Fire Eyes Media.

Every week I talk about the strength and courage that the families of victims seem to muster following tragedy, and how much I admire that strength and resilience.

This week's episode embodies that courage to its core with a special guest on the mic with me, Hope.

Mater tragically lost her two children to fill Aside in May of twenty twenty four, and since then it has been her mission to keep their memories alive, advocate for them, and hopefully prevent another family from going through the same unimaginable loss.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Truly Twisted.

As always, i'm your host, Eli Sha Watson.

As you heard in the intro, I have a very special guest joining me today.

This episode format will be a little bit different than how you've seen it thus far, but I just want to give this space and time to Hope to tell her story, her mission, and how we can help further support her.

So welcome Hope, and thank you so much for being here with me today.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Yeah.

So, my story is one of tragedy, but I try to take that tragedy and move it into something that can be positive.

So, my children, Alec age seven and Lydia, age six, were tragically killed at the hands of their father, my soon to be ex husband, brock Mater, And so it's my mission and vision now to spread awareness of phillicide and to make sure that this does keep happening to other families, because unfortunately, over four hundred and twenty kids from the United States die via phyllis side each and every year.

Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less.

So I wanted to come out here and share my story.

I very much appreciate you being here with me.

And again, like I said, I so admire your strength.

And one thing that really stood out to me on your tiktoks and your Instagram was just how positive and beautiful your energy is.

Most people would crumble in your situation.

So I just I think that that's amazing that you were able to, you know, put a smile on and keep keeping your children's stories alive.

So I would like to start, because my show is always very victim focused.

If you're comfortable, would you like to share a little bit about Lydia and Alec.

Yeah, So, ly was a sweet little girl.

She was our baby of the family, and she loved anything to do with arts and crafts, and she loved swimming, and she really really enjoyed playing with her brother, Alec.

Alec was our first born.

He was seven, and he loved Pokemon, anything to do with Pikachu.

He had huge Pikachu and Pokemon stuffed animals in his room.

He was very musically oriented, so he loved to sing and dance to music.

There are many times that I would have to go in his room and tell him to turn his iPad down because he had the music like blaring so loud that it was like distorted almost.

So every time I hear some of his songs that he'd play on his iPad, I'd like smile because it makes me remember them.

So it's almost like he's right there with you.

Yes, yes, well they sound like absolutely beautiful and just goes to show the testament of how they were raised.

By yourself, I would love to know a little bit more about you as well.

What was your life like, your family life like up until May of twenty twenty four.

Yeah, So I went to school to be a special education teacher.

I got my degree in that and I taught in special education for ten years.

My first year in special education, I couldn't find a job, so I went to a career fair and so I transplanted me and Brack, which is my ex husband, and we transplanted and moved to Arizona, and so I started working in a school district there as a special education teacher and we shortly got married after that.

We were married in twenty fifteen, and then we just started building our family in Arizona, which consisted of a bunch of friends and just you know, getting to know the city that we lived in.

And we loved it.

Arizona never felt like we were homesick.

It always felt like our home.

And so I just love the sunshine and the mountains and the blue skies all the time.

There's over three hundred days of sunshine in Arizona, so no snow like I'm dealing with.

No.

Yeah, it was good.

And then we got pregnant with Alec and we had him, and he was such a happy little boy and he was just a bundle of joy.

He was sick, and so he got sick a lot as a little baby, and I often had to stay home where Brock would have to stay home from work and take care of him.

About a year into his life, when he was one, we found out that he had a severe peanut and nut allergy and so he actually almost passed away from that, and so we got him tested for the whole gamut of allergies and come to find out he was also allergic to sesame seeds and eggs.

So we always made sure that we had EpiPens on hand, and that we taught him from a very young age that if he was going to go eat something, that he needed to ask me or Brock first before he went ahead and ate something.

Even if it was something, even if it was around somebody that he trusted, like another adult, he'd still come to us and ask for if he could have that from a very young age, like three years old.

So yeah, he sounds very very smart, and it's scary as a parent to experience something like that, like.

Especially at that age.

She couldn't you know, one years old.

They can't communicate, they can't talk.

And yeah, he went into anaphylaxis, and yeah, he almost passed away, so we were able to catch it in time.

But yeah, and then you know, I just continued working and then we've had lydia and she was just again, just like Alec.

They were so close and they were only twenty two months apart, so they were super close in age.

So when I had Lydia, you know, he was still really little.

And so to teaching Alec like how to hold Lydia and how to you know, make sure he didn't like hurt her and stuff like that, that was a really fun time in our lives to do that.

Lydia was just, like I said, a bundle of joy.

She was the loud child.

She was the one that would run around and like be like super off the wall and goofy and make funny faces and and they just like played off of each other.

They they were really great siblings.

They loved each other so much.

Uh, like I said, was six when she passed away, So she just turned six, like five days before her birthday is actually May fourteenth, and they passed away technically on May nineteenth, so five days before she was she just to turn six.

So I don't know what else would you like to know.

So, leading up to the tragedy that you and your family went through, you and Brock were in the process of getting a divorce.

Do you want to talk a little bit about what led to that in the marriage, a little bit about how you were feeling in those moments, because I know that there was some protective orders put into place and things were done very carefully on your part.

So yes, yes, So there was manipulation and abuse and coercion a lot in our marriage and relationship.

I like to tell people that listened to my story that know what didn't happen overnight.

It wasn't like I woke up one day and brought like there was like a switch that went off and he like completely, you know, like changed and became you know, controlling and abuse him and stuff.

It happens with with domestic violence victims.

It happens over time, and so you don't know what's happening until you're too far in and then you realize, oh, this isn't normal, this isn't right, and then you're kind of like stuck, and then you have to make that decision of like Okay, what do I what do I do to get out of this situation safely?

So you know, there was always coersion and control.

He always wanted to make the decisions.

I I I attribute a lot of it to like his roller coaster of emotions and at that point, we didn't know or either of us knew that he had mental illness.

But kind of looking back, hindsight is twenty twenty, and there were characteristics and trait leading to that, but we didn't recognize it in the moment.

And so, like I said, his emotions were always up and down, and you never knew what kind of mood he was going to be in from hour to hour, and so it was kind of walking on eggshells and stuff like that.

And then because of his mood shifting so much, and kind of researching now I understand again hindsight's twenty twenty.

Researching bipolar, researching mental health issues.

It's like a pendulum that swings, as the best analogy that I can give, and so like slowly the pendulum swings, but when it gets so out of whack, it swings very rapidly, and that's how his moods became.

So there was a time that he became physically abusive, and that's when those moods would shift so drastically, where he would be fine one minute and then the next minute he was like a completely different person.

And so I decided to leave, And this was after my parents had also passed away.

So I had trauma with that, with losing my parents, and I was trying to pinpoint like when, you know, when did his shift in behavior start to happen?

And there was shift in behavior before my parents passed away and such, but I think a lot of the shift in the behavior was after my parents passed away or during I think it affected him a lot.

Even though they were my parents.

He knew them for several years and they were like his parents, So I think internally, even though he didn't voice this, I think that it affected him a lot more than he let on.

And so that's where that pendulum swing comes from.

And so I decided to leave because he wasn't getting any better and he wouldn't go and seek help, and so I decided to leave because I always say that my life is too short to live in this situation.

God didn't now want me to be in the marriage, and I did not want to be in the marriage because I know that life is too short.

Losing my parents at a young age or they were sixty three and sixty four when they passed away, so kind of just having that realization of you know, I don't want to live like this for the rest of my life.

Yeah, puts things into perspective.

It puts things into perspective, and maybe maybe we're better apart.

You know, we were good people, but we weren't the best together.

So I separated from him.

When I did so, he immediately stated that he was going to kill himself in front of Alec and Lydia.

I was not in the house at the time.

We had like gotten into like like an argument, and I could it wasn't to the point that it was out of control.

So I wanted to remove myself from the argument.

So I went outside and took a walk, and again, in my head, I was the one that was being abused.

Alec and Lydia, in my head, were never in danger.

I never thought that Brock would ever hurt them in any manner.

He had never hurt them prior.

He'd only abused me.

And so I took a walk and stuff, and so I got up the courage to say that I wanted a divorce, and I called him and I told him that over the phone, and then, like I said, his response was, we'll come back and get the kids, because I'm going to kill myself in front of them.

And I didn't want to go back into the house, because I knew if I went back into the house then something could have escalated more.

And so I called nine one one and I talked to the dispatcher, and the dispatcher you know, said could you go inside?

And I said no, I didn't want to go inside.

It didn't feel safe, and so I stayed outside.

The police came.

They talked to both of us.

He did admit that he he said that he wanted to kill himself, and so I they took us apart, and like each talked to a police officer and so we kind of set out side of the story.

And the police officer that I talked to could see that I had like the I was like the domestic violence wife, like I guess there's like attributes that he could see, like I was very scared, I was shaking.

I was trying to still protect Rock.

So I wasn't being forthcoming with certain information.

And so he pulled me to pack some bags and to take Alec and Lydia to a hotel.

And so I didn't understand why I couldn't just stay at the house.

It wasn't computing in my brain that it was as severe as it could potentially of ben and so I did follow the instructions of the police officers and I went to a hotel with Alec and Lydia packed some bags, and Brock had went to the hospital at that point to be checked out as he made that threat.

They have they had to do that as a protocol, So he did that, and so then the divorce process kind of started.

I called I called the attorneys and told them that, you know, I wanted to divorce, and then they kind of walked me through paperwork at that point, so we were at the very beginning stages.

So basically I had it filed or anything before I told Brock that I wanted to divorce, so it was kind of simultaneously.

I kind of did it after the fact.

I said I wanted to divorce and then and then I filed.

So I guess the next part of my story is I stayed at the hotel for a few days.

Brock could talk to Alec and Lydia on the phone, but I didn't have them see at Brock because I wanted to make sure that they were safe and I was following the guidelines of the police officers and such.

So I went back to Michigan to be with family for a little while and spent time with my sister and brother in law, and Alec and Lydia spent time with their cousins, and they went swimming, and we went to the trampoline park like sky Zone, and we did a whole bunch of other activities.

They jumped on the trampoline outside.

I have a video of Lydia rolling in the leaves like because like, again, we don't have grass and leaves in Arizona, so coming back to Michigan, she'd never seen like grass and leaves, so she was super excited to roll in leaves.

So yeah, I spent time with family, and then I went back to Arizona.

It was just a few days that I stayed here in Michigan.

Went back to Arizona because Alex had to go back to school.

He was in first grade, second grade, sorry, and he we took them back to school, and so Alec was in second grade.

Lydia was in kindergarden, and so we took them back to school, or I took them back to school.

And the same day that morning, I started getting weird phone calls from Brock stating that he was like wanted to get back together with me, and he was talking about weird religious beliefs, satanic stuff, demonic stuff, and so it didn't sound like him.

So I called my divorce attorney and told him, like, hey, I know that I have this protection order put in place for Brock for myself, and so he's breaking this protection order by calling me, and not just that he just wasn't sounding like himself at all.

It wasn't he.

I could tell just even over the phone.

He couldn't coherently string a sentence together.

It was very very choppy, it was very mismatched.

It he wasn't like with it.

So that also scared me for his own safety because he just wasn't He wasn't himself.

And so the police came and I talked to them and told them that he had broken the protection order, and they wrote up a report and they basically said that they're going to go they were going to go and give it to him and and like let him know that he had violated the protection order.

And so while we were doing that at the police station, while I was talking to police officers about the protection order about him breaking that, I just got this like gut feeling that something that I needed to call the kids a school because I don't know, I just got this gut feeling like I need to go check out Alec and let me make sure they're okay, Like not a gut feeling that something was wrong, but I like I should call him, Yeah, just call and check on them.

So I called and the secretary told me like, oh, they're not here, like b came and picked them up, and I was like what, Like why would he pick them up?

And so then I started getting like worried, like why would he pick them up?

It was a Monday, and we already have a half day on Mondays already every Monday they had a half day as part of their school calendar, and so I was very confused and concerned why he had already picked them up because it was only like it wasn't even time to be released from school and it was a half day anyways.

And so I called and I couldn't get a hold of them.

I told the police officers in the police station what had happened, and they're like, we'll just keep calling.

And I was like, can't you do anything, Like can't you go like check and make sure they're okay, can't you like go and get them for me and bring them back.

And at that point they couldn't really do anything ask police officers as law enforcement because there was no divorce documents put in place yet that like stated like I had full custody or Brock had, you know, like there was none of it.

There was no custody agreement at that time because it was so far, it was so early in the process.

Yeah, so they couldn't do anything.

And so I finally got a hold of Brock and I finally was able to talk to Alec and Lydia.

They sounded okay.

They were just swimming in the pool at the at the hotel that Brock took them to.

And because the police officers already told me that like they couldn't go get them, and like I obviously couldn't go get them because I had the protection order, so I couldn't be in the vicinity with them or with Brock.

I there's nothing I could do.

So the police officer basically was like, just let them be with Brock.

Make a plan for Brock to take them to school the next day.

And so that's what I did.

I I made a plan with Brock to take them to school the next day.

He was going to take them.

I was gonna pick them up after school.

And so then later that night I went to sleep and I got woken up by the police department stating that Brock had called nine to one one on himself because he was having homicidal and suicidal ideation at that point.

So he he was just in that not right mind.

Again, I don't think he was ever in the right mind, but I think it got to a tipping point that he was like, oh, I need I need help, because he was worried about his own safety.

He was very paranoid and he thought that people were after him.

He thought that me, myself and the church that we went to or like the Church of Satan, and we were like demonically possessed.

Like yeah, So he had lots of issues.

So the police came to the hotel and they co Worke.

They calmed him down and like let him or asked him if he wanted to go seek treatment, and so he said yes, and so they took him to a facility to get some mental health treatment.

So he went with them, and then I went and picked up the kids from the from the hotel and brought them back home.

So and then yeah, the next day I just put a I put an emergency protection order in place or emergency parental order in place, stating that I needed to have the kids full time, for full custody because of the reasons because he's in a mental health institution getting help.

And so yeah, I went ahead and did that, and the judge did grant me that without seeing either of us because he read the report and he's like, okay, so this gentleman is getting help.

And so to avoid a situation that had happened the day before where you're in that position where you can't go pick them up in.

Correct, correct, So we did we did that.

I put you know, procedures in place.

I left this school know what was happening.

The school had all the documents, The school knew, you know, like at this point, I had full custody, so Brock couldn't see the kids at all.

So like he like, so my main thought, like you said, was like, Okay, if he gets out of the if he gets out of the treatment center, if he goes to the school again, I don't want him to be able to get the kids.

So like explaining that to the to the school and like letting them know, like, no, Hope is the only one that's allowed to pick them up and so Brock cannot do that at this time.

So that kind of in my head put a put like protection around the kids because I knew that even at school they were safe because he couldn't come to the school and get them.

If he did that, then they would have obviously called the police and taken him away.

And thankfully that never happened.

But just putting that procedure in protocol in place made me feel better when they weren't in my care.

So, yeah, it sounds like you did every logical step that you could have to protect yourself and your kids.

Yes.

So I then we had to go to a hearing for those emergency protection orders when he got out of the facility, and so we had that hearing and I had to go on the stand and like explain to the judge, like what type of parenting plan temporarily I wanted, And I went in with I went in with wanting supervised custody.

So I wanted back to still be able to see Alec and Lydia, but I wanted it to be supervised by somebody with him at all times.

And so I was never again in this whole thing of this situation.

I never was like, oh I don't want him to see the kids.

I owe it, wanted him to be a part of their lives because again he didn't hurt He didn't hurt them, and yes, he like put them in danger, but I still wanted him to be a part of their lives because he was their father.

And so I was like, okay, supervised visits, Like he'll still be able to see the kids, but he'll have to have supervision.

And so then he came in with wanting straight fifty to fifty custody, like he wanted he wanted me to have fifty.

He wanted me to have them half the time and him to have them half the time, and he didn't want any supervision.

And so after the hearing, my attorney and I walked out of the courtroom like feeling very good about like okay, cool, like he will probably get supervised visits.

If he doesn't get supervised visits, he'll have something where like we never thought, my attorney and I never thought that the judge would have granted fifty to fifty at the point, even though Arizona is a fifty to fifty state, we both were thinking, okay, well he has you know, he had this mental health crisis.

He put the kids, you know, in danger, you.

Know, base medical documents and phone calls to the police.

Yeah.

Correct.

So we were like, okay, like, you know, he's the fifty to fifty he's not going to do that.

And so a couple of days later, we got the report from the judge.

Because they don't deliberate on the bench, so they gave us his orders after the fact, like a few days later, and the judge actually granted fifty to fifty custody, even though we stated, like Hope had this protection order against Brock.

Brock had taken the kids out of school without Hope's knowledge and took them to a hotel and it took Hope like an hour and a half to reach Brock.

And then after that occurred, then that same night, Brock had his mental health breakdown.

And so like again, like thing the fallt to you, it makes sense, like somebody's not going to grant somebody fifty to fifty custody after all of that, But unfortunately he did, and so we have to follow the law.

And so the judge said that brockets fifty fifty custody.

I get you know, we're gonna split it.

And so Brock got an apartment, he got a job, a new job at that point, so that he could provide for them, and we started our fifty to fifty temporary orders because that's what the judge wanted.

And so as a part of also the the hearing, we asked for a psychological evaluation be done on Brock as an extra step of precaution because if something came back in that report, then we could definitely say, like, hey, something is something is wrong here, and then possibly the judge could change his mind before final orders, because we're still in temporary orders at this point, because we're still going through the diverse process.

So we started co parenting.

It was really hard at first because I'm visually impaired, so I don't drive, So figuring out how to get the kids to Rock and like get the kids from Rock, we had to have friends help us with that.

That wasn't all the time, but on specific holidays and stuff.

Obviously I couldn't just take them there, so a lot of my friends helped with taking them to and from Brock's house and the kids were normally dropped off and picked up at school, so it was like a location that we both could meet at and like I could just from our marital residents, I could walk to the rock to the school.

So that's what I did.

But we co parented.

We got in this nice rhythm where like we were communicating via text message and email because that's the only type of communication we could have because of the protection order.

We couldn't talk.

I couldn't talk to him on the phone, and then he definitely like we couldn't be in the same vicinity as each other, and so we would like send pictures back and forth to each other of the kids, like just checking in when you know we were with you know, with one of us was with them, and they did we did homework with them, so everything was going really well.

He had his his psychological evaluation done and walking through the report and even looking through it now in the report there was some red flags, but not significant enough that somebody outside of the mental health field would I would think is an issue, And so the judge did.

He looked at three psychological report but he didn't see anything significant.

So he still stated that Brock could have the kids fifty percent at a time, So that was kind of like okay, And like at that point, by the time the results came back, We're already in this like nice rhythm of parenting.

So I was kind of like, okay, like that's fine, Like Rock is showing me that he can co parent well, you know.

And this was like a seven six six month period at this point, so it was consistent for six months.

So I was like okay, like that's fine.

And we'd started doing our final documents for the divorce process to be finalized.

We'd picked out specific holidays we wanted the kids, we picked out our summer plan because our summer plan of co parenting was going to be different than our school plan because I don't teach in the summer.

I'm a teacher, so I didn't teach in the summer.

So I was going to have them during the week and he was going to have them on the weekends.

And so like had again like nothing was like, yeah, nothing was alarming me, Like no, no alarm bells were going off in my head because everything was everything was okay.

And so had Rock received a diagnosis up until this point, like a formal diagnosis.

Yeah, and his hospital visits and.

Yeah, he was by he was diagnosed with bipolar.

Yeah.

So he was diagnosed.

He was put on medication.

Question.

Yeah.

So I think that's why we saw that that stable, like you know, normal behavior was because he was on medication.

He was, he was taking it get a little better.

He was.

He was he was getting back into his normal function of you know, being okay, and so yeah, and so I he had that diagnosis, but like I said, he was taking that med those meds and everything.

So it was April, so a year ago this month.

At the end of this month, I was talking to my attorney and I was contemplating, Okay, well, we're going to start the summer plan here in like three or four weeks like it was.

It was very soon because they were going to get out of school.

And so I was like, Okay, I feel comfortable enough to drop the protection order on myself so that Brock can come to my house and get the kids and like take them and pick them up like so that like you know, that stress of trying to find rides every single week because it was summer.

I didn't want to have that stress and put that stress on other people because that's not fair, and so I was So I was like, okay, so I dropped the protection order so that Rock come to the house and pick up the kids and you know, take them to his house, spend time with them, bring them back.

And so I I did.

I dropped the protection order May first, everything was fine.

I talked to him a few times in May because now the protection order was dropped, so we could talk on the phone.

I saw him a few times in persons.

We had to do a few things together to kind of get things smoothed out with the divorce and like financial stuff.

So i'd seen him in person, like to me, like he was fine, Like obviously there's always like I could tell he was like, you know, angry, but obviously we're going through a divorce, Like he's not going to be like.

This, Yeah, there's gonna be like yeah.

Yeah, there's gonna be emotions.

So like you know, but like it was, it was fine.

We could we could communicate well enough to have a civil conversation, and so everything was good.

So Lydia's birthday, like I said, was May fourteenth.

I spent her birthday with her.

A Brock had Alec.

That night, I just took Lydia for her birthday because it was that was in our plan, and spent the day with her.

We went to Red Robin, we went to Walmart, and I let her pick out a bunch of her toys that she wanted because she didn't want me to wrap anything that year, so she wanted to just pick everything out and just like then play with it.

Like she didn't want me to wrap anything.

She wanted to pick the stuff up.

So we did that and it was really really fun.

It was it was so so fun we I mean, just the amount of stuff I got her, I think I went a little bit overboard, but now thinking in hindsight, I'm glad I did.

But like that girl, I feel like we had a whole grocery car.

She had that thing like filled with like Plato and like art supplies and uh bluey coloring book, and like I think she got like, oh, she she got like lightsabers, like for not just her, but she got a lightsaber for Alec too, so they could like like they so again, she like always thought of like her brother, like you know, it was always like, oh, Alec can play this with me, So she'd always like she's very caring, and consider it, they both were.

They both they had that about themselves or they always cared about the other the other person, and they always wanted to make sure that they could play with them.

So they so, yeah, we got all the toys for her, and we did a cake for her, and she got to swim.

My sister got these cool little diving rings that like open up and so like you can legit like they're massive, you can like swim through them.

So we put them in the pool and she like swam through the rings and so lots of pictures and videos were taking that day, which is great because that were those were the last pictures I have and so I after that, then you know, she went to bed and like you know, life went on.

So like the fifteenth and the sixteenth, like I saw Alec Alec as well, because those were my day.

So that week I got to see Lydia on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday because her birthday was on a Tuesday.

So I got to see them three days in a row that week.

And then Friday, the seventeenth was ROX day to get them because it was his weekend, and so like normal, I packed their bags, got their lunches, dropped them off at school, said goodbye to them, and that was the last time I saw them alive.

So on the seventeenth, everything was like fine, they went to Brock's house.

I'm assuming they did their normal thing.

On the eighteenth, everything was fine.

I'm assuming they did their normal thing.

I don't.

I didn't really communicate with them a lot when they were at Brock's house except for the random picture here or there, but that those pictures weren't consistent and it wasn't every weekend.

But that was normal because that's what we did.

And so on the nineteenth they went.

Brock took them to church that morning.

That was this May nineteenth was a Sunday, and so he took them to church, and I from people that were at the church after the fact, they told me, like Alec and Lydia were acting normal, like they were running up and down the hallway like they normally do their their kids.

Pastors said that they were, you know, they were interacting like they normally did, Like there was no there was no precursor behavior to identify that something was about to happen or anything like that.

Because I think in processing my grief, you go through all of those things, like what could I have done if I went to the church that day, if I saw them, what I've noticed anything was different?

And now in hindsight, no, because nothing was different at that point like they were, they were, they were fine.

And so I guess later that night something must have occurred and he shot and killed Alec and Lydia and himself.

And I don't still to this day, I don't know what occurred, what this what that switch was that happened in his brain.

And that's something that through grief, I've had to come to the realization that, like, I'm not going to get those answers on this side of of heaven, so like I'm not gonna have I'm not going to have those answers.

So I have to understand that in come to some type of peace, and so I have, you know, through certain things that have happened after the fact, I've I've come to the realization of, you know, I don't think this was you know, premeditated.

I think it was a I think it was a moment of Okay, I'm gonna do this, and it was like a split decision, and it was impulsive and he just did it.

And I think that because reading the diagnosis reports from the institution that he was in months previous, there's a paragraph in there that says if he's if you stop taking the medications that he was on, it could have an adverse effect and cause severe aggression and anger and mood swings and like all this, like like crazy stuff, which is what he was experiencing it.

And it also said that he could start hearing voices again, which he was also when he was in the institution the first time in October, he was hearing voices.

So I think that he something must have switched and here he snapped.

So and like I said, I have no idea, There was no rhyme or reason.

Just a few days before that we were talking and everything was fine.

We we we talked on the phone and we were making plans for Alec and Lydia's award ceremonies.

Alec had or kidder or Alec had a second grade award ceremony that next week.

It would have been on a Wednesday, and then the next day, Thursday of that following week would have been Lydia's kindergarten graduation.

So we were talking about like Okay, are you are you coming to these events?

Yes?

Are you going to sit by us?

Yes?

Like so like we were making the all of these things, so there is nothing.

There is nothing.

And now looking back that I could see that made that would have made me have any alarm bells, So unfortunate.

Unfortunately, making plans ahead of time, yeah, you wouldn't have that knowledge that anything would have happened.

So you believe it was mental health related his decision.

Mental health related because in Rock's right mind, he would have never harmed ALC and Lydia.

He loved alc and Lydia.

I, like I said, he never hurt them prior.

And the reason I come to that conclusion is because the first time when he had his mental health crisis, he knew something was wrong and he called nine one one to get help on himself.

So if if he's was willing to do that and get help, then I think that same thing happened where he something occurred mentally with with that, and the pendulum was the pendulum was too far gone that he didn't think about, you know, calling anybody for help.

This the next time it happened, unfortunately, and you know, I don't know if I'm right or wrong, you know, but that's what I choose to move forward with, was it was mental health related.

And that's not that's not like a cap out.

That's not saying that, like, you know, he didn't do this horrible thing, because he did, but he was also very, very sick.

So that's what I just that's what I have come to the conclusion of.

So I admire your ability to look at this so rational and no one knows how these situations were better than you do, Like you've analyzed it to a t.

You understand his patterns, you understand that he didn't help.

So I think that that's very amazing, and I don't take it as a cop out, but I do know that part of this mission and part of your story is it is important to talk about mental health as well, because unfortunately there is such a stigma around receiving help and having a diagnosis as serious as bipolar disorder.

And I just think that that's amazing that you're able to do that.

Thank you so much.

And his was bipolar, but also because of the way his because bipolar.

I've really dove deep into this too.

Bipolar affects everybody differently.

There's different levels of bipolar.

It's a spectrum.

And because of the bipolar that he had, or because of the way that his pendulum swung before he got help, and that the medications that he was on, he before he was medicated, the bipolar actually became manic.

So like he actually became in that manic phase where he would hear those voices and he would he would think he was very paranoid and stuff.

That's not a typical bipolar attribute unless it's unmedicated, unless it's that severe.

It doesn't get that severe unless it's unmedicated like that.

So that's that's when we started seeing those huge, those huge mood swings and the manic episodes of the not the thinking that like myself and the church were the the Church of Satan and all of those kinds of things like That's that wasn't his in his right mind.

Like he was a normally like that.

So he was a very intellectual, smart guy.

He was an engineer, so like that wasn't in his mindset.

So he wasn't you know somebody that's like, you know, somebody's after me, or you know, paranoid like that.

So those are definitely attributes of the bipolar with the manic episodes.

So and speaking of the topic of mental health, having gone through such an immense tragedy for yourself, like what are you doing to keep up with your mental health and your self care for yourself?

I dove right in, Like a week after the tragedy of losing Alec and Lydia, I came back to Michigan to live with family, and I dove right into receiving help from their local church and being in their grief group and being immersed in different church groups like their prayer team.

I got.

I was able to get in contact with a therapist, and after a couple of weeks of them trying to figure out the right therapist for me, they found one.

And so I'm in therapy and I am doing very well with that.

I started off going once a week every week, and then I went down to every other week, and now I'm just doing it once a month because I'm doing very well with not just the therapy, but with the grief groups and meeting other people that have gone through similar situations as me have have also helped because it's it's made me realize that, like, I'm not alone.

And unfortunately Phil aside happens way too often.

So I've met I've met other parents that have gone through this, and so they've helped me just kind of weed through those difficult moments because they've been through it.

Unfortunately before I went through.

It, and grief you never know when something is going to come up for you either, right, So having that support where it's any day, anytime, and they understand and.

Grief is not grief is not linear.

And that's the one thing that I also learned is like it's not it's that like okay, step one, step two, step three, steps four, it's like all over the place.

And like, now I think it's interesting because I'm in that that stage of grief where it's not every day that I'm crying, because at the very beginning, it was like literally every day all day, like I like anything with anything would trigger.

But now I think it's even more difficult because I can get triggered by something that I won't even think that would trigger me, and it's random.

So I think it's more so even more difficult because before I could kind of expect it, like I was like, Okay, I'm gonna cry because that's going to trigger me.

But now I'm like, why am I crying, you know, in the middle of a grocery store, like you know, why?

Why?

You know?

And it's very and I think that's where the therapy helps too.

The therapy has helped tremendously with that, and like targeting like why am I having this?

You know, understanding your emotions.

This grief, Why am I having all of this stuff?

And then pinpointing what might cause that has helped me a lot.

Understanding kind of how our nervous system works and how our brain works to process grief from a logical standpoint has helped me tremendously so.

And there's absolute disconnect in losing your children as a parent, like it.

I'm sure you've worked through that.

There's it's supposed to be the other way around, and trying to come to terms with that is well impossible thing.

It is it is, And it's not even just losing alec and Lydia, but it's it's losing what they could have been like as you know, adults, or going or going to college, getting married, having children, Like because I don't have them anymore, I won't be a grandparent, you know, like necessarily to that, you know, if you know, hopefully in the future, I I'm able to you know, move on or not move on, but have you know, somebody special in my life and maybe be a step stepmom and have kids, you know from that standpoint, or have you know step kids and then have grandkids through them.

But I would That was one of the hardest things, was like, Wow, I won't have grandkids through Alec and Lydia because they're not here anymore.

So I think that that that was also very difficult to process too, was the secondary losses, not just the loss of Alec and Lydia.

But that they would be today, yes.

Correct, Yeah, because Lydia would be turning two and a half weeks from now.

Lydia would be turning seven, you know, and Alec would Alec would be nine in July.

Like I don't even know, like Alec would be eight all this year, Like I don't know what Alec would be like as an eight year old because he died when he was seven.

Lydia died when she just had turned six, so it's like, what would she even be Like, you know, they're.

A little frozen in time almost.

They're they're frozen in time.

Yep, exactly one hundred percent.

I'm very sorry that this happened to you.

Nobody deserves it, and like you said, it happens far too often.

Far too often.

Yep.

Oh, I was just gonna say, like every month, unfortunately, there's kids that pass away from phil Aside.

And I feel like I want to spread awareness and share Alec and Lydia's story and keep sharing it because I want to bring awareness not only to the mental health aspect, but also I want judges in our court system to understand, like they can't just look at a parent as a mom and a dad.

They have to look at the parent of like their background, like not just like a criminal background.

Because again, Brock didn't have a criminal history.

So I think a lot of times in our brains we think, okay, like he heard his you know, he killed his kids, he must have had a criminal background.

No, Brock never had a criminal background.

I don't think Brock ever had like more than two speeding tickets ever in his life.

Like he was not that type of, you know person, And so I think our judges need to understand and look at the backgrounds and look at the full picture of people's stories, of people's backgrounds of maybe their their medical history, their mental health history, all of that kind of you know, substance abuse abuse, possibly drug abuse, like all of those things.

They need to look at that everything before making the decision to place the kids with both parents.

I think that in our system, we the court systems, think about okay, splitting the assets and like who gets the house, who gets the car, who gets the ass, you know, all the assets and the money before we think about, okay, where the kid's gonna go and what is not just where are they gonna go, but what is the best option for them to go?

Is it better for them to be with mom full time right now, or is it better to be with dead full time?

Or or is it okay to have it split like whatever it might be.

And and I feel like they need to make sure that they look at the like I said, look at the full picture, but also understand that that picture can change over time.

So like I was just gonna say, you said that there was a period where things were going really well, yes, and then there was a period before that they weren't.

So it has to be taken case by case, situation by situation.

It's not just cut and dry, that easy.

And Unfortunately, I think in our court system now, I think they do make it that like cut dry, black and white, like Okay, this happened in this situation.

Yeah, and we're gonna deal with this situation the same thing we did with this one.

It's like, no, each family has their own dynamics, Like you have to look at everything.

So that's what I'm pushing towards, is like making sure that these judges really do understand the ins and outs.

And honestly, the best thing that has happened has been those strangers that have reached out to me on social media and have told me like, hey, I'm not sure one hundred percent, but I think because of you and what happened to your kids, my judge made this decision for my children, and that's happened.

There has been there's been a few people that have reached out from Arizona that have said, you know, I had a court case in Mary Coopa County the same time you did, and because this happened to your children, my judge then changed their decision.

And we're not one hundred percent.

You know, they can't verify if that's because of me, but they choose to believe that that's because of what happened to Alec and Lydia that their judge chose to change their decision.

And that's that's that's huge.

That's that's huge.

That's why I'm doing this, you know, That's why I'm I'm making this platform and spreading awareness is to you know, make those little changes.

So I think that that's incredible.

It's hard to, you know, cope with what has happened, but I admire your ability to look at what can happen and what can change moving forward.

And I think that I I know that your kids would be incredibly proud of you as well.

No, they would.

Is there any at the end of the day, what do you want people to remember your story as and your ultimate goal moving forward?

Do you have any plans anything in the works currently, any interviews coming up, anything that you'd like to plug or talk about.

Yeah.

So I have my social media platforms.

You can find me on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, all the things at Hope in the Pain, and then I'm also currently in the works with writing a book.

I'm about three fourth the way done, so I'm writing that and going to just keep spreading my message through that and Honestly, my mission.

I always say, like, I can't get them back, but I can do something to make sure that this does not keep happening to other kids and other families.

And so that's my mission and vision, as you know, I want them.

I want people to hear my story and understand that yes, it's this traject story of me losing alec and lydia, but also for me to move forward and spread this awareness so that this does not keep happening, and spread this awareness so that things can change in the mental health community as well, and getting more awareness out there of what philicide is, because honestly, before this happened, nobody in my life knew what philicide was.

They're like, what's philicide?

Like what?

And I was like, or that it was such a prevalent problem or it was.

A prevalent problem.

So yeah, So like spreading that awareness too, and making sure that people do understand that this happens.

And I think also, if you see some thing happening, don't just push it off and be like, oh, that's just how they interact as a family.

Really like, think about it, and by saying something, you might change something and change the trajectory of somebody getting mental health help, or somebody you know, possibly you know, leaving the situation so that they aren't put in danger.

And so I think that that's the thing is, you know, there was little subtle things that people told me, like, oh, Rock, you know, I wasn't necessarily really comfortable when Brock did this to you.

And I'm thinking in my head, like, why didn't you say something like you know, and like, again, hindsight is always twenty twenty and again I might not have I might not have listened to that at that specific moment, but telling me might have helped me and him come to a come to a better decision so that, you know, this didn't have to play out like it did.

So yeah, and there's two layers to this too.

You've not only found strength to try and better your life before all of this happened, but you're finding strength to better other people's lives now, and I just think overall, that's incredible.

I commend you for that.

I myself am a victim of domestic violence in the past, and it's not an easy decision to make, and it's and it's so so so scary.

So I just I think that how you handled all of this is incredible, and I know that you already know this, but I don't think that there was anything that could have been done.

At the end of the day, there was no warning signs, Like you said there was.

You did every step that you could as a mother and as a person to have the best situation for your kids.

So yes, yes, yep, and I think.

The world needs more people like you.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

And just if any of your listeners and viewers, like I said, if they would just like to help me with this and just coming in and following me on social media and following my journey and sharing you this episode of the podcast would greatly help, because any anybody that can help will be greatly appreciated.

You know, to get it adds up over time, absolutely, and it sounds like you're already making the impact that you're looking to in your community in Arizona.

Yes, yes, I will of course share the links to all of Hope's pages below, and please let me know when you do plan to release your book so that I could share that as well and buy a copy for myself.

I am a huge reader and stories like yours are not only tragic but beautiful at the end of the day.

And they do really put things into perspective of what's important and how we can choose to focus on and live our lives.

So, like you said, life is too short, so yes, make a big impact with it.

Yes, I always say at the end of every single video you've probably heard it, be kind and always abound in Hope.

So I love it.

I like I said, I fell in love with you on your page and I just think that everything that you're doing is beautiful.

I also just want to say that my close friends Rachel and Heather also sat down with Hope on an episode of Like Mother, Like Murder, so I will share that as well, because they did a really good job and it doesn't hurt to hear the story multiple times and to keep sharing and spreading the word.

So thank you for your time today, and thank you for sharing your story with me and for everything that you're doing for the true crime community, the legal community, and the mental health community.

Thank you, Thank you so much.

Thank you so much again, Hope for being here with me today, And remember that you are wanted, you are loved, and you deserve to be here.

And I will see you next week.

Truly Twisted is a proud production of Fireeyes Media, a woman owned and operated network.

This show is hosted, researched, and edited by me, Alicia Watson, and I would love if you would email me any case, suggestions or comments you may have at Alicia at fireeyesmedia dot com.

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