with severe vision loss. And she's learned early that hardship can be loud, unpredictable, and relentless. Still, she built a life she loved, one rooted in family, teaching, and faith. Tonight I welcome Hope Putin to True Crime with Tiff Klein and Turning the Corner. And I hope you give this episode your undivided attention and learn about philosophy and what it means and help support the Alec and Lydia Act and other acts in your state to help prevent tragedies like this from happening to other families and children across the United States. So without further ado, Ho Putin, welcome to my show. And please, please know that this is an honor.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

My name is Ho Putin. I am the mother of Alec and Lydia Mater, two children who lost their lives to philicide, which is the intentional act of a parent killing their own child. They were murdered by my estranged husband, their father, in May 2024, and then he took his own life. So now I raise awareness and I advocate for change in legislation, amongst other things that we will talk about in this podcast. So I guess first I want to talk about who Alec and Lydia were. Alec was seven years old. He was my firstborn child, and he was a bundle of joy, bright blue eyes, loved Pokemon. His favorite Pokemon was Pikachu. And he loved soccer and basketball and playing in the backyard, swimming, and he loved his friends, and he was such a kind, sweet little boy, rambunctious, but super, super kind and wanted to be everybody's friend. Just very respectful. Lydia, our daughter, was six, just to turn six five days before she was murdered. And she loved sparkles and unicorns, and she had bright blue eyes as well, more blue than even Alec's eyes. They were like pools of blue. She loved riding her scooter, and she was Alex's shadow. So everything that Alec did, Lydia wanted to do. And so they were inseparable. I would often find Lydia in Alec's room or with Alec in the backyard playing with him instead of playing with her own toys. Because she wanted to do everything that her big brother did. They were only 22 months apart. So they were pretty close in age.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Wow. Yeah, that's like Irish twins almost.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

You know, they're that's close. They're pretty close in age, yeah. Yep. Almost 22 months to the day. So uh yeah. And then yeah, they were just great. Lots of memories uh made with them. And um now I keep their legacy alive by doing what I do every day, by sharing their story and sharing, yes, what happened to them, but like I just shared with you who they were as children because I want the focus to be on that instead of you know how they died.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, now listen, that's what my show's about, and I want you to tell me anything and everything you can about your children because they look like a light and they looked very close to you. I I saw a lot of your pictures. Obviously, you know that I've shared some videos, and I'm just very proud of you for everything you've done. That is incredible strength hope. I I could I couldn't do it. So for you to be able to get up every day and face that is just I don't even have words. When my mom met you at Crime Con, she walked away and she was crying. And she says, How does she do that every day? And I said, Mom, some people are very special and can. It's just, you know, and it's and you you turn literally, you turn your pain into hope and hope into pain. So thank you for being on the show because like I I met you through Crime Con and Facebook and things like that, but I never really got to sit and talk to you about your bill that you were being pass like that you passed in Arizona, the one you're working on in Michigan. I never really got to hear it from you. So I would really like to learn more about you and your children and anything you'd like to share with my listeners and your listeners, have at it.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, so basically I'll give you kind of what happened in a nutshell, and then I'll take you through what the Alec and Lydia Act is, so that no other child has to endure what Alec and Lydia had to endure. No other parent has to lose a child, hopefully. And so a strange husband, that's what I refer to a mask, because we were separated at the time we were going through a divorce. We were married and together for about 12 to 13 years, and I finally left the marriage because of severe abuse, physical violence, uh, sexual violence, all of the abuse pieces on the abuse cycle I've endured. And so, including coercive control. And so I finally got up the courage to leave, and everybody asked what was my like aha moment of like the light bulb coming on and like choosing to leave. And that was my parents had passed away. My mom passed in November of 2021 from a car accident, my dad died of uh kidney failure just seven months later in July of 2022. So I lost them very close together. And that was really very devastating for the whole family. And so I just kind of had enough and I really started researching, you know, what I was going through because I had to see what I was experiencing through somebody else's story in order for it to click. I couldn't just research like what is physical violence, what is sexual abuse, what is, you know, coercive control. I had to actually hear survivor stories of what they endured, what they've gone through, and now they were on the other side of it to be able to see that in my own story. And so those two things together and my faith uh really catapulted me to making that decision to leave. And so I told their father that I was going to leave. It was October 9th, 2023. And when I did so, he threatened his first bout of suicide. He said that he was going to kill the kids in front of, and he was going to kill himself in front of the kids. And so I had to come and get them. And so I hung up the phone with him and called 911, and they came and took him to his first, I guess, small evaluation. I call it was a couple of hours because he obviously could tell the nurses and doctors what they wanted to hear to be able to get out, right? And so he did that. And meanwhile, the police officers told me and the kids to go to a hotel. So that's what I did. I packed it bags, I went to a hotel. And um, shortly after he got out of the uh hospital and went back to our home. And so a few days later, I I actually applied for an order of protection and it was granted. And I had the order of protection, I had legal rights over the house, over the dwelling, because the neighborhood that we lived in was also where Alec and Lydia's school was, and because I'm visually impaired, I didn't drive. So getting them to and from school, it was just going to be easier if I could walk them. So the judge granted the order of protection with the house being on the order, meaning I would have complete control of the residents living inside of it with the kids, and then he would have to find another place to live. So that was served to him like October 12th, 2023. And then a couple days later, he took the kids out of school without me knowing. And he was in the middle of a psychotic episode when he did so. And prior to me separating, he never had any issues with psychiatric care, no mental illness. Maybe there were mood swings here and there of like little things, I guess, looking back, but nothing like excessive. And if he did have mental illness, it was never diagnosed. So he took the kids out of school. He was in the middle of psychosis. He started calling me and leaving voicemails, stating that people were after him, that Satan was after him, that I was me and the me and my church, our church, we're the church of Satan. Um, and he was very, very paranoid. So I went to the police station and let the police know that he had broken the order of protection and they wrote a report and served it to him. But while I was at the police station, I got a gut feeling to call the school to check on the kids. And when I did, the secretary told me that they were checked out previously, like maybe a half hour to an hour previously. And I was like in total shock because I knew that he was not okay because the voicemails he was leaving me didn't even sound like him. And I never experienced any type of mental illness with him prior. So I didn't even know what was going on. So I was super scared. And the police officers told me that, you know, after I did get a hold of the kids and I could talk, I did talk to them after like an hour and a half of trying to call him and text him. I finally got a hold of them. And I did talk to them, and the police officers told me because I talked to them and they seemed okay, because there wasn't any paperwork for custody at this point, because we had just filed for divorce like five days previously, um, there was nothing that they could do. So they stated that my best bet was to contact him via text message or email and set up a plan for him to take the kids to school the next day. And so that's what I had to do. Again, mind you, I knew that something was wrong and I knew that this wasn't normal, but I was trying to follow what the police officers and the people in charge that are supposed to know what to do are telling me. So that is why I'm making the decisions that I'm making, because I asked them, like, can you go and do a welfare check? Can you go and check on them? And they said no. Like they said, like they seemed fine. You were talking to them, you know, like we can't take, we can't just go there and take them from him. That's illegal because he still has rights over them and he's not doing anything wrong at this point. And so I made a plan with him to take them to school the next day. And I went to bed. And a couple hours later, on the same night, uh late at night, I was woken up by the police department stating that I needed to come to the hotel he was staying at because he was having suicidal and homicidal ideations. He was speaking of those demons and colts again, he was speaking of uh Satan. Um, and so they had went there and convinced him. They talked with him and they convinced him to go into uh voluntary inpatient treatment. So they took him via police car to an inpatient facility. It wasn't a hospital, it was an inpatient facility that deals with mental health and all of that kind of stuff. So when I got there, the kids were sleeping, so I woke them up and we took uh my neighbor came and got us and we went home. Um and I tucked them in and they went back to sleep. And uh I couldn't sleep all night. I I think I laid down, but I couldn't run I couldn't sleep. And then next morning I called my attorney and we got an um it's called a temporary order uh put in place, meaning that I would have full custody over the kids on a temporary basis, based on the information that I put in the filing, which was everything that I just told you regarding the hallucination, auditory hallucinations, the suicidal and homicidal ideation, the Satan stuff, the cult stuff, the demon stuff. So I put all of that in there, and that was granted on a temporary basis. And so when you have a temporary order that is granted with you not being seen by the judge, and they just grant it based on your evidence and what you write, they have two weeks for you to then come in and stand in front of them on the bench and tell them why you want the temporary orders to stay in place or if you would want something else uh, you know, different. And so we actually had to push out that hearing and we actually we went past the two weeks window of time that we were supposed to have it because he was still in the psychiatric facility. He was in there for nine days. So when yeah, so long time. And uh when he was in there, he was diagnosed with bipolar, with psychosis, with severe mania. And uh when he got out in his filings for the for court, he only put he had bipolar, he omitted that he had the psychosis with the severe mania. He didn't put it in there, and at the time, I didn't know his diagnosis, nobody did except for him, because uh because of HIPAA. So I couldn't gain access to his diagnosis, and so I thought, okay, well, he wrote bipolar that must be his diagnosis. We'll come to find out that is not his diagnosis. And the in my head I thought, okay, well, the judge will have to have some sort of proof of like knowing that that's your diagnosis, or some sort of proof to like say, like, yes, he was in the psychiatric facility for nine days and this is what happened. Something. Yeah. And there was nothing. He never asked for any documentation to prove anything.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

So if if you were his you were you were still legally married at this time, right? Or were did the divorce go through?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

No, we were separated. We were in the middle of a divorce.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

So how why were you not allowed to have access to his information if you were his wife?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

I mean, I know there's HIPAA, but Because there's HIPAA, plus he would have to sign off on me gaining access, and he never filled that out. Okay. So he was obviously because obviously we were divorcing, so in his head, like, why would I he want me to have access to his records, you know? So and in my head, I was like, okay, well, this is stuff that the judge and the court system should be asking him. And so when we went back to this temporary orders hearing, I wanted temporary orders to stay in place, which included um supervised visits with Brock for four hours a day, or four hours, sorry, which included supervised visits with him for four hours a week. And so, and it would have to be supervised by somebody. I want I wanted that because I didn't want the kids to be taken away from him, but I didn't want him to have like them unsupervised because I knew that he wasn't safe at this point because he was just in a psychiatric facility. And with psychiatric meds and all of that, it takes a long time for your you to even figure out what what works with your system. So I I wanted that, and he came in wanting unsupervised 50-50 custody. He had a whole plan already like written out, like what days he wanted them, and like all of this stuff. And I'm assuming that, you know, and this is my opinion, but I I believe that his attorney and him like, you know, worked on that together and and brought that in. And, you know, we showed evidence back and forth, and we tried to convey to the judge that he was not safe. He would just in a he was just in a psychiatric facility. He'd just gotten out a couple of weeks prior to this. You know, he shouldn't have unsupervised custody. And we thought we had a good case, uh, and we walked out of there feeling very confident. And within 48 hours, the judge ruled and stated that he would be granted unsupervised 50-50 custody. Okay, that's a lot. So, yeah, so we have not only the mental illness part, but also the domestic violence stuff was also talked about. We had the order of protection, that was evidence. You know, we had all of this stuff. So we have domestic violence, which is a lethality marker, and then now we have mental illness, which is when it's coupled with domestic violence, we know is a lethality marker. So, you know, those are huge. So for the judge to and not only just to grant 50-50 unsupervised, but only to take 48 hours, they they have like their time frame that they could grant an another order is up to like 60 days or something like that. And he only took two days.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Well, I mean, I I've had a PFA, well, I didn't have one. I placed one on my ex and it's still valid, but I remember getting the temporary one and then it was up to them to see how long they wanted to extend it. And did you have a male judge or a female judge? I had a male judge. And were your were were your kids close with their dad? Was it or was just a was this a control tactic because you wanted to leave?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Uh they were close to their dad. That's why I wanted to make sure that they still had supervised time with him, but I knew that they weren't gonna they weren't possibly gonna be safe if they were unsupervised.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Okay. And was so you didn't the whole time you were married, you didn't see signs of this happening. Do you think you leaving and him maybe losing control because you said there was domestic violence? I'm a survivor too, so I I understand without you telling me, but our listeners might not. Do you think that this you wanting to leave is what triggered this episode or these episodes at the start? Or do you think there was just yeah control?

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Um, yes, they look for like uh an antecedent that comes first, right? Uh something to trigger uh mental illness. And so they put in their reports in the psych in the facility that that was probably like the divorce and this this, you know, the starting of the divorce and the separation kind of made him spiral. And yes, the lot the loss of control, right? Because he could no longer control me. He couldn't, he didn't have access at that point to the kids because I mean he only didn't have access to them for like a week because I took them to that hotel and kept them safe. And I did so because that's what the police told me to do. And we even stated that at the hearing, because that was something that opposing counsel asked, right? Because you're not supposed to keep your kids from someone like that could be used against you. And I said, Well, no, like this is what the police officers told me to do, or you know, this is what I was, you know, told to do. I wasn't just keeping them from him, just to keep him, keep them from him. I was being told to do so for our safety by a police officer. So yeah. So yes, it loss of control and then the spiraling of the mental illness. You know, he didn't eat for several days before that. He wasn't sleeping, I guess, according to report according to the psychiatric reports and stuff in the facility. So all of that combined together, right? So a major life change plus not sleeping, plus not eating, like that's gonna make you, you know, something's gonna snap. So I had to then start um co-parenting with him. So it's not only just co-parenting with somebody that I'm divorcing, but I'm co-parenting with my abuser, and I'm co-parenting with someone who I have a protection order against. So when we had to communicate in regards to the kids, it only could be via text message or email, and it had to be only in regards to the kids. So there's a couple instances where he tried to text me regarding like our relationship and wanting to get back together and stuff. And so every time he would do that, I would then take those text messages to my attorney, and then he would then tell his attorney to stop texting me. Now I know now my attorney should have told me to file a police report every single time one of those orders was broken, but he didn't. He only told me to do that the first time. And I guess in my head I was like, oh yeah, he'll tell me if I need to do that again. And I guess, like, you know, maybe I again, you're in the middle of so much stress and stuff. I I don't even think I would have been like, oh yeah, I have to do that again. Like, you know, he should have been the one to tell me to do so. So I had to co-parent with him, and it was hard at first for the kids and to get used to going back and forth because it was truly 50-50. He had them on Mondays and Tuesdays, I had them Wednesdays and Thursdays, and then we would switch every other weekend, you know, back and forth. So it was truly 50-50. And it was really hard for the kids to get used to going to both of our houses or places of residence, but after we got after they got used to it, everything seemed to be okay. And mind you, at the very beginning of this, he's taking his medication probably because he just got out of the facility. He's uh, you know, still doing his outpatient psychiatric visits. They give you like a couple of them until you get an actual psychiatrist. They give you some, you go back to the outpatient and do it with them. And so everything the first couple of months from like November 2023 up until like probably January 2024 was really good because he was like medicated, he was, you know, doing what he needed to do. He we were co-parenting well, he'd gotten a job because he wasn't he was unemployed prior to this. That was another reason of the financial coercive control, is because he decided to quit his job a year and a half prior to us separating, and I was the sole provider on a teacher's salary. So he got a job and got a place to live, and everything was good. I believe that in February-ish, sometime is when things started to slip. He was ordered to do a psychological evaluation. The courts ordered that, and so he had that done. And in the psychological report, it states that he self-reported that his meds weren't working, and the psychologist also stated that he believed that Brock wasn't as stable as he seemed. So those two things are huge red flags that when the psychological report was gone over in April of 2024 weren't brought up. So we don't even again, you know, we don't know a diet an actual diagnosis because that was never proven. He's just saying bipolar, but that's not the real diagnosis. Then he didn't even have to prove if he was taking his medication. When I asked the courts to see, like if we could monitor that, the judge asked, told me that if I wanted to uh know if he was taking his medications, I could just ask him. So asking him isn't gonna do anything. Yes or no isn't gonna tell us if he's actually taking them and if they're working. So they're just supposed to take you're supposed to just take his word for it and believe or for for everything and being a single word. Yeah, for every single thing in this case. It was literally like he didn't have to have any evidence or proof to back anything up. And I'm like, and then for the jud for the judge to even put in the order, it's an order, like it's an order. So he wrote it down. You know, if Hope wants to see if he's taking his medication, she can ask him. That's not a proper order. Like, you don't order that. Like, how does that? Like, that doesn't even that's not even possible. So then we have that, then we have the psychological evaluation that was done, and those there's red flags in that.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Sounds like the judge needed a psychological evaluation. Jesus, sorry. I just wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Yeah, just so many red flags, so many things, so many risk factors that were ignored. And so after that April 4th hearing, which was the last hearing that we had on the psychological report, the judge stated that he didn't see, he's he said he didn't state, he didn't see anything that would be a detriment to Alec and Lydia, any reason why they couldn't be in in his care. And even though those red flags were in there, and so I believe that the judge didn't even read the full report. This is my opinion and my opinion only, so I'm putting that on the record, but I only feel that he only read the summary, which is the last page of the report, and not everything was in the summary. You have to read the full report. And so about a month, a little over a month later, they were murdered. And so I definitely believe that there were so many red flags and so many lethality risks that could have been stopped by not only the judge, not my not only my attorney, his attorney, the psychologist, everybody involved. This is when you talk about a systemic failure, this is a systemic failure. Every single person involved in our case failed Alec and Lydia. And so they failed to protect them. They put them in danger. And so now it is my mission in life to make sure that that doesn't happen to any other family. So I've created the Alec and Lydia Act with some legislators, some other people that helped write the bill. There was two family law attorneys that really worked over two years on this bill. And I I came into the picture about a year in. So they had already they'd already been working on um, you know, drafts of the bill. And then when I came in with my story, they added more of like what happened in my case and what failed me into the legislation. And then we put that into the Alec and Lydia Act, and then it started going through the process. Um we started, we submitted the bill for legit for the legislative session in 2026. So it started, I think, in January of 2026 is when the legislative session started. So you submit it and then it has to go through a bunch of steps. You have to go through like a judiciary committee, a senate committee, first, second, and third readings with the House and the Senate. So it has to be read like six individual times. Um, there can be amendments made. So there's a bunch of steps in order for a bill to become a law. And um, it took from January uh 2026 to June 22nd, 2026 for our bill to become a full law. It was signed into law June 22nd, 2026. Uh, and the Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, signed the bill into legislation. So it's the Alec and Lydia Act. So what it is is uh a bill or law that will make it so that if there's any domestic violence or coercive control in a case, a family court case, the judge has to stop immediately and look at all of the factors. It also does include if there's any sort of it includes those lethality risk markers. So if somebody is saying that they're suicidal, if somebody is saying that they're homicidal, those are things that they have to also look at because those are lethality risks. So I got a I get a lot of questions of, you know, why don't you put more mental health provisions in the legislation? Well, as a country, we're still not done climbing that hill. Mental health and mental illness is a huge hill to climb. And we knew that if we put everything in there that we wanted, it wouldn't have passed. And so that's why we included the okay, if they threaten suicide, okay, if they threaten homicide, okay, if they have, you know, these lethality risks that, you know, become come before a philicide or any any sort of homicide, we know that these are lethality risk markers and the judge has to look at those. So yeah, so it's really, really amazing. It's landmark legislation. It's been 20 years since the like first family court legislation for children was implemented. And I was talking to attorneys in Arizona and they're like, our law hasn't changed in 20 years, and this is like upending everything. And like, you know, now it's it's a completely new way of doing things. So, you know, if if you go into a family court, if you have domestic violence, if you have coercive control, the judge has to immediately stop, look at all those factors of what domestic violence is, what coercive control is, and then if there is a presumption of either domestic violence or coercive control, the judge will automatically put the abuser on supervised parenting time until the abuser can overcome the presumption of abuse, which is huge because we know we know that if an if there is an abuser in a family dynamic, even though victims, just like me, believe that they weren't they're not capable of hurting the child and they haven't even done it yet, it doesn't mean that they're not capable of it in the future. So, you know, because in a lot of these cases, like in Alec and Lydia's case, there was no physical violence to Alec and Lydia prior to them being murdered. They were never physically hurt, maybe psychologically, emotionally, but never physically. He never physically harmed them before mur before murdering them. So, and you know, and that's proven data in all of, you know, almost all of these philosophy cases. Usually there's not physical violence that comes before it. Usually there's other types of coercion, other types of abuse. So not just physical.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

So with with moving forward with that bill, and again, congratulations. I'm sure that was not easy for you. I mean, every time you talk about it, you get stronger, but it reopens that trauma wound. And I can't imagine I know you always tell me like you're really tired and you suck a lot, and well, you're I don't you're doing things. That's why you're changing, you're making the world a better place. So when I would I just want to go back a little bit. When you said that you were in court for that final hearing, did they not bring the psychologist on stand and ask them a verbal evaluation?

SPEAKER_00 34:09

No, they only looked through the report, which is another, like usually in those cases, I guess, they if you know you have a good you know, people around you, they they ask for the person to come on the stand or at least give, you know, testimony something to the judge, testimony of some sort. And that wasn't the case. And also in the case, I'm visually impaired, so I didn't see this at the time, but there's recording uh recordings of that last session hearing on April 4th, 2024, and Brock on camera does not look well. He looks disheveled. His I again, I couldn't see this stuff, right? I can't I can't tell. But according to people that now have looked through the footage, obviously this is in hindsight, the kids had our had already passed, but looking at that footage, you can tell he's disheveled, his you know, hair is a mess, he's not, you know, well kept, like, you know, with his facial hair, his eyes are like darting everywhere. He's not he's not well. And in those hearings, we are asked as the people who are going through the divorce to not say anything unless the judge asks us a question. So in this hearing, it was mostly my attorney and his attorney talking with the judge. We were just sitting there, so we didn't actually communicate or talk at all in that hearing. I think I might have answered like a yes-no question from the judge, and so did he, but nothing substantial. Like we didn't we didn't talk. So he um that was really interesting, like looking back, and again, hindsight is 2020, but looking at those clips and being like, Oh, he doesn't look well, and you know, obviously I'm visually impaired, but my attorney or the judge or his attorney could have said something like, Oh, like he doesn't look okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

And I know it's virtual, but still you can you can look at somebody, especially if that people know him, have knew him prior, you can tell a drastic change in somebody physically. And a lot of the times what's going on through somebody's head does appear on their face. So yeah, you you you and your children were failed by every single person that touched this case, and I am just so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, another thing with the Alec and Lydia Act that I wanted to make sure was in the bill, which I'm ecstatic about, is uh now their judges have to write their findings in temporary orders. Meaning, in my temporary orders, my judge only wrote that 50-50 custody will be granted because there was no evidence to show that Alec and Lydia were in danger. But now the judges not only they could write that, but not only they have to write other things of like how they got to that, you know, how did they get how did they get to that ruling? Evidence based, yep. Yep. And so now that's super amazing in my eyes because there won't be any crazy rulings of like the victim has to monitor the abuser's medication. That's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

That is mind-blowing to me, hope. Like, I mean, isn't that the point of him having a psychologist and a psychiatrist? Like, that's their job, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Not mine, yeah. So so the temporary orders will make sure that the judges have to write their findings in those temporary orders, which is huge because prior to this in Arizona, you didn't have to. You only had to technically write your like bullet pointed why and your explanation in paragraph form and final orders. Well, we know that there's so many children that are in danger when you're in temporary orders because temporary orders last for the extent of the whole divorce process. That's temporary orders. You only get your final orders when you're actually like divorced, you know, in that last hearing. So the temporary orders, I've heard of temporary orders going on for like years. And so it's huge for judges to have to stop and write those findings in that and their explanation in that to make sure that children and victims of domestic violence are safe. It also makes it so that in cases of domestic violence or abuse, the abuser can't. I don't know what just happened. Hold on. Okay, can you see me?

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Yeah, I can edit, don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Okay, my pop up on my screen. It makes it so that the abuser can't say, Well, my child was never there when I was abusing my spouse. That can't happen anymore. Or it they can't say, my my child wasn't there. They can't say, Well, my child wants to come with me anyways, and they can't say that it was mutual abuse. They can't say those three things, those are not allowed anymore. And so that that is also huge. And then they're going to have to overcome that presumption of abuse, which is huge. So they're gonna have to, you know, take classes, go to counseling, do whatever they need to do to overcome that presumption of abuse. And the guidelines for that, there's not very many because we want to make sure that the person needing the help, the abuser, can get whatever support they need to overcome that. We don't want to give them a strict like guideline because what if that doesn't work for them? So they're gonna have to work with their attorneys, with the people that they have in their on their teams to to make a plan to overcome that presumption of abuse. And so that's huge. It also includes coercive control, so it includes uh stalking, it includes electronic monitoring, so watching your text messages or your emails, it includes uh financial control, so watching, you know, how much money you spend. And people are like, well, that we got this. Um this was often used in legislation when we were kind of going through the process. Some of the reps and some of the sp uh senators at one point or another were saying things like, Well, what if like I just monitor the credit card statement? Does that mean it's financial abuse? No. Financial abuse is like when the person, the victim, doesn't have any autonomy over what the money is being spent on, or they don't have any access to the money. So that is financial abuse. It's not just being like, my bank statement came in the mail today. Let me look at it. That's not financial abuse. You know, there's a difference there. It's a fine find any sort of any sort of coercive control. When a judge is looking at this, this is another thing that people are kind of worried about of like, what is like what? So is one incident of coercive control gonna make me have supervised visits with my children? No, coercive control is a pattern of consistent behaviors over and over and over again. So the judge is going to have to notice and see that pattern or be be shown that pattern via evidence so that they can understand that. So not only, you know, one incident of of something is going to get your you know child taken from you. That's not the case. It's gonna have to be a pattern of, you know, in my case, it was not only, you know, that you know, my parents died and he knew that we might be getting some sort of money so that he then he was like, so we're getting some sort of money, and so I'm gonna quit my job and I'm going to have hope be the sole provider. Like that is financial abuse because I didn't have any autonomy in that decision. People are always people still ask me, you know, like, how come you you you let him quit his job? No, no, no. There was no let. Yeah, there's no letting him quit his job. There was like he is going to quit his job no matter what I said. And I still, I still tried to convince him not to, and he didn't listen.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

And so that's coercive control. So I think it's really important for people to be educated about coercive control, you know, follow people within the coercive control world that understand and have, you know, been a part of this world and researching coercive control. You know, Dr. Christine Cociola, she is really, really good at explaining coercive control and how it, you know, bleeds into a family dynamic and what it looks like, you know, Dr. Uh Dale Checa out of Albany, New York, she does the same thing. So there's so many other people as well that have talked about coercive control. So if you don't know what it is, even if I'm, you know, explaining it to you now, please go and check out, you know, articles online by Dale Checa or Christine Christine um Cochiola. And she both of them are great, and they'll be able to explain real life examples of what coercive control is. But it's basically a loss of a victim's autonomy. I had no sense of self. I was not hope anymore. I didn't have any any choice and any decisions. I was always told what to do, told what I could eat, what I could wear, when I had to work out. Like all of all of my autonomy was taken away.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

We'll live through all of that, and I'm so sorry. I it was to a point where I was only allowed to eat certain things too. And people don't realize that that's abuse and control. And well, I got insulted verbally and physically if I did the opposite of what he said. So that goes back to what you just said. Uh, oh yeah, just tell, you know, tell him not to quit his job. You didn't let him. Let me just let me just tell my abuser that he can't do something and see how that works out for me.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Yeah, yeah. Like I you can't, and then the other one, which you know, as a as a survivor, you know. Well, why don't you just leave? Yeah, because we could just totally walk out the front door. Like that wasn't a that's not a option. Like you were so so controlled that you can't you can't just get up and leave. Like, yes, I could get up and go for a walk, but like if I didn't come back, you best be sure that he would be calling me or coming to find me. And in my in my situation, you know, I don't drive. So like he had another layer of control over me, which is transportation abuse, because he could control when I went somewhere, if I went somewhere. You know, if he if I was supposed to go to the grocery store because we were running out of groceries and he got mad at me for something, we weren't going to get groceries that day. Like because he was my he was my ride. Yeah, you were dependent on him for transportation. I was I was dependent on him. So and and you know, even looking back at the beginning, it was so slow over time. I remember I would always take Ubers and Lyfts and stuff when the kids were really little. I would take them and go do stuff. I would take Alec to go to his pediatrician appointments when he was like little, little because he wouldn't take me. I would go, I would go by myself and I would take an Uber. But as the control got more and more, I stopped taking Ubers and Lyfts because then the financial abuse came in of like, you know, you can't take Ubers and Lyfts because that costs money. And like we're trying to save money. And his big thing is, you know, also he would say, you know, well, we're trying to pay off debt and we're doing all of so he he wouldn't frame it necessarily in like these like you know, degrading ways all the time. At the beginning, it was like, you know, I'm doing, you know, we are working out together to be healthy, you know, or we are saving money and we're getting out of debt and we're using the Dave Ramsey plan. So it wasn't framed as like, you know, you have to do this or else. It wasn't framed like that.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Yeah, no, mine wasn't either. It was more of, oh, I'm looking out for you. I have the best interest for both of us. And if you just listen to me, I got this, just take my lead, and then you fall for it because they just start thinking for you, they start acting for you, they start picking everything out, and you're and you're just like, Okay, I guess I'll just listen to what you have to say because you know it's best for both of us.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

And you do you lose a you lose a sense of your identity and who you are, and yeah, and his favorite his his saying, I will this just came back in my head, and I haven't thought about this in forever. His saying was, I know what's best, I'm an engineer because he was an engineer, so he'd always be like, I know what's best, listen to me, I'm an engineer. Like that was his saying all the time.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

So basically, I'm smarter than you, I'm wiser than you. Yes, yes, educated. Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yes, even though we were both educated equally. I have a I have a bachelor's degree, he had a bachelor's degree, his just was in engineering, and mine was in education. But we're just going to still educate I was still educated. Yes, yeah.

unknown 47:02

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Angers me because this is what my first abuser was like, and I haven't really met anybody or talked to anybody that dealt with this, so now it's just like, oh wow, like I know more people deal with it, but it's like, wow, this is almost like a to a T. And I didn't want to have kids with him because I knew I was gonna put a kid in danger. And that's that's it's this isn't about me, but I I completely understand what you're what you probably went through. I can't assume, but I can understand that that whole cur care of control, and that's how they start. That's where the abuse starts and then it escalates. And then they want to they want to test you to see your resolve and see how you know much you will take, how much you won't take, and it it just keeps going and going and going. So it's not really about them telling you what to do anymore. It's you're afraid to not do.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

You're afraid not to do something wrong, right? Yeah, you're so you're so tightly monitored and and it's it, yeah, it's just crazy. I mean, I I just had somebody on the podcast, she's a counselor, a licensed counselor and therapist, and she said something that was like, oh my gosh, she was like, you know, when you have an abuser, because I was, you know, asking her in like a set like a counseling session, like how how that those come across. And she's like, Yes, I tell my clients, like when your abuser is opening up like the cupboard doors just like an inch and won't close it, but he does it consistently over and over and over again. That's not laziness, that's seeing how far he can he can get you to like let him do things, and like Brock, Brock would be the same way, he would, you know, be like, Oh, I lost my AirPods. And instead of like just going to look for his AirPods, he would take everything out of our dresser drawers and throw it on the floor, like every single drawer. Even if like he knew that his airpods weren't in like a certain drawer, but he was gonna take it apart anyways. And you know who had to clean it up? You mean and he did it over and over and over and over again. And so now I know that that was a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Making you obedient, really, is what it was.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

It was it was obedience, yes. He was he was training me. I knew in my head, I wasn't raised in an abusive home. I knew what was I knew that that this wasn't right, yeah, this wasn't right, but I still wanted to please him and to to be with him. And I I thought like, okay, if I just did this harder, if I just did this better, then he'll stop and it will be fine. But it was like he kept moving the goalposts. There was never like he would say, Oh, if you do this and reach this level, then you know, you know, but there's no there's it was always moving. There was no target. It was a moving target.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

It's exhausting mentally, physically, emotionally. And you know, when you when you said about being told what you could and couldn't eat, my my abuser decided to go vegan. And I would binge eat in my car burgers and chicken and hot dogs. I would, but I would do it once in a while, but it got to a point where I the only control I had left over my own self hope is was food. I starved myself just just out of spite. I became anorexic. And then when I left him, I just started eating everything. And where I'm at now is my normal weight, but I was so skinny that people think look if they don't see me for a while and they see me now, they probably think I'm really overweight. I'm like, no, you just saw me when I wasn't like I was underweight, you know. But it got to a point where I was hiding what I was eating because I was afraid of the abuse. And it, you know, it was more of it was more of the verbal and mental abuse from it, you know, just cutting me down. And I hate this video. I hate that somebody else understands this.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was a huge thing. And still I stro I struggle like with any sort of any sort of like critique or like if somebody tries to tell me like, you know, something and I don't agree with it, it's automatic. Like my brain's automatically like, you know, that's not a safe person, even though they're trying to come at it from from a place of love because they're not an abuser, but my brain automatically goes there, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Yeah. Your brain was rewired that way. And I have more of a problem when it comes from men than it is from women. Yes, yes. And I stand to toe to toe. Like I I take it too far sometimes. I'm like, you're a man and you're not gonna talk to me that way, you're not gonna tell me what to do. And I rise up, and then sometimes I'm like, okay, think of this situation. What's their intent? But my my brain automatically thinks they're out to get me out to hurt me, out to manipulate me, bully me, control me. And I that's something I work on every day. But it's I don't know if we'll ever be unwired from that, or if that's just gonna be a survival tactic that we carry with us the rest of our life.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

I I I don't I don't know. I mean, I'm in therapy and it's helping, but it it might just be always that way because we've lived it. I mean, I was in this for, you know, 13 years. So if I was in it for if I was in it for 13 years, imagine how much unlearning I'm going to have to. It's gonna take me more. I mean, I'm only almost I'm almost three years out from separation, over two years out from Ben passing away. But like, it's gonna take more than three years for me to get over it, you know. Like, it's gonna take a lot longer for me to to get to process this and to get the tools I need to, you know, quote unquote be to be better.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

I mean, I function fine, but I still know that there's certain triggers that I'm like, I think a lot of us who have been through tra traumatic things, we keep ourselves busy and active. And we process things, and obviously, you know, a lot of us go to therapy, but there's a still a part of us that doesn't want to fully go back in time. I mean, I'm speaking for me, I can't speak for you, but there's times where I'm just like, I got through it, I'm fine, I don't need to talk about it. I'm over it. So it was nine years ago, and then one little thing will get me, and just I'll go off on a spiral for two weeks because I'm pissed off or irritated. And I I won't think about why I'm like that until after I come out of that. And I'm just like, that triggered me. Like, it's just in the moment you don't realize it sometimes, and it's embarrassing for me, but it's exhausting more than anything else. And I'll go through periods where I will isolate myself from my family, my friends until I go through my mood, and people are like, that's not healthy. And I'm like, you don't want me around you right now. Like, yeah, it's not good for me, it's not good for you. Yeah, yeah. I think that's my neighbor's dog.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

No, but it's my dog.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

How is it? I'm sorry. But it's okay. Hold on, hold on. It's okay. Oh, it's a little watch dog, Scott Scotty Terrier, is that what he is? It's a schnauzer. Oh, schnauzer. Well, if you can see how much I I know about dogs and I worked out of that for a long time. I'm a cat person though, so okay. I was like, yeah, it's a schnauzer. Yeah, a wedge schnauzer. Um when and again, if I'm gonna ask questions, but if you don't want to answer them, just say so and I'll edit it out. Are you okay with talking about the last time you saw your children and the day that led up to, or do you want to skip over that? Yeah, we can we can talk about that. That's fine. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

I don't I I've done I've done so many of these that I'm like, I don't know what people want to hear and what people are like, we already heard that 15 billion times, we don't want to hear it anymore. No, I will have listened to somebody a million times.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

I'm just I'm just wanting to piece it together, but I also don't want to make you triggered or uncomfortable. So I want to respect how you would feel. That's why I don't want to just put you on the spot. And again, I'm gonna edit from the time that dog started barking until now. But uh I just wanted to make sure before we move forward that you're okay with that. Because I don't want to upset you or take you off.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

No, I I mean from the day of April 4th, 2024, um it we everything was nor you know, quote unquote normal and all of the stuff, you know, there was no like looking back, I I didn't see anything that was dangerous. Like, you know, there there was nothing that made me pause. And so we would just continue to co-parent and we're getting closer and closer to our uh our final orders, which would have been in July of 2024. So we're really close. And we're we already had all of the holidays picked out, all of like what the summer schedule was gonna look like, everything. And so I had sent them just like normal, nothing out of the ordinary for a um weekend visit. And uh it was Friday, May 17th. So that earlier that week was Lydia's birthday, May 14th. So that week was a little off because I got to spend Lydia's birthday with her because that was what was in the parenting schedule, and then Alec Alec was with him, and so that day was a little off because of the birthday, but we had a great birthday. I took her to Red Robin, we went to Walmart, and she didn't want me to pick out any of her toys and wrap them. She wanted to be able to pick out her own toys, so we went to Walmart and she just shopping spree, just picked out anything she wanted, and uh and I can send you like a picture of that because but she has like uh a Spider-Man mask. She wanted, she got two lightsabers, like one for her and one for Alec, because of course Alec needed one too. She got like Play Doh and she got like a big bluey coloring book, like chalk, like all this clothes, uh, some type of like basketball or some type of ball, like all this crazy like stuff. Like that it was just she just went down every aisle aisle and was like, I want this and this. And obviously, you know, I wanted her birthday to be special, and you know, I didn't let her go like crazy. She had to stay within like a limit, but like for her, it was like you know, like shopping spree. We did that, and then we came back home and she swam in our pool or in my pool, and she loved that. And my friend came over and we did cake and ice cream with her, and then my friend uh brought all of her nail polish stuff over and she painted her nails because I I can't do that because I can't see it, but she wanted her nails painted, so my friend painted her nails, and yeah, everything was good. Um, she went to school the next day, everything was great. Uh, so that I think her birthday that year was like on a Tuesday, and so that Friday, um, it was his weekend. So I took them to school like I normally did, and our drop-off spot was school. So during the school year, we'd always transition at school, meaning like if it was if it was, you know, his weekend, I dropped them off on Friday morning because I would have them on Thursday, and so I dropped them off Friday morning to school. And uh I remember Alec wanted to run and go see his friends. Uh, and he didn't say I love you or anything. He just wanted to see his friends. Plus, I think he was upset at me because I think I forgot his water bottle or something. So like he just went off to be with his friends, which is fine because I was like, okay, I'm not going to, I'm I'm going to see you again. Like, I'll see you on, you know, Wednesday after you're done with dad's house. And so he went off and was with his friends. Lydia put her backpack down and she br she would run and jump into my arms and like almost knock me over. I call it her running hugs. And I would literally have to brace myself because she would literally, the force of her, it would almost topple me over. So I hugged her. She said, I love you, mommy. I said, Okay, go have fun with your friends and have fun at dad's and I'll see you next week. Because our schedule was if he had them, it it was a five-two-two-five schedule. So he would have them, or I would have them for five days and then two days, and then five, and then two. So it was like a two-week rotation. And so he would have them Friday through Tuesday night. I would get them on Wednesday after school. And uh, so I sent them, signed them in for before school care. I left, everything was fine. Saturday, everything was fine, no red flags. Sunday, the 19th of May, I heard from people at the church that they came to church that morning just like normal. Whenever he had them, he would take them to church. Whenever I had them, I would take them. And because we had the order of protection, we couldn't be at the same service. So our church had two different services. So like he would go to one and I would go to the other, so we wouldn't be on campus at the same time. And so he took them. According to the pastors and the people at church, the kids were seen running up and down the hallways, nothing was wrong. They went to kids' church, they participated, um, and then they went home. And that night, May 19th, he I don't know what happened, uh, but he uh shot and killed them and then killed himself. And then I didn't know anything was wrong until the next morning, which would have been Monday, May 20th. The school called me uh and and stated that there was an unexcused absence for both Alec and Lydia. And I thought, well, that's weird. Like, why are they both absent? Like maybe they're sick. And uh, but then I was like, that's really strange because the 20th of May, they had four days left of school that week before summer break. This was their very last week of school, so they had the 20th through the 24th, and they would have gotten off the 24th for summer. So they had a four-day week. And so I thought in my head, like that's really strange. Like they only had four days left of school. And so I called, no answer, texted, no answer. I called my attorney and he said, you know, don't worry, wait a couple of hours. Maybe they went to the doctor, you know, you know, I'm sure they're fine. Wait a couple hours and then call the police if you can't get a hold of them and they'll do a welfare check. And I didn't listen to him. I only waited 45 minutes, and that's I only waited 45 minutes because I had to wait for my friend to come and get me. And she lived 20 minutes from me. So by the time I called her, she got around, got in the car, and drove to me. It was, you know, 45 minutes. So then then we drove to his apartment complex and his the van, his van, his vehicle was in the parking lot. So then I was concerned because his van was in the parking lot, but he wasn't answering the phone, and he's not answering phone calls or text messages. So I walked up to the door and I knocked on the door, and there was no answer inside. Like it was quiet. There was no like Alec and Lydia would have been like, door, or they would like there was there would have been some noise. They would have been they my kids were not quiet kids. They would have been like, Dad, there's somebody at the door. Like they would have been like or running to the door, um, and there was nothing. And so I called and I could hear the phone ringing from inside. So then I got really scared, and I'm still not thinking that like they're dead behind the door. I'm not thinking that. I'm thinking like something else.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

I know he'd threatened that in the past, so I didn't know if that was your first, like, no. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

No, I'm still not, it's still not registering. I'm thinking maybe they're hurt, I'm thinking maybe he, I don't know. And so I think that my brain is like not letting me think those thoughts, right? My brain is like protecting me. And so I call the police and uh talking to the dispatcher and you know, telling her everything, and they come and I explain what's going on. And at first, the police officer that I first talked to, he was just doing his job, but he was like, Well, you know, it's not your day, when's your day? And I said, My day is not until Wednesday, but they're not in school, and it's the last week of school, and I'm concerned his vans here, his phone's ringing from inside, and they were like, you know, I know they they have to do their job, but they're like, you know, could have they went to the pool, could they be going for a walk? And I'm like thinking in my head, guys, it's a Monday afternoon. He's supposed to be working, and they're supposed to be at school, and and it's like sprinkling, like raining. I'm like, they're not walking, like, you know, like there's they're not, I I knew at that point, I was like, they're not like just walking around the neighborhood. They're they're supposed to be at school. They would have made sure that he took them to school. It was their last week of school with all of their like celebrations and stuff. Like they wouldn't have wanted to miss school. And so I finally got, I remember I was talking to p two police officers and they were nice and everything, but they didn't know my case. And then all of a sudden, this gentleman started walking towards me and he's like, Hi Hulk, do you remember who I am? And I was like, Oh, yes, you're police officer, so and so. You were at the uh incident in October last year, October 20th, 23, at the hotel when he had a psychiatric break. And he's like, Yes. He's like, you know, this is not a normal situation, and the situation in October wasn't normal. And I believe that it's in everybody's best interest if we ask our sergeant if we can get permission to go inside. And he's like, is that okay? And I said, Yes, please do like that. Is fine. Please ask your sergeant, you know, you can go inside. And so they had the maintenance guy unlock the door. They got approval from their sergeant, and they went inside and they asked us to move down the parking lot a little bit because they had like their shields out. They didn't know what to expect, right? So they had us move down a little bit, and I knew something was wrong because two police officers went in, and then like three more, and then like two more. So there's like more and more police officers kept going inside. And then for this, for this faint split second of a moment, because we're literally a block and a half from the police and fire station. I hear a siren and then I hear it go off. Like I hear it stop, and it was like a split second, like it was like woo, and then it stopped. And so I knew that they probably, like now, and even in my head, they probably found them and they probably were gonna call ambulance, and then they realized like there was nothing they could do, and so they stopped. But it was like the faint, a faint of like a siren starting, and then it stopped. And so I remember thinking, like, oh my gosh, like it's that was kind of like the moment that I was like, you know, this is not good, and then they came out and they told me, Hope, we're sorry to inform you, but all three are deceased inside. And and then, yeah, and then my whole world shattered. I I think I stepped forward. I was gonna ask y'all n did your instinct get just want to run in there, or were you more like No, I think I stepped forward and I said no and and then I sat back down. Like I didn't want to run in there. I didn't want to see that. I mean, I said I I thank God that when I knocked on the door and I tried the door handle, it was locked. Because if it was unlocked, I probably I would have gone inside. And so I'm so glad that I didn't see that because I could only imagine. But I have other friends that have lost children to philosopide who have seen their children deceased right after. And that is something that like you cannot unsee. And that's some that's trauma that you like even more so. So I I think that like God shielded me from that, like having that door locked, like 100%. And so we had to go to the police station and sit there. They had two victims advocates. All of my friends were there. The sergeant came in. They had a clergyman, like priest come in and sit with me. Like this is like a whole boardroom table filled with people. And uh yeah, it just wasn't real. It just didn't seem real. And uh, and so they let us go. I think we were there maybe an hour, I don't know, time I have no idea on the time, but they let us leave and I went back home and my friend had to go inside and close my Alchemine's bedroom doors because I couldn't do it. And I didn't even want to go in that part of the house. So I stayed in the front part of our house, which had like our kitchen and living room. I didn't even want to go back by the bedrooms because my bedroom was right across from theirs. So like I didn't even want to go to my room or my bathroom because I didn't want to go by their rooms, but I had to because those were the our bathrooms were right there too, so you had to go back by their rooms to go to the bathroom. And then my sister and my aunt flew out to be with me, and uh my church was with me, all of the pastors and my whole Bible study group and life group, and they stayed with me for like four days. I wasn't left alone. And um, in those four days, again, this is like my faith is so important, and I talk about it so much in my book, but like even though this tragedy happened and Alec and Lydia are gone, God was still God was still showing up like over and over and over again. Like we packed up my whole house and donated all of my stuff that I didn't need. We packed up and got box like all this is within four days. Yes, we have a lot of help because we have like everybody from the church and stuff, but like this shouldn't have happened. Like packing up a whole house, donating the stuff we didn't need, I didn't need or couldn't bring back with me because it was too heavy. I would just have to buy it back in Michigan when I came back here. We had this we we sold his vehicle back to the dealership because I don't drive, but my name, thank goodness, was on the was on the vehicle too as a person. So I sold the vehicle back to the dealership in like two hours. So that was like a huge thing. Like I called, I contacted the gentleman that sold us the vehicle, and he was there that day, and he actually was hus he was the husband of one of the teachers I used to work with at the school I used to work at. And so like they heard about what happened on the news and like they helped. Like he was like, Bring the van, bring the keys. That's all you need. I was like, I don't need a title, I don't need any of like any of the regular stuff you need to sell a car. I didn't need any of that. He was like, No, bring the car and bring the keys. I will do everything else. And he did, and so we sold it back to the dealership and we got everything packed up. We my aunt and my sister took everything to I think FedEx or something and shipped every single box back that I needed. Wow to Michigan because we had to fly back. My my aunt and my sister were not gonna drive all the way across the country to get back home. And so we flew back. So this happened on a Monday. Well, technically they died on Sunday the 19th, but I found out on Monday the 20th, and then by Friday the 25th, we were on a plane back to Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:02

You probably didn't sleep at all in the during these days and no, I remember one time.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

I I know the first night I didn't sleep at all. My friend stayed with me and she fell asleep, but I didn't sleep at all. I went out in the like I tried to sleep and I couldn't. So I went out in the living room and I remember the lamp, the side lamp just being on, and I just sat there. And then I think the next couple of days I did sleep, but I would only sleep during the day if people were there. So like I would go in my room and I would sleep, but it would only be for a couple of hours, and it would only be during the day if people were there. Yeah, and then I got back to Michigan and I lived with my sister and my brother-in-law and my niece and nephews, and uh lived with them for two and a half months. I mean, the other thing is I had a little puppy, my puppy Joy, that you met, and uh she was like two months. And so when all this happened, we're like packing everything up, and I'm like burst into tears, and my sister's like, What's wrong? And I was like, How can we get Joy back? Like, am I gonna have to leave her? And she's like, No, we're gonna take her with us. And like, so like my neighbor like went and got like Joy, like a dog carrier. She got Joy a necklace with like a little tag on it. My neighbor took Joy to the vet to get like the medicine she needed to fly and the note for the airlines to say that she couldn't fly. Like, so there's all these people like stepping up and helping, like, you know, and mind you, I didn't live at this house very long. We lived at this house for two and a half, maybe three months before they died. We had sold our marital residence before we got divorced. We sold it in like as we were doing our proceedings. And I took that money and I bought a new house and I bought my dream house for Alec and Lydia, and I had a pool and all this stuff, and so all these people are stepping up, and this neighbor and stuff that I've literally known for like three months, it's like doing all of this stuff. So, like, it's just amazing. Yeah, so we I went back and lived with my sister and everybody and lived at her house for like two and a half months. Uh, we had a celebration of life for my my kids, Alec and Lydia, July 20th, uh, which would have been two months after they passed. We had a beautiful celebration and uh got a tent and we got like those uh really fancy like porter potties and stuff because my sister didn't want like everybody trekking in our house to go to the bathroom. So we bought like the fancy like trailer with the nice porta potties and uh rented it and stuff, and then uh and then we had our the food all catered and everything. Mind you, nobody knew like my case, and uh I have to tell this story, but we were doing the food prep and I was talking to the people and telling them the numbers, and they asked you, like, you know, what is this for? And I say, Oh, it's a celebration of life for my two children, and um you know, they're what they went through everything and they're like, Yeah, like we got it, and we'll we'll send you the quote later on tonight. And I was like, Okay, and they're like, when you see the quote, just like let us know if everything's good and then we'll we'll get everything started. So they sent me the quote and like looking through everything, and at the bottom it says zero. So I called them and I'm like, everything looks great, like everything is correct with the numbers and everything, but your calculation at the bottom says zero, and they're like, Oh yeah, we're gonna cover everything. They didn't know me, they they looked up. I found out later, they googled me, they googled the case and they found it. And so they they paid for everything, they paid for all the food. And mind you, this is like thousand a couple thousand dollars worth of food for a celebration of life. It's not cheap. And so they covered everything, they came and they like it was so beautiful, it was amazing. We had uh my friend and my it was my friend and my my sister's sister-in-law made desserts for uh everybody, so they had like decorated cookies, and then my friend has a bakery as well, and she made like cake pops and brownies and all of this uh stuff that the kids would have loved, and it was just a great celebration. We did a uh we did a fireworks uh show after in the backyard because I wanted to do something, and everybody's like, Oh, you could have could do like lanterns or like butterflies, or and I was like, Alec and Lydia loved fireworks. I was like, and it was around 4th of July because it was like July 20th, like I said. And so right before like July 4th, my brother-in-law and I went to like a fireworks store and bought like all these fireworks, and he lit off all these beautiful fireworks for Alec and Lydia. There's like green ones and silver and pink and purple and all the colors, and and Alec and Lydia's favorite colors, Alex was green, and Lydia's was pink and purple. So her urn is purple with sparkles, it like sparkles when the light shines on it, it like sparkles back. And then Alex is um a wooden box with a trail on it, like a trail head, and then trees and mountains. And the reason I did that was because he was an honorary member of Trail Life USA for two years, and so as soon as I saw it, that urn, like it was on the first page of uh of the urns, like that you can select on on the website. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, that's Alex. And I remember my sister saying, Yep, and we both like just started bowling because as soon as we saw it, we're like, that's his trail life, trees, mountains, like that's his. Lydia's, we had a bit more of a difficult time to figure out because I wanted originally her favorite, favorite color was pink, and I couldn't find an urn that was pink that was like a little girl. All the pink urns were like flowery, like old lady looking. And I was like, I'm not putting a six-year-old in a old lady-looking vague, or any, you know, old lady-looking urn. And so we went through every single page and we couldn't find anything. And again, this is a God thing. My pastor who's helping us with everything coordinate with uh the place that we went through for the urns. She called and she was like, you know, we got Alex picked out, his is great. We can't find anything for Lydia. Hope just isn't liking anything. And he's like, Well, what did Lydia like? And I was like, Well, Lydia loved pink and she loved purple and she loved sparkles. And he's like, Well, I have this perfect urn. It's not on the website, but we have it here, and it's purple, and when it uh, you know, when it shimmers, it sparkles back with the sun. And as soon as we heard that, we're like, Yes, that's perfect. So we have those two. And another thing that is such a god thing is, you know, in all of this, um, we're I try to decide what to do, you know, whether I bury them or cremate them, and going back and forth, and I decided.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:02

What's going on during the four days before you move back to Michigan?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:05

Before I move back, yeah. And so I'm trying to figure out if I'm gonna cremate them or bury them, and I finally decide that I'm gonna cremate them because I don't want to bury them, quote unquote, as my brother-in-law said, don't bury them in the desert. And I said, No, I'm not gonna bury them in the desert, they're gonna come with me. And so we're we were doing that, and my pastor was talking to the people again, and she was telling them, and they found out what happened, and they originally were like, Okay, we're going to give you, you know, half off for Alec and Lydia. And then they called back like an hour later. This is the same day that we're sitting in the uh in the dealership selling the car. So we're in the office of the dealership dude, and he's going to sell the car. He's like gone. The phone rings. My pastor's talking to the people on the phone about the urns and the cremation, and they call her back and they said, We know that we told you that we're gonna cover Alec and Lydia's urns, but we found out what happened, and we're gonna cover everyone's cremation, including Brock's. And so everybody's was yeah, including his, because they didn't want to put that burden on me to have to decide that. And that's something in me that I was literally like, what do I do? Like, you know, do I do I cremate him? Do I just, you know, because there's so many emotions, you know, people are like, Well, you could just leave his body there and don't claim it. Like, you know, like all of these different things. And I was morally asked, like, yes, he was my abuser. Yes, he did all of these horrible things. Morally, I couldn't do that. I knew that I had to do what was I knew I had to do, you know, something. And so they're like, we're gonna cremate him too. And so everything was paid for. The only thing I had to pay for was Alec and Lydia's urns, and I got some like keepsakes, like necklaces and stuff with their ashes. I paid for that. But all the cremations were covered, and I didn't I just uh cremated him, I didn't put him in an urn, and I shipped him back to his family. So I definitely we definitely believe that that was definitely a sign from God because literally a half hour before that, before we went to the dealership and before the people had called, we were walking around the grocery store talking about what we were going to do. And we were like, you know, what do what do we do? Do we what do we do with him? And so God was like, you don't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:30

So that's really that's a lot, that's heavy. Uh I was gonna say, it sounded like you were surrounded by angels. Because what are the like I don't I don't know that many good people like that, let alone look at the entire community that came and around you and stepped up, and it was like God just putting these people right in front of you. Like that gave yourself like I didn't even stop to think of what you were deciding to do with him, and then you know, for you to still have that respect and you know, your morals of you still have to do something because that's your you know, that was your children's father.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:02

And and again, with abuse, right? Like I want to understand to have your I always share this in all my speeches and stuff, and you know, on podcasts. When you're in abusive marriage or relationship, it's not all abuse all the time. There's still good memories, there's still things that happened that still make me smile, you know. Like there, you know, it wasn't just like I met this person and he started abusing me right away. You know, there's still good things that happen. And so I I like to talk about that too because it's not just like these are like these horrible people, you know. Yes, they did horrible things, yes, they're abusers, yes, they do horrible things, but not every single part of the relationship is horrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:47

There has to be some good with the bad, and you have to grieve both, you have to grieve the good and the bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:52

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:53

Regardless if they're still here, if they're deceased. You you loved somebody, you shared a life with somebody, you brought kids into this world with somebody. That doesn't just go away overnight. That doesn't, you know, just despite anything that he did.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:06

That never will go, and that never will go away. He's always going to be a part of my story. It doesn't matter if I, you know, yes, I want to heal from that and I'm working on that, but it it it he'll never be not a part of my story.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:21

No, yeah, no, absolutely not. And I I would hope but nobody would expect that from you. I mean, that you spent what what four 13 years with somebody and he is a part of this story. So in order to keep keeping Alec and Lydia's name, I mean, people want to know the story, so he is part of that story. You can't just erase him out of that. I mean correct. And again, like you said, I have a lot of good memories of my abuser. And sometimes I stop and think, like, why are you thinking about that? But I have to stop and remind myself that there was parts of that person that I did love and care about. And that doesn't just disappear to this day. There's parts that I still care about. But I I am I thought you were strong before. I am out of I don't have a word right now because I didn't even realize, like, I it never crossed my mind that you know, and that's the ignorance of me that what you I mean, I didn't know you went through all this in four days. I mean, selling a car, packing up your house, choosing your children's urns, which I can't even imagine how that I don't even want I don't want to know what that feels like, and I'm just so sorry, and then having to do right by your estranged husband, and you still made sure he got back to his family, because a lot of people would have just left him there. So that shows your character and like God bless you, because I could I don't know if I could do that hope. And I I don't even have a word to describe that right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

You never know uh again, you you never know what you're capable of unless you're it's put in front of you, right? So you know, I always hear people say exactly like I could never do that, I could never lose my kids. I would not you never know what you're what you are capable of when you're faced with it, when you have no other choice.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:59

So when you got back to Michigan and you had to process all of this and grieve through this and heal of which you'll never be fully healed, we know that what you'll there will never be a hundred percent closure, but to move forward through the hope and the pain, what did you do? What what did you immediately start saying, like, I need to help other families, or did you take time to really just did it just come to you one day?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:22

Yeah, um, so I lived with my sister and brother-in-law and and family for about two and a half months, and then I decided to find my own place to live very close by. I still only live about uh eight minutes from them on a good day. And so I still, you know, I live very, very close. I wanted to make sure, you know, I wasn't like gonna just like be like, see ya. So I because they're very close to me and they're the only family I have because my mom and dad aren't here. So, you know, besides aunts and uncles, those are it's that's my family. And so we I found a place to live brand new, beautiful, uh, new home and new town home. So it's really nice for me with a visual impairment. I don't have to do any of the outside landscaping or any of the grass or or snow blowing or ice shelf, anything like that. So it's all taken care of for me. So that again is another blessing. And uh yeah, so when I uh lived with them, I did grieve. There were times that I remember like sitting on her couch and grieving, and I went to grief counseling. My brother-in-law would take me, uh, it was group grief counseling every Tuesday, and he would drive me there and uh, you know, go in with me and wait for me, and then you know, take me back to their house. And so I was grieving when I lived with them, but it wasn't until I started to grieve on my own when I when I got my new house is when I kind of like really grieved, right? Because I didn't have anybody around and I could cry when I wanted to cry. And not that I couldn't there, but my br my my niece and my two nephews, they're twins, they're older, but they're they're not little little kids, but they're not like grown and graduated yet. They're like teenagers. And I didn't want them in 20 years to say, Oh, remember Aunt Hope when you lived with us and all you did was cry and be in your room and it was dark and like you didn't want to get out of bed. I didn't want that. So I had to make a decision every single day when I lived with them to show up, even if I wasn't there mentally, and I wasn't. I was like a shell of a person, but I still woke up, brushed my teeth, took a shower, got dressed, I hung out with them because again, it was during the summer, so they were home every single day. It wasn't like they were in school. Now, if they were in school, it would have been different. Yeah, it might have been harder for me because I wouldn't have that accountability of having to get up and and do this. And it wasn't a have to, they never made me, but it was a choice that that I made because I didn't want them in 20 years to come to me and be like, all I remember from our cousins dying, our only cousins that we had dying was you just being inconsolable and just crying. Like that's trauma for them. I didn't want, I mean, they already went through trauma losing their cousins. I didn't want more trauma of their aunt, you know, being inconsolable at their house. They're what's supposed to be safe for them. So, yes, I did cry and I did grieve, but I didn't like fall apart. And so when I moved into my own house, that's when I really started to grieve, and I really had to lean on God. And I started to journal every single day for hours in silence and in total silence with nothing around. All I had was my phone, was my Bible app with no notifications on and a journal and a pen. And I would sit there and I would just journal and cry and journal and look up Bible verses and cry and journal and literally would do this for I think I did it for eight to ten months straight, every single day.

unknown 1:27:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:04

And and through that, I really leaned on God, and that's what got me through this. This that's why I'm able to stand or sit here today and talk to you. This is why I'm able to do the Alec and Lydia Act and write my book and do the podcast, do everything that I do is because of God. It is, yes, he gives me the power to do it, but it's only through his Holy Spirit that I'm able to do this. And so when I was journaling, I decided that I was like, you know, I have to do something. And I didn't know what that something was. And that following Tuesday, God always gives you signs. That following Tuesday, I went to a grief uh group. Like I said, my brother in law would come get me. And then before that group, we went to dinner that night at this little diner. And I remember him talking to me, and he's not just a brother in law, I've known Him since I was 14. My sister and I are eight years apart. She's eight years older than me. So he's like a brother to me. He's not even a brother-in-law. And so he was talking to me and he was like, You should start a social media platform, Hope, because you should tell your story. You should share your grief. You should share about God and your faith. You should share about Alec and Lydia. You should share all of these things. And I was like, Yeah, okay, Kurt. Well, yeah. You know, and I'm very respectful, but I'm like laughing in my head, like, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. And so I was like, yeah, maybe sometime, you know, you know, yeah, you know, you never know. And I put it in the back of my head. And a couple of months later, they just thought about it again, and I was like, you know, I think he was right. I think today's the day. And I remember it was August 4th, 2024, and I started Hope and the Pain on social media. And the first platform I started was TikTok. And I remember him saying, my brother-in-law saying, Okay, when you make your social medias, they all have to be the same, and they all have to, you have to have an email that goes along with it because he's a business per he's a business owner, he owns his own business, and so I look up to him very, like, very highly, and so he knows what he's talking about, he he he knows all of the stuff, and so I did all that and I created Hope and the Pain. TikTok started to grow, and then I did Facebook, and then I started a YouTube for Hope and the Pain, and then I did Instagram, and everything has grown so much, and even Instagram, like it took me from August 4th, 2024, or I think I started Instagram maybe a little bit later, but it took me like over a year to hit a thousand followers on Instagram, like it took a long time. Yeah, does and uh but now I'm almost at 2,000.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:50

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:51

So um that journey has just helped me to share my story, and that's been really healing for me because everybody, just like you said, how are you able to just talk about this over and over again? Isn't it just re-traumatizing? Not really, it's healing because I get to share their legacy, I get to share our I get to share what I'm doing now to make change, to save other families and and children. And and then through that, uh met Rachel Holloway and Heather Norcraft uh with like Mother Like Murder. I love them too. And they were the first podcast I ever was on. I never talked to the media or anything when everything happened. They tried to contact us and I never would respond. So, because I wanted to do it on my terms, yeah, and so I contacted Rachel through TikTok and asked her if I could be on an episode of like Mother Like Murder, because they just did one for Brandy Maury polls for Rowan Mori, who was a case in Michigan who died of philocide, a little boy. He was six years old. And I reached out and I told them my story, and they're like, Yeah, we'll have you on. And from that, that was my first ever interview with the whole case. And then I just became friends with them. And I think a couple months later, Rachel came to me and was like, I know this might sound crazy, but I keep thinking that you should do a podcast. And mind you, this is another God thing. Like two weeks before, three weeks before, I thought the same thing and I immediately shut it down because I was like, nope, not gonna do that. And so again, when God, when God wants you to do something, he'll bring other people into your life to say the same thing to you that you were all that you, you know, just you know, clarification and making sure, like, hey, that was me. It wasn't your own brain. This is like you need to do this. And so I was like, Yeah, I guess I'll yes, we could do a podcast. And I was excited. I was like, Yeah, we could like host it together. Like, Rachel's great. Like, she was like, No, you're gonna host it. And I was like, Well, I don't know what to do, Rachel. I have no idea like how to put host a podcast. She's like, it's okay, I'll teach you. And and so she is the editor and publisher of the podcast. So it's Rachel and I, and but I'm the one that hosts it, and I'm the creator of all the episodes. I do everything. Rachel just she does all the amazing work behind the scenes, all the editing and all of that. And uh I'm under their podcast company, Momcast Productions, and uh it's been great. We are going to be starting season four in September of 2026, so I can't believe that it's not even been a year, and we're already we've almost uh completed, I think like 35 episodes.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:36

So so yeah, it's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:39

So I love knowing you involve it's like I feel like when I met, I don't know, was it Danny after dark? No, it was Rachel, Rachel and Heather. I met in Denver and somehow ended up being friends with Danny. I don't even like I didn't meet Danny until Vegas, but I felt like I was already close friends with her. Yeah, and it's just all you guys are such a powerful group of just genuine women. There's no cattiness, there's no nobody stuck up, nobody thinks they're better than anybody. It's just fun, genuine appreciation for one another. And and when when Jules gave me a necklace and said, You're in our, you know, podcast girl gang, uh pod podcaster, that's what it's called, right? Podcasters, yeah. Yeah, she gave me a little necklace, and I'm like, I was like so humbled and honored because I was like, I barely know anybody in there except for the few I've named, and they're just so welcoming, you know, and I'm just blessed and honored to know all of you because you everybody has a story.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:31

Yeah. And everybody's so they're so welcoming. I want you to know, like, yes, I've met Jules Jules like last year, and obviously knew Heather and Rachel and a couple of them, but I didn't meet the vast majority of them until Vegas. Really? Yes, or no, sorry, uh until Beyond the Crime in New Mexico in April in April.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:52

But like I wasn't doing it to to speak at that and do my podcast, but I couldn't get off work in time. And Danny Danny referred me, and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go, and then I had to back out. So you would have met me then.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:02

Yeah, but they're just great. They're I mean, honestly, too, because I mean I I I don't even know. I think it was Jules said this to me. She said, she's she's just amazing. She's so proud of me. She's like, you do so much, and you, this is your life. With us, with us, she's referring to herself and the other podcasters. We can turn it off. We can have our own lives, we can like step away. But this is your life. This is this is like your reality. You know, it's not like I'm just covering true crime and I can step away from it. Like this is my life. And so, like to hear her say that, but to still have them be so like welcoming, and because, you know, yes, I cover, you know, philicide crimes within my podcast, but it's so vastly different, you know, from what the majority of the podcasters do.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:57

Because, you know, mine's, you know, philicide crimes. So, which is like, you know, crazy that it went from 500 cases in 2024, according to the FBI, to now there's over 700 kids who have died within the last two years. So it's increased by 200 kids in the last two years to be 700 cases a year. Is that notival or just in national, national? But those are the ones that are actually listed as philicides because but we know that there's so many missing children that were probably philoside crimes, but they haven't been listed as that because they're still missing. So we believe that it's much more in like the thousands. I would have said, but but what but what the uh FBI says it's like 700. But still, like for it was like when I first Googled it, when I figured out what philicide was, like when I Googled it, like it's all I put in. I was on my sister's couch, and I remember I remember like typing in like child murder by father, and it like came up as philosophy, and I was like, it has a name, like what I never heard of that until I discovered who you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:02

I didn't know what that word meant. And I'm like, what is philoside?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:05

And then I did my own research on it, and uh yeah, so it's philoside. Uh so the intentional act of any parent or caregiver killing their own child, and so yeah, and there's different types of philosophy. So there's like altruistic, there is uh revenge philicide, there's psychotic philosophy. There's different, there's like five different types of philosophy. There's infantside, which is like infants from like one year's and under. So there's different types of philosophy. But yes, uh, I mean, we were at crime con and probably from the three days we were there, there's probably like 20 people that came up to our booth that knew what philosophy was. The rest of them, and those are the people that like work in the field or like have heard of, you know it. The rest of them, the thousands of people were like, no, we have no idea. So uh and we had somebody come up to us, one of the women, she was there. She's like, It's my sixth crime con that I've been to, and I've never heard of this. I'm so glad that you have a table. I think that you should be a speaker sometime for crime con. So that's what we are trying to do in the future.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:13

So if you hear that, I was gonna say, but maybe I'm on this this year when uh I pre-registered for our past for Orlando. I this year instead of naming off people that everybody knows, I made sure I listed you. I listed Joanne, Ali Laudzer's mom, Maggie Phillips, people who need to be heard. We we don't need to hear certain people every single year. And I'm I'm just gonna say that you guys come every year, you have a story, you can educate other people on Phyllis' side. That needs to be have a spot, that has to have a spotlight because, like you just said, and I just told you, I had never heard of that word. Yeah. So if nobody's being educated, how are we supposed to as a society make changes? Right. I mean, you Googled it yourself, and you're like, Oh, there's a name for this. There's a name for it, yeah. You should definitely be a speaker. And next time somebody posts something, I mean, I might just go in the GrimeCon group and write that, but I did write it down when they asked us who we want to see because I just feel like it thank you so much. Yeah, um no, it it it I'd rather hear stories like this because and I'm gonna tell you something. And while you're talking about your faith in God, the past few weeks I've had a whirlwind. My life has just been domino effect. Every little thing that could go wrong has gone wrong. And I've been finding myself in the mornings just reading random Bible verses. And I'm not I haven't always been religious. I'm very spiritual. I believe in the afterlife and signs and all that, but lately it's just something's drawing me to read them. And every time I read, I'll just read a random one. And whatever I read, it like fits that how I feel.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:47

It applies. Yeah, that's how he that's how he works. And yeah, that's why I want to say like that's why I always say like faith, right? Because like for me, it's not a religion because it's it's a for my own journey, it's a walked out faith. Like, you know, in the Bible, it never says that we come to know him greater through sunshine and rainbows. It says we come to know him through suffering. And I'm always like, Well, God, why do I have to suffer? Like, I want, can't I just know you just if it's sunny and bright outside and sunshine and rainbow? Why do I have to suffer, God?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:23

No, but but I mean, that's I mean I just did an episode on my other podcast turning the corner yesterday, and that's one where I talk about my realities. And I thought, you know, all this stuff's been going on around me. And I always feel like it's a lesson or something is about to enter my life that's gonna like redirect me to something. And I'm like, you know, some people would in my old mindset, I would go, why is why am I being punished? Why is God doing this to me? But now I'm like, okay, what is God trying to teach me? What is God putting in front of me? Why is this happening? Because I know from prior experience, when you in hindsight, you look back and you go, that's not a coincidence that this happened. Like, and the more I go through things, you know, being a survivor, I have been helping somebody on the side privately get through domestic violence. And I said to myself, you know, back when it started happening to me, I didn't have anybody to talk to. I couldn't be a resource for somebody if I didn't go through it. And I'm not saying thank God I went through it, but I do feel like we all go through something because we have a purpose. And whether it's you being a voice, whether it's me being a voice, all of us coming together, I strongly believe people meet each other for a reason. You had all those neighbors, you had your church, you had your your neighbor take your dog, you had all those people come forward to pay the bill. Like that to me is angels God is sending and putting them right in front of you. Yes. And you have to be open to it. And every day now I get uh the things I'm going through. I've been posting Bible verses the past few days too, and there was one that I'm just like that is everything right now. And it's it's interesting because I don't look them up. You know, I have this website that sends me something every day, I don't even know what's called, and it's just the most random Bible verses. And I'm like, you know, it's it's just interesting. And as much as we want to get mad and blame, you know, other things or blame God, why are you doing this to me? I think it is important. I mean, you're living an example, you show up every day for yourself. You still show up for your your children, you show up for others, and you could lay in bed all day and cry, and that's fine. And I'm sure you still do. I'm sure you have your days, but you also have to continue. And instead of continuing going down a dark path, you decided to take your faith and help other people and bring a light to the world. I mean, you're changing the laws, you're protecting families and children, even though you no longer have your children physically here, you were fighting to help others, and that is I don't know, I don't know the word, but it's good. I don't know what words to use, but yeah, that's uh you know, that's your faith and strengths, and I think it's admirable because if other parents see this, like my mom even asked me, how does she do this? Well, I'm gonna send my mom this podcast. I'm like, this is how she does this. It's her faith, her belief in herself, her belief in the community, the in the church, and other people. And you know, I don't want to sound cliche because your name is hope, but you have hope in other people that they can be good people. There are good people out there, and yes, yes, they're not the whole world's not out to get us. No, but when you've been through situations that are traumatic, it's hard to accept that. And then when people do come forward to be nice, you're like, why are you being nice? Like, why are you doing this for me? Like I just find it very what I needed. I don't know if you're gonna want to believe this, but I feel like everything you said tonight is what I I needed to hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:37

Yes, I believe 100% that God puts people in our lives that intercede for us. Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. Yeah, like when we don't believe in ourselves, He brings people in to be like, Hey, I'm interceding for you right now to tell you this. So there you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:54

Yeah, no, thank you. And and you know, I know we could go on, Matt, and I I will have you back on because I know you're still changing laws and more things are gonna come. And I do want to learn a lot more about Lydia and Alec, but I know you wrote a book. I did buy it, you signed it. I haven't gotten to it yet, unfortunately, because life's been crazy. But tell us about your book, where they can buy it. There's still hope. So when did you when did you write this book?

SPEAKER_00 1:43:16

So I wrote this, it uh took about a year, eight months to a year. It was a part of like my journaling process. So once it started journaling, like I talked to you about, it kind of just came into my head that okay, I need to like write everything down uh that I've been through and share my story. And it was just so healing for me to put it all down on paper as like a safe space. And yes, I know people are gonna read this, but if you go online, the reviews by complete strangers, I know that it's helping people, which is amazing because I put it out there to help one person, and it's been able to help so many others. Yes, and it's tiny, so it's an easy read. It's available on Audible, so I have the audio version. I recorded it so you can listen to it. It's professionally recorded, but I recorded it. Um, so it's my voice. It's available on Amazon and paperback, like this one, and then it's also available on ebook through the Kindle app. So you can buy it on there. All proceeds come right back to me and go right back into Voices Against Phillicide podcast, into all the advocacy work that I'm doing to raise awareness.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:28

And where can people find you on social media in your podcast? You have Voices of Phillicide, and what platforms are they they can tune in on?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:35

Yep. Voices against Phillipside.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:37

I always say of. I don't know why I can do that. Voices against Phillipside. Where can they find your podcast? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:43

Voices against Phillicide is available wherever you stream your podcast. So Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, all the ones, YouTube, it's on my uh Hope in the Pain YouTube channel. We have a playlist on there for it. My social media platforms are all hope in the pain. So all depending on the platform, sometimes it's like hope dot in dot the dot pain, but just type in hope in the pain and it will come up. It's uh a picture of my kids uh as the icon. And uh yeah, I I share uh daily, I try to daily on social media and to interact with my community. And um yeah, it's it's great. Um thank you guys for sharing your stories of you know surviving domestic violence, your stories of how the Alec and Liddy Act is helping you, all the emails, all the messages that I've been getting, I read every single one of them. If I don't respond back, it doesn't mean that I haven't read it. It's just sometimes there's too many. So making changes world. Yes, I'm uh I'm so busy.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:48

If they want to help the acts and help you help other families, what are ways that our listeners can chip in to help? You know, you get two places you need to be or sponsor these laws or anything they can do. What can they where can they go to find that?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:03

Yeah, so you can visit voices against philici.odo.com and you can get information on there of how you can help. You can follow on social media at Hope in the Pain. And if you want to bring the Alec and Lydia Act legislation to your state, you need to contact your local representative and senator and let them know that you want this groundbreaking child safety first legislation in your state. If you would like help with that, you can reach out to me on social media or through the website and I can guide you. But it really comes from your voice being in your own state. Once you get somebody that's interested in sponsoring the bill from your own state, they can then contact me and I can then work with them to move the bill forward. But it really starts with you because you are the ones that live in those states. And not that they won't listen to me, but I don't live, let's say, in Texas. And if I call Texas and tell them about it, they're gonna be like, this is great, but you're not a constituent of our state. And so you as a constituent, as a resident of Texas or Florida or California or wherever you live, you are the one that has to email or call your local rep or senator. And if you're like, oh, I have no idea how to do that, you can Google it. All you have to do is type in your city, and like I type in like who's my local representative for Ann Arbor, Michigan, and it will come up. And so um, that's all you have to do, and then it will come, it will, it will also give you all different kinds of representatives and senators. So you don't even just have to contact your local, you could contact as many senators and reps in your state. That's what we did in Arizona, just kept contacting them.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:00

So yeah, eventually somebody sees it. I I told you tomorrow I have a meeting with our local senator rep, Marty Flynn of Lazerne and Lackawanna County, because I'm in Scranton, Wilkesburg, Pennsylvania, and I'm pushing to have because my abuser has violated his PFA and nobody does anything. He's done this a few times. So they want to they finally heard me because the DAs have ignored me, the cops don't do anything. So, like, we're gonna have you come in and we're gonna see if we can resolve these, but we also know that you have some other ideas. So, my goal, and I did post them on my page, I have 10 things I want to review with them on getting consequences tightened for the registry. As soon as you get a PFA filed against you, you should have to automatically enroll. None of this repeating behavior because I know other states are doing that where they have to, you know, after they repeat the violations and then they register, no, because it could be a first and what like the first time could be the last time. Correct. And there's other things I want to go, but I'm going to bring up Alec and Lydia Act because it is still domestic violence, even though it's philosophy, everything's connected to domestic violence. So I will be a voice tomorrow in Pennsylvania and I will thank you. I will tell them. And then if they are wanting to do more, I will connect them with you because you have you know that information, but um, I definitely think this should be nationwide hope. Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:13

Yes, I think it will be. I hope so. I hope so. Just so you know, um, in Pennsylvania, you have Cadence Law. So Caden was a little girl, Caden Mancuzo. She was seven, she died of philosophy, and uh there is what's called Cadence Law. So it's basically it's very similar to the Alec and Lydia Act. The only thing it doesn't include that the Alec and Lydia Act does include is that uh the Alec and Lydia Act includes the writing their findings and temporary orders. Cadence law doesn't include that, but it includes everything else. So Pennsylvania does have a domestic violence and child safety first bill. It's called Cadence Law. Okay. So they could they could add to it. They could revise it. Really make one for Alec and Lydia, but it would revise they could revise it and add that specific section to Caden's Law. And Caden is spelled K-A-Y-D-E-N-S. Caden. That will help when I bring that up to them tomorrow because I'm sure they're aware of what that is. That's oh I shall well that's uh Caden's law is actually they should they should be aware. Uh Caden's Law is actually federal law now. Caden's Law started in Pennsylvania. Caden Caden Caden died in Pennsylvania. So yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:30

Well, thank you for that information. Thank you for sharing. I know that's I know you do it all the time and it's healing for you, but still thank you. I like I said, I knew bits and pieces, but I wanted to hear it from you. I didn't want to ask other people. And I know we talking about doing this for a while, and I wouldn't like to have you back when you start doing the Michigan bills and all the other states. Because I don't think you're gonna stop.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:52

I think you're gonna No, I might take a break, but I'm not gonna stop.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:56

But I love how your brother-in-law, you know, said start a social media page, and now you have a social media page, a book, a podcast. You're changing laws. Like I love, I love that. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:06

It just gets it just kept snowballing, right? Like God's like, and open this door and this door and this door.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:11

And like I think it's because you see the help that you're giving other people, and it's a motivator of okay, like somebody needs to do this, somebody needs to step up, somebody needs to be a voice, and it gives you a little bit of hope that people are getting some kind of healing from this.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:26

Yeah, and we've had great, I mean, great opportunities. I mean, I've been able to speak at Beyond the Crime. I I got to speak at a a local event here about domestic violence that I actually put on that was called Hope in the Pain in Michigan. I got to be on Dr. Phil, like on I got to be on Beyond the Monsters, which is a huge podcast. Like, so all of these opportunities, God's just opening up doors.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:50

So yeah, and they'll they'll keep opening. I always wanted to go to Michigan when I was in fourth grade. I wrote a report because I like the way it sounded. Michigan. My mom said I'd come home and be like Michigan, and I've never still been to Michigan. So next time you feel close. Aren't you in Pennsylvania? I am. I'm in Northeast PA. I'm up, I'm kind of by about two hours from New York, but I'm about an hour and a half from Philadelphia. So I'm right in that. Okay. Well, still it's not that far. It's not that far. I live in Ohio and it wasn't that far. But it's never got there. So now maybe I'll come to Michigan and say mom, Michigan. Yes, come and see me. All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:29

Well, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:30

Have a great day. You too. Thank you so much. Yeah, bye-bye. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to Hope Putin's story. Philoside and the changes she's making in the world. And please send her your thoughts and prayers as she grieves every day for the loss of her children, Alec and Lydia. But with the blessings she finds and the hope and the pain, she continues. And if you would like to learn more about the Alec and Lydia act, and you would like to help or get your state involved, remember to reach out to Hope Hoten at Hope in the Pain on social media and follow her podcast at Voices Against Bill Aside. Make sure you leave a review, subscribe, and while you're at it, please don't forget to review and subscribe to True Crime with Tiff Klein and turning the corner, corner starts with a K. I am also on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. You can find me on your favorite streaming platforms for podcasts like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, and iHeart. And I talked to