I read about a lady that got shot by her ex-boyfriend. He was abusing and harassing her. He would drive by her house , follow her around town and even jump in her car when she stopped at a stop sign. He would put sugar in her gas tank, slashed two sets of tires and cut the power steering, along with just plain vandalizing the cars. tired of this she filed a harassment charge against him. When in court he threatened to kill her she signed a restraining order against him.
When she got home that evening her friend asked if she wanted them to come over and she accepted. During the middle of the night her boyfriend broke into her house and held all of the kids hostage. When he put the gun down she immediately grabbed it, as both women struggled with the boyfriend for the gun and screamed for the kids to run. The smallest one not wanting to leave his mother was pulled away by an older child. As he pulled the gun away and yelled at her to retract the restraining order she tried to run away.
As she tried to get away he shot and killed her in the back, the friend seeing an opportunity to escape ran, the ex-boyfriend shot at her and missed, he then decided to take his own life.
In the farewell letters they wrote she asked her dad to get her three kids into a good Christian home, not a cruddy orphanage.
When her kids go and spend time with their grand parents, they ask questions like" Why are people so mean and "Am I going to have to sleep by the window?, Is anyone going to break it?" unfortunately they can't stay there long because their grandfather is ill with a life-long polio so he can't take care of them full time.
I think that this really suck for the kids, going through life without a mom has got to be very hard especially when you are young like 9,6,or 4, the ages of her kids.
www.acadv.org/stories.html