I awoke to the sound of the baby monitor crackling with a voice comforting my first born child. As I adjusted to a new position my arm brushed against my wife, sleeping next to me. The voice sang softly, “Hush little baby, don’t say a word momma’s going to buy you a mockingbird.” My first instincts tell me to reach for my gun in the drawer, in my nightstand, and next to my bed. So I listen. The voice singing grows softer and softer. I shake my wife’s arm until she awakes. She looks frightened, I can tell by how big her eyes are and how she sits up immediately. “Honey, call 911! Stay here.” I whispered in her ear. I ran on the tip of my toes to, my baby, Ella’s room with a gun in one hand. At least I would have the element of surprise on…show more content… The window slides open, and the lights turn on and off. The baby monitor starts to make static noises, and that’s when I realized there’s a sticky note on the baby monitor. It reads,” This baby is mine, she will beautifully bloom. I got mine and now you will too.”
My wife and I called the police filing a missing person report. Over the next couple of months, we did everything humanly possible in order to get Ella back. But, the hardest part was when my wife and I would find a small reminiscent of Ella. For example, I was on my way to work so I turned my stereo on. The car sang, “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes.” I guess I never took my daughter’s CD out of the…show more content… Regret that I was not capable of protecting my first born, grief that I could no longer hold my daughter and sing her to sleep swarmed my head. These thoughts would circle over and over again in my lonely mind. But those feelings aren’t the reason for my insomniac behavior. It was a deep, dark boiling rage in the pit of my stomach towards the person who stole Ella from me.
Not only has this person stolen my child, but she stole my heart, joy, and my four years of my life. The thief, my college sweetheart, Ella’s mother all describe a lady who goes by the name Valerie Crane. Valerie warned me about her revengeful return years ago when I switched the babies. I just wished I would’ve heeded her omen.
The day of Ella’s birth my wife went into to labor six earlier than expected. Clare had the baby we had been waiting for but the baby died almost killing my wife too. I knew my Clare would’ve been devastated like I was. So I began to stroll along the hallways of the hospital while my wife was sleeping, she had not awaken since the birth. On my walk I past the room where they keep the babies, I noticed one name on a pink crib, Ella Crane. A thought crossed my mind, could this be my child? Could this be Valerie Crane’s daughter? So I influenced the nurse into letting me take my child home early and that the mother of the child was well aware of the situation. Later that night,