The story begins with a friend that my wife and I had met about 3 years ago. He was a single dad (we’ll call him Sam), and his daughter, we’ll call Anna.
We felt very bad Sam and his daughter, as when we met them, it seemed like they had a sad story to tell, about how life seemed to treat them poorly.
He was getting evicted from his residence, and had to relocate, so we offered them a place to stay, at an apartment that my girlfriend (now my wife) owned.
We felt that it was one of the small things we could do to help him and Anna. Things went well for about 9 months, until this time in March of 2009. In March,
his unit caught on fire, and he lost everything. Without any family nearby, I convinced my parents to let Sam and Anna live in my parents house, as we had
an extra un-used bedroom.
For the first few months, it went well, but it seemed that Sam had no motivation to move out. He had always been down on his luck, so we did everything
we could to educate him in finances (he went bankrupt once, and my wife and I took it upon ourselves to help him get out of debt once), and provide some
help for Anna too – since she didn’t have a lot of good female influences in her life. My wife, Tabitha (then girlfriend – name changed, for what its worth) took
it upon herself to help out with Anna, to try and give her friendship, which we thought would help her without her mom in the picture.
That’s when it started going wrong.
Anna became very attached to Tabby. At first, it was understandable, because Anna never really had any female figures in her life. For the most part,
Tabby dealt with it well, as when she came over to visit me, she would take Anna to the store and tried to be a positive role model to her. As she developed
a friendship with her, it seemed that Sam was beginning to pay some attention to Tabitha. I tried to convince Tabby that this would be a major problem, but
Tabby mostly played it off, as she thought that, of all things, Sam would be a grave fool for liking another man’s girlfriend – much less when we had both been
gracious to help him out with his housing situation.
Then, the worst thing that could of ever happened, took place. I was away on a business trip across country. I didn’t think much of it, as I had traveled many times
before, without any issue. She told me that Anna was going to come over, and take a walk with her the day before I got back from my trip. I told her I wasn’t sure
if that was a wise thing, as I was gone, and I didn’t feel safe with Tabby being around Sam without me being there. She brushed it off, as Tabby still lived at home, and her
parents would be there.
When I got home from my trip, Tabby sat me down, and told me the most horrific thing had taken place. When she took Anna for the walk, and went home, Sam and Anna
followed her in the house – which at times was usual. However, Sam began to *play* with Tabby in a very disconcerting way, which eventually led to him molesting my
Tabby, with Anna in the same room, not knowing what he was trying to do. When I found out, I was furious. It took everything within me not to kill Sam, as he was
someone I trusted – enough to move in at my house – enough to help out time and time again with various things. I confronted him about it, and he admitted to touching her
inappropriately. I did what I needed to to keep my calm, but told him that he would never talk to, or be around Tabitha ever again. I also demanded that he find a place to move to,
away from my house and the situation. From then on, things got a lot better, and Tabitha and I got engaged, and were ready to get married.
It was Anna’s dream to be a bridesmaid in our wedding. She talked to Tabby about it constantly, even after Sam and her moved out (even though they had very little
contact after they moved out). Being of poor finances, we took it upon ourselves to buy her this junior bridesmaid dress. Everything went well, until about 3 weeks before the wedding.
Sam contacted Tabby, and told her that he was taking away the one thing Anna dreamed about – being in the wedding.
The wedding went fine, but Anna was never allowed to come to the wedding. Tabby and I are not of solid finances – although the fire happened 2 years ago, the damages from the
fire still remain in the form of having to fix and upgrade areas of the building. This is why we are hoping that the dress can sell for the reserve price.
