1. Cheyenne
We went to a ceremony this evening. It took place in a park as the sun was going
down. It was a beautiful night – cloudless, comfortable temperature. The grass was
green and nicely trimmed. Many people were wearing purple – the color worn in honor
of victims of domestic violence.
October is, among other things, Domestic Violence Awareness month. This ceremony
was to honor the 119 ladies killed by domestic violence in 2013 in the state of Texas.
The people who organized the ceremony handed out purple slips of paper with the
name of a woman killed last year, the location and date of her death, and a brief
summary of what happened.
As people gathered a reported from the paper came around to ask us a few questions.
He only got one question out – ‘Why are you here tonight?' My answer was to support a
friend and my husband added that the friend was a friend of one of the victims. I took
him over to my friend & handed him off. I wandered off, but I watched as she spoke to
him for several minutes. She's good at that kind of thing – talking about her friend who
was killed, keeping her friend's name on the surface, so she is not forgotten in the
shuffle of so many other things.
I knew one of the victims whose name was read tonight. I worked at the same business
as both the victim and our friend. The victim's name was Cheyenne. She was pretty,
always had a smile but wasn't an especially outgoing person – at least not to me. I'm
probably wrong about the outgoing part. She had many friends at work. I wasn't one of
them, and that was my fault than anyone else's. I don't take a lot of time with people
who don't find me amusing. I do think it's safe to say that Cheyenne held herself apart
from a lot of us. For the oblivious, situationally uneducated, and/or naïve, this holding
back was perceived as conceit; we thought she was stuck up.
One day she didn't come in because she was moving herself and her child out of the
home of her abusive boyfriend while he was at work. That was the first many of us
knew that she was in a less than pleasant relationship. Not long enough later, she went
back to him. Those of us who were clueless about this type of situation shook our
heads and labeled her an idiot… and probably several other inappropriate names.
Her name was Cheyenne. She was 29 years old when she was shot by her ex-
boyfriend – the father of her child – in the parking lot of a high school. Their very young
son was in the car at the time. He shot her once in the back/shoulder area as she was
trying to get out of her car. He shot her again, in the back, when she tried to run.
Finally, he exited the car and, as she was likely begging for mercy, he shot her in the
head. After the shooting, he got into his vehicle and drove away, at some point calling
another woman from his life (his wife, I think, but I'm not sure) to tell her she needed to
leave the football game to go collect the baby from Cheyenne's car.

2. This man has a history of family violence. Cheyenne tried filing a restraining order
against him. Before this night in late September of 2013, she left him again – for the
last time – and began to reconstruct her life. She had friends who knew her, knew her
story, and supported her in her journey to create a life for herself and her son. She was
murdered on a Thursday night.
I didn't know her very well before her death but because of our mutual friend - her very
good friend - I know a little more of her now. I now know Cheyenne was a warm, loving,
intelligent woman; capable of doing anything she set her mind to do. She was brave,
she was private, and she was very, very good at hiding her true feelings.
As you can tell, I still don't know very much about Cheyenne. I know the man who killed
her must be a very charismatic person to be able to charm multiple women into his life
repeatedly. He must know a lot about manipulating people and circumstances because
he is reported to be "a model prisoner." Then again, maybe it doesn't take much to
behave in the jail of a small county.
So this evening people gathered to read the names of victims and honor them in a small
way. As the names were read aloud, pearly white balloons were handed out to those of
us in attendance. The balloons were released – some individually, some in bunches.
As the surviving family members of two victims stepped off the stage to release their
balloons, one of the mothers said the balloons looked like "tears going up for a change,
instead of falling down."