My Daughter's House

My Daughter's House...what a funny name for a blog you might say. As you, our friends ,know our daughter, Krista is currently in a federal prison. The girls call their cells "home". It is the only "home" they know at this point and for some of them it has been home or will be home for years.

Krista...Krista has a magnetic personality. She is sweet. She is~ roll on the floor until you are crying funny! Krista is loving and cuddly. Krista is the type of person that you are so happy to have in your life...she is unique. Having said all that , Krista went through a time of great questioning...of her faith, of her values & even of her belief in God.

Krista went to stay with Frank's sister for a summer...there she met some people. She felt she could be an influence. Before we knew it, she was living with a guy and everything went down hill from there.He was into dealing drugs, he was controlling and became abusive. To make a long story short...he went back to prison for a parole violation and she broke up with him. He got out and stalked her. Wanting her to come back to him. She had moved on and had another boyfriend..things began to heat up. She was scared but her boyfriend didn't want to move away because of his mother. She was not well and he felt he needed to be close. Her boss offered her a gun to protect herself and we told her not to take it.

Krista was called and asked to come over to a friends apartment. She went and her ex was there.
She was stripped, she was held at gunpoint, a loaded gun cocked and held in her mouth for 45 minutes. Finally she was let go and told the next time he saw her she would be dead. She went to her boss. She wanted to protect herself. She asked for the gun. He said a friend had it. Unknown to her he was an ex con and a confidential informant. He called an undercover officer and told him she wanted her ex killed. They met and she was asked to trade something for the gun. She offered cocaine. She went and got it and the discussion turned to killing the ex...they led her, she panicked and in the end she agreed to have him killed.

I will never forget that Saturday morning as long as I live. The phone rang and it was Krista's boyfriend sobbing on the other end of the line. "I'm so sorry" he sobbed "I'm so sorry". I asked him where Krista was and all he could do was cry. Finally, I felt the rage of a mother bear over her cub... I wanted to know yet I didn't...because I thought she was dead. "Where is my daughter?" I demanded in a firm voice. His voice finally came through, "She is in jail."
I was stunned. "In jail? For what?" His answer came out in the midst of sobs "Conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree and drug trafficking."

My knees gave way and I hit the floor crying out "Oh God, no! No, God , please no!" Together on the phone we sobbed. My best friend, Laurie walked in the house and knew something was horribly wrong. My baby, my Krista was sitting in a jail.

Frank was outside. I went out and told him. His face went white. We got on the phone and called the county jail. I asked if Krista was being held there. The officer assured me that he was sitting across the desk from her. He handed the phone to her and all she could say was "I am so sorry". We all cried.

That was a dark day. I had two photo shoots to do and had just talked to my daughter who was crying so hard that it rattled me to the core. Frank and I decided not to say anything to our church yet. We called our family & my best friend knew. Laurie, my best friend was in shock too. Her daughter , Kelly and Krista were best friends and had been for years. Krista calls Laurie her 2nd mom! Together we cried and she helped calm me down enough to do my shoots. The only other person I told was Carol Mullins. Doug and Carol had been my pastors when I was about 10 years old. I would sit with her on Sunday nights and pretend she was my mom. My mom died when I was 2 and my home life was not good. The month before in Nov, I found her. I had looked for a very long time - wanting to thank her for what she had meant to me. I found her and 2 weeks later Krista was arrested and once again she was there when I needed her.

We decided to call a special church board meeting for that Monday night. As we told them , cries came out and tears flowed. Everyone was upset, this was not something you would expect from Krista. Krista was known for compassion, Krista was the child who when she was in first grade had us drive her an hour and a half each way to see a little boy who was in her class that was in the children's hospital with cancer. Krista is the child who motivated us to sing Christmas carols to him outside his home in minus 20 degree weather because he couldn't come out. Krista is the person that stood up for the underdogs, who went on mission trips and held sick heads over toilets when they all got sick, Krista is the girl who volunteered at the hospital to read to the patients and cried when they passed on. Krista is the teen who worked in a nursing home as an aide and gave up her Christmas so a mother could be home with her kids, Krista is the person who along with a friend rescued a man from a burning truck, Krista is the person who would fill her car with friends to go see her friend, Ryan who lost the use of his body in an accident and was living in the hospital...this was the Krista they knew...now she was on suicide watch, wearing a paper gown and vomiting because she was so scared. The church stood beside us. Helping to pay for our flights to the states, sending letters to the judge, writing Krista and sending her money and books.

Frank and I took turns flying to the states so she would have more visits. I flew down the first time with Laurie. We rented a car and drove to the holding facility. She had been moved from the county jail. We parked in the lot and I looked at the fences, the razor wire, the gates that separated us and I wept. The next day we went for our visit. My nerves were keyed up...I didn't know what to expect, there is no manual for visiting your child in prison. We walked into a room that had little cubicles like in an ace school. It was like a horseshoe, and instead of a wall there was Plexiglas and telephones. We saw Krista in the corner and as I walked up she looked in my eyes and sobbed...I picked up the phone and heard"I'm so sorry, mom. I am so sorry."

We took turns visiting with her for the next 2 hours and laughed and cried. I asked her where her birthstone ring was that her dad and I had bought her. It was stolen that fateful night. I told her I wanted to get her a ring and I would wear it until the day she was free as a symbol that this painful season didn't come to stay that it would pass. That someday I would put the ring on her finger. She cried. It was time to say goodbye, to leave her there...I put my hand on the glass and she placed hers there, it was the closest we could get..she kissed at the glass and I kissed her back. We were both crying now. I went to leave, looking back I saw her inmate friends surround her, they were comforting her as she stood there tears rolling down her cheeks.

We stayed a few days as she had a court appearance. We sat in the court as they brought her in. Her legs shackled, wearing little floppy shoes as she tried to get to her seat. They had uncuffed her hands before she came in so she waved and mouthed "I love you". I had asked the lawyer to ask the Marshalls if I could hug her before they led her out again. The hearing finished and I saw her lawyer talk to the Marshall and his head shook out the answer "No". Krista hearing this conversation began to cry hard and I lost it. Her lawyer who is a christian gathered my daughter in her arms and held her...I saw her whisper in Krista's ear. They led her away, shuffling her feet. As she walked by I cried out "I love you!" She looked at me and I held a ring up, she nodded her head. I had bought a ring over the weekend for her, our symbol...I wanted her to know that I had kept my promise.
They led her to a door and the Marshall pulled out his cuffs..."Please," I heard her say "Please, not in front of my mom".He turned his body and stood where I couldn't see, cuffed her and she was gone. I stumbled out of the court room heart broken, so close to touching her and yet so far. I leaned against he wall, my friend with her arms around me as she cried herself. Krista's lawyer came out and walked up to me and without saying anything she took me in her arms and then after a few moments she said " I hugged your daughter and as I did I told her "Krista, this hug is from your mother! Now Shari, I am telling you this hug is from your daughter!" The flood gates were now completely open. Reality was more than complete.

Court dates are set and broken. Krista had a wonderful female lawyer who went beyond the call of duty! Her charges were down graded to trying to negotiate a murder for hire by telephone. They dropped the drug charges. Krista was set to go to trial on Oct 31st 2006 but they wanted her to testify against the person who helped her get the drugs. She refused. Her lawyer had a conflict of interest with the person who sold the drugs and if Krista went to trial she would have to get a new lawyer..t he new lawyer was going to make her testify against the person who got the drugs in order to save Krista and get her less time. Krista said "This is my sin, my issue. I can't look in the mirror every morning knowing I am free because I told on someone else." So she settled with a plea bargain of 7 years and the agreement that we could argue at sentencing for lesser time.

We were exhausted. We knew that Krista was going to serve time and we needed to be in the States as we were living and pastoring in Canada. Frank once again called a special board meeting and he resigned. The motion needed to be made to accept his resignation. you could hear a pin drop. No one would make the motion. They offered a sabbatical but we knew it would be years before Krista would be allowed to cross the border. Finally they made a motion that because of their love for Krista they would accept Frank's resignation... A churches love not only for their pastor but for a little girl they had known since she was 8 years old!

We went back and forth trying to decide where to move. We had no clue where Krista would be sent...before our move I decided to go see Krista and go to see a friend of hers who had been moved to Fort Worth , Texas. This girl had saved Krista from a beating by another inmate. I also decided to go and see Sherrill and Linda Stiles. Linda had been another person who had influenced me so much in my youth....oh, the hours at camps that she listened to me rattle on! She agreed to go with me to visit the prison in Fort Worth. It was a great time and we saw Shawn, Laurie and their family. Nathan was undergoing treatments and it tore my heart up to see him so unwell. We also met up with Leeman, Stacy and their family. It was a time for rest in my heart before the storm to come. I spoke to Stiles church and it was amazing to see Krista's story touch hearts and lives.

I went home ready to move when I received a phone call. I had been dizzy and had some tests before my trip and the results were in...it looked like their was something on my brain. Well, our medical insurance was in Canada so to make a long story short...we moved Frank and all our belongings to the States so he could be close to not only Krista but our son, Jaron as well. Jaron was not dealing well with the situation at all. A decision had to be made and Frank moved and I stayed. I lived with my friends , Pat & Laurie Schneider for about 9 months. I have a noncancerous tumor on my hearing nerve. It is still there as it is too delicate at this point to operate on.

Krista was sentenced in March 2007. It was a 2 day sentencing as they allowed us to argue. She had been examined and was found to be suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome and showed all the signs of a battered woman. The undercover cop came forward to the judge and admitted that they led Krista in the decision of the murder for hire. There was a huge support system for Krista but in the end the judge gave her 5 years 10 months. It was gut wrenching. Her lawyer thought she go free or at the most be in a few months. We had bought clothes to bring her home.

So in July of 2007 Krista was taken to W.V to the federal prison there. I moved to the States in Oct and went to see her. What a day it was... I hadn't touched my daughter in over 2 years and now I would be holding her! I was in the visitation room, nervous, excited, anxious...why didn't they hurry with her faster. The door swung open and she walked in...so beautiful, a nervous smile on her face...we hurried to each other and it was so emotional that there are no words to describe it!

Well, that is a start of what I have to say...there is so much to tell, to share..not only about Krista but about the other girls who call me their mother. Most of them have no support and we have become family. So in my daughter's house... there is chaos, there is pain, there is sorrow, there is regret but also there is something that trumps it all...in my daughter's house there is God!