This is my sister's story. I dedicate my website in her memory. May I bring something special to other lives as she did mine. This is the shirt I made for Dana as part of the Clothesline Project. It's not the finished product, but I couldn't wait to put it up here! When Dana was murdered she was 27 years old. We never thought it could happen to us. She loved life & MUSIC!! The song you hear on each page of my website was a song she loved. A few of them we played at her funreal. Dana also loved working with the mentally ill. About a week before she died she had been offered a job working at a residential center. She was so excited!! Dana was so good with people. I haven't mentioned this before, but I also have a daughter that is in heaven with Dana. We found out while I was pregnant that our baby wouldn't make it. Of course, we wanted a second opinion. So we decide to travel almost 400 miles to see the doctor that had delivered our twins. One problem though, we had the twins, and didn't know how long we'd be gone. In comes Dana! She volunteered to watch them for us. Mind you they were 3 years old and she had never watched them alone before! Naptime came so she layed down to. Well, they woke-up before her. They couldn't have been up more than 10 minutes when she heard them in the kitchen (she was napping on the couch). Needless to say, they had been into a few things! They had crushed Pringles ALL OVER THE FLOOR! She thought this was so funny! Then later that day one of my other sisters (Cindy) had called and invited them to dinner. Dana didn't do a lot of cooking. Anyway, Cindy had already planned the meal for that night. The only way Dana would go over there was if Cindy changed the meal plans, Dana wasn't sure if I let the twins eat hot dogs! Not having kids, she didn't know this was a main staple for kids. Ya see, that's just how Dana was. She was always there if you needed her, and she loved doing it! When our daughter died, my husband had to be at work that night (he had just started a new job after getting out of the Army). I was all alone sitting in my hospital room crying...and in walks Dana. She had decide to come stay with me so I wouldn't be alone. She stayed everynight until I was released. Then the night I came home from the hospital she had to work and so did my husband. They both worked nights. If you've already figured Dana out, you know what she did. She went ahead into work BUT, came back about an hour later saying that she couldn't leave me alone. That's just how she was. About a year later she met Matt. I can honestly say, I NEVER liked him. I guess you could say that I didn't think he was good enough for her. She let him move into her apartment when he was kicked out of his, she felt sorry for him. THAT'S when the trouble started. He had never been abusive toward her before. Once he moved in, it started as emotional abuse. Then it exculated into him throwing things when he got mad. She was so afaird of him that when the brakes went out on her truck she refused to let anyone change them for fear that he would get mad. My husband is a mechanic, so it's not like he didn't know what to do. She went for about 2 weeks without driving her truck because of this. He had her where he wanted her, at home and at his mercy. He had to take her where ever she needed to go...He would leave the house going to the store and not come back until late that night. Of course I thought that it was all pretty stupid, it just wasn't like her to be this way! I would ask her if she wanted me to come get her so we could visit. Her answer was always No, she was afraid he'd come back and be mad that she wasn't there. Now don't think Dana was always a push over like this to him, she wasn't. She had try'd to get him out of her apartment many times. The last time she tried she had packed all his stuff while he was gone and put it by the front door. He refused to leave. At that point she snuck off into the bedroom and called a friend and asked him to call the police for her. When the police got there, they did NOTHING!!! They told her that they couldn't make him leave. Even though his name wasn't on the lease, it was still considered his apartment to them. I think that night Dana lost all hope of getting away from him. ~