Dana's Story

Tears In Heaven by: Eric Clapton

Dana's Story

My Gift To My Best Friend

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.

APRIL 30, 1996..It started off as a good day. Matt was actually going to pay rent this month! (He refused to work or help her with the bills.) While he was gone she went to Grandy's to get something to eat, she loved their chicken fried steak! Matt had gone to have lunch with his grandfather, and no doubt bum money from him. BUT when she was done eating she had to hide the food containers so he wouldn't know she had eaten. She told our mom that it would p*ss him off if he knew that she had eaten! Later that day her & Matt were going somewhere and stopped to get gas, when Dana was done pumping the gas (this chore was beneath him) she went in to pay. While she was inside she got a few scratch off lottery tickets. Well, she won $100.00 on one of the tickets. Matt decided that he had to tell all his friends how HE had won on the ticket. He also decided that they would go out that night to a bowling alley/club. Dana asked our mom to go with them since one of Matt's friends was also going, and she said yes. Matt had 1 drink before he started in on her. Dana HATED him going to stripe joints, so he knew that was a button of hers that he could push! He started in talking about how he and a friend of his had gone to the stripe joint a couple of days before and were going again on Sunday. This really upset Dana and she started to cry. Mom says that Dana couldn't stop crying, so she finally got her up and into the ladies room. While they were in the restroom, Matt and his friend left. He liked to do this to her. So Dana and my mom left. Dana didn't want to go home, so they went to another club to talk. Well Matt tracked her down. While my mother was in the restroom, Matt came in and made Dana leave with him, without telling mom. Mom wasn't sure where she was at, she had gotten turned around after they left the bowling alley, and didn't know the part of town that they went to. No, she wasn't drunk, she just wasn't sure of how to get home. So mom took off driving, hopeing to find her way back to my apartment. At 2:08 a.m. Matt called me. Dana & I always called each other after we had been out to let the other one know that we were home, and fine. Matt told me that they were home and going to bed. I didn't ask to talk to Dana and that is something that I will ALWAYS regret. After we hung up mom called me to let me know that she had gotten lost. We talked on the phone for about an hour because she was so upset about getting lost and about what Matt had done to Dana at they bowling alley. She asked me to call Dana back and make sure she was ok. I told her that I would, and told her to come to my apartment and we'd take it from there. I did try to call Dana back, but the phone was busy. Matt had knocked the phone off the hook in the process of DESTROYING the apartment. The police had to literally wade through the apartment to get Dana's ID. Matt killed her around 2:30 a.m., just a few minutes after he had called me. I didn't know this so I asked a friend to check on her when he got off of work (around 6 a.m.) and to call me and let me know how she was. He called and said her truck was there, but couldn't get anyone to come to the door. Then when my husband got home from work (about 8 a.m.) he went to her apartment to check on her. He spent at least an hour and a half trying to get her to answer the door. Then finally her upstairs neighbor came out and told him that something had happened and he needed to go see the mananger of the apartments. She in return told him that he needed to contact the police. When he came home and told me that something had happened and we needed to call the police, I knew then that something was wrong and that one of them was dead.

The police were on my doorstep at about 10:15 a.m. to tell me that Dana had been murdered by Matt.

It seems that after he called me he just went off. Dana was changing her clothes so she could go to bed when he started in on her again. She was running from him when he killed her. My apartment was about 6-7 blocks from her's. We lived in different apartments, but they were about that close to each other. We had a residential area between us. Anyway, she was running through the parking lot in the direction of my apartment when he ran over her with his truck. We're not talking big truck, we're talking about a small Mazda B-2000 truck. We believe that she was trying to get to my apartment when he killed her. She was only wearing her panties and a small t-shirt. Once he hit her with his truck he decided he was going to leave the state. But first he stopped at a gas station to see what damage was done to his truck. He wasn't concerned about her, just his truck! For some reason he went back to the apartment. There is only one way in and one way out of the apartments she lived in so he had to pass by her on his way out. I guess he decided to get her help because he passed by her, then stopped and put her in his tuck. Let me put it this way, he drug he to his truck. How he got "all" of her in I'll never know. He then took her to a gas station. They said that he drove in the parking lot like he was just another customer, in no hurry. He went in and all he said was "Call 911, my girlfriend's been hurt." He then went out to his truck and took his shirt off and neatly folded it and put it behind his seat. One of the customers came out to the truck and was giving her first aid, but Matt just stood there and wouldn't help him. Matt claims that he took Dana to the gas station because he didn't know where the hospital was. NOT! He had gone to the E.R. of the hospital just that week when Dana had taken my mom up there. It was actually closer to the hospital than it was to the gas station!

Matt was arrested at the scene and was taken to a different hospital for blood test. He actually called me about an hour after the police had left my apartment. He said he was sorry and that he didn't mean to hurt her. He then called back later and asked me to bring him so clothes from the apartment because his had "all Dana's blood on them." I told him I would just so I could get the apartment keys away from him. I never did though. The next time he called he was b*tching about is cats saying "Nobody better F**K with my cats!" That was all he cared about!!! He then called again, this time he described Dana as a speed bump. In those exact words..."I guess she was like a speed bump." We never talked to him again after that call. We would just hang up when we found out it was him. The police ended up having to block my phone number from both the city and county jail so he couldn't call anymore.

To hear about Matt's trial go to "Matt's Trial"

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More Domectic Violence Links
Helping A Friend
The Clothesline Project
My Angel Ashley
Ashley's Birth
Ashley: Saying Goodbye

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