Beyond the headlines about violent criminals exist parents, siblings, partners, children, and other relatives who are left with the broken pieces of their family member's actions. Many deal with lifelong shame and guilt, and feel responsibility for their relative's sins. Sometimes they are victims too.
Below are 10 times relatives have publicly spoken out about their life with violent offenders and the aftermath.
Content warning: These cases contain discussions of suicide and murder.
1. Jenn Carson, the daughter of James Carson and stepdaughter of Suzan Barnes, aka the San Francisco Witch Killers, penned an essay for HuffPost describing her struggle to find peace as the daughter of serial killers. After learning about her father and stepmother's crimes as a young child, Jenn Carson became fearful, distrusting, and faced shame from others. She wrote, "If my father could kill people, then, I reasoned, anyone could be a killer..."
Not wanting to hide who she was, Carson sought treatment and became an advocate for children with incarcerated parents, families of violent offenders, and victims of violent crime. In 2015, she fought alongside the victims when her father and stepmother were up for parole, speaking out to say that they should both remain behind bars.
2. Three years ago, Ted Bundy’s ex-girlfriend spoke to ABC under the pseudonym Elizabeth Kendall. “I still have a sense of disbelief, that this man that I loved could go out and do such horrific things,” she said. “In the very beginning I asked him, ‘Did you read this? Do you know what they’re saying? There’s so many things here that people are going to be looking at you,’ kind of making a joke out of it, but once I started to worry, like, ‘Could this be true?’ I didn’t feel safe bringing it up. I didn’t want him to know what I was thinking.”
"I still cared deeply for Ted when I wrote the original book," Kendall wrote in the new introduction. "It took years of work for me to accept who he was and what he had done. I still felt lingering shame that I had loved Ted Bundy. It was healing for me when women started telling their stories of sexual violence and assault as part of the Me Too movement. I could relate to keeping experiences secret for fear of being judged."
3. Richard Bundy, Ted Bundy's little brother, spoke publicly about his life with Ted on Amazon's Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer. Of his childhood with Ted, Richard said, "We were more than just brothers. We were close friends. I really looked forward to spending time with him, which I did a lot of."
As for life today, Richard Bundy said, "Some things make me really depressed, in an almost debilitating way where I will sit in this chair for days. I'll sometimes stay in this camper for two, three days at a time. ... I don't recommend it to everyone, to live your life precariously, but if I know I have enough to keep shelter and food for my cat and I, that's the most important thing."
4. For most of her life, Kerri Rawson kept a low profile and avoided press while she processed her dad's double life as the serial killer BTK, or Dennis Rader. That is until 2019, when Rawson opened up for the first time with the release of her book, A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming.
When asked how she didn't know of her father's double life, Rawson told Esquire, "My mom and I have both said, early on, if we had known, we would've gone screaming out the door, running to the police."
After years of therapy, processing, and healing, Rawson felt comfortable speaking to the media. "I realized as soon as I started speaking up, it was like this release fell," she told NBC. "Crime victims started showing up. They started contacting me. They're like, 'Something you're doing, something you're saying, is helping us.'"
Now Rawson is helping investigators solve cold cases that may involve her father. According to the New York Times, her contributions just this year have helped investigators identify her father as the prime suspect in two cold cases.
5. Melissa Moore, the daughter of Keith Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer, has spoken extensively about building a life for herself after her father's crimes. On A&E's Monster in My Family, she said, "Being the daughter of a serial killer puts everything into question. Am I worthy? Do I have a right to exist when he took so much away from other people? If I'm happy, is that a slap in the face to the victims' families? I don't want it to be."
Since publicly sharing her story as a the daughter of a serial killer, Moore has written a book called Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter and begun creating resources for families of killers and crime survivors. "It wasn't until I saw a local case that got me to be active in telling my story in a vocal way. ... I wanted to reach out to them to let them know that they're not alone. That's what got me on the quest to write my memoir," she shared on TikTok.
6. Mildred D. Muhammad, the ex-wife of DC sniper John Allen Muhammad, speaks publicly about her experiences as the ex-spouse of a brutal criminal, as well as a survivor of abuse. On A&E's Monsters in My Family, she talked about how people viewed her after her ex-husband's attacks and murders. She said, "At that time [after the attacks], they told me that if I stayed with him, then he just would've killed me."
7. Tonya Beasley, the daughter of Richard Beasley, aka the Craigslist Killer, spoke to Nick Kern, the son of one of her father's victims, on A&E's Monster in My Family: "For the longest time, I just felt guilty because one of the last times I actually spoke with my father, he asked me to make him a Craigslist account. Maybe had I not even had the connection that we did have, or the desire to help do even small things like that, then maybe it wouldn't have happened. And among that personal guilt is also the fear. I don't want anyone to blame me."
8. In 2009, April Balascio, daughter of serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards, told police about the suspicions she had about her father after she discovered the 1980 killings of Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew. The teenagers disappeared from where her father worked doing odd jobs before the family skipped town. "Kids aren't stupid. There were dead bodies. Someone was always murdered wherever we lived," she told People magazine. "During this whole process, you're still holding out for hope that he's not this monster that I think he is, that he's just my dad and has a temper."
9. Shelly Ramirez — the niece of Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker — and her mother, Sandy Tapia, Richard's ex-sister-in-law, met with one of Richard's victims, Bill Carns, also for A&E's Monster in My Family. Shelly Ramirez said, "When we found out that Richie was the Night Stalker, it was an end of innocence. Being related to somebody like that, it's just awful. ... My uncle Richie's actions, they hurt all of us. My mom just unfortunately got involved with the wrong man with the wrong family."
10. Karen Kuzma, the sister of John Wayne Gacy, met with Patti Szyc-Rich, the sister of John Szyc, one of Gacy's victims, to express remorse for her brother's actions. "When we got the news, we were totally in disbelief. The lawyers wouldn't let us say anything to these families. We were never able to apologize," Kuzma said to A&E.
