...something inside me broke. It was as if someone had taken a lovely crystal glass and crushed it with one tight squeeze. Shattering it into tiny fragments. My entire body was thousands of slivers of glass that had broken with three simple words, "They are gone." In such a brief second all had changed. Violent crimes occur every day. However, they are not supposed to happen to us. Right? So, what do we do now? How do we cope? What questions do we ask? Where do we find the answers? How do we go on? It took many years after the loss of my family to learn how to cope and survive, day to day, minute by minute. I hope that I can offer some help and insight for you as a fellow victim of violent crime. Hopefully this book will help to understand the victims world and help victims to move forward.

This is the true story of one of the most heinous crimes committed in Indiana...the Patrick Gilligan Family... The crime, the criminal Donald Ray Wallace Jr., the victims and the unrest this death penalty wait held for 25 years. It is a parallel story of both the criminal, the victims and their lives. This story is not only about a cold blooded crime, but also about the journey one travels as a victim. This is the story from the initial crime to its conclusion, with twists & turns that most average people seldom understand or endure. This book tells of the Death Penalty wait for both the criminal and the victims and how their lives are forever intertwined. Stories such as this one are few and far between. Crimes happen in the millions but the victims story, along with the criminal's story, are often not told in their entirety.