Tara Woodlee

Ashleigh Lindsey

Break The Silence Against Domestic Violence

Ashleigh's Story told by her Mother...
On Friday, July 13th, 2012 my daughter Ashleigh Marie Lindsey and my unborn granddaughter, Patience Lynn, were killed in a brutal act of Domestic Violence.  Ashleigh was engaged and living with a man named Joshua Mahaffey.  They had a roommate as well, a man by the name of Joshua Scott.  On April 27, 2012, Ashleigh discovered she was pregnant.  By the time May rolled around Ashleigh was beginning to open up about Joshua Mahaffey's abuse. We encouraged her to leave and she did for about a week before going back to him.  During that week both Joshua Mahaffey and Joshua Scott showed up at our home trying to break in.  The police were called but Mahaffey fled on foot and was not caught.  He contacted Ashleigh, made promises to get help and to quit drinking.  She desperately wanted to believe him, so she went back. Within two weeks time she had left again.She hid at a friend's house and contacted no one for five days.  Meanwhile, both the Joshuas were calling me looking for Ashleigh claiming she just, "disappeared".  We had not heard from our daughter so within two days I was in a panic.  We filed a missing persons report with the Sheriff's Department. Once we did that Joshua Mahaffey just disappeared.  I thought for sure he had killed our daughter.  When she did turn up, Ashleigh informed us that she had left a note and that Josh knew she had left him.  She had no idea that he wouldn't tell us of the note in which she told him not to look for her at her parents house, because she wouldn't be there.She figured Josh would read me the note and know from it that she was lying low and would contact me when she could.  She contacted the police to release the missing person alert.  The deputy got on the phone with me and said, "she was alright but bruised."  She was pressing charges on Mahaffey.  We met her within the hour and what I saw was painful.  Ashleigh was so thin she looked sick from lack of food.  Even six days after the fight, her bruises were apparent.  She had a black eye, bruises on her arms where you could actually see his hand prints, bruises on her wrist, and one on her left hip to the stomach area. The details of her beating were horrific. The first week she was back, Joshua was all sweet and kind. He was an angel.  The next week he started drinking again. They argued. Arguing turned to him slapping her and as the week progressed it got worse. Finally, Ashleigh had enough and wanted to leave. He wouldn't let her. He punched her in the eye, she fell to the floor, and he kicked her in the stomach.  Telling her, "if she was leaving she wasn't going with that baby."  He grabbed her by her arms and shook her around like a rag doll.  Then shoved her head through a wall saying she was going no where. He made good on his promise, by tying her up so she couldn't leave.  He kept her hostage through the night till the next day when she convinced him she wasn't going to leave.  The only thing he accepted as proof of her love and devotion was sex. He refused to untie her until she agreed to sex.  All the while their roommate, Joshua Scott watched the abuse and never called police.  The next day when both Josh's went to work, Ashleigh grabbed what she could, left a note and hid.  I asked her why she didn't come home.  She said, "that Mahaffey made it clear, if she went home he would kill us all."  She believed him! She wouldn't go home with us, even when her father and I begged her to.  Over time, she slowly revealed the extent of the abuse she endured with me.The slapping, he loved to slap her.  Josh put her head through a wall three separate times.  He burnt her multiple times with cigarettes.  Shook her like a rag doll, threw things at her.  Called her dumb, fat, and ugly.  Got her fired from two jobs, because he didn't trust her to be out of his sight.  Once he even stabbed himself multiple times to keep her from leaving.  He ripped her clothes off her two times.  Once in front of their roommate to humiliate her, and another time in the middle of the road to stop her from leaving.  He stole her birth control because he wanted her pregnant... the list of horror goes on....For the next month and a half Ashleigh went into hiding, moving from friend to friend.  Joshua Mahaffey was well hidden too, by family and friends.  We discovered he had an extensive criminal record, which included over two years of open warrants for violating protective orders on other women he abused. As well as, Assault with a Deadly Weapon.  Now with Ashleigh's charge included with the others, it added Felony Assault.  I took Ashleigh to court and we filed for an Emergency Protective Order.  Ashleigh also contacted the closest Crisis Center to get help and counseling.  But there was no local Shelter for her to seek shelter and protection.  Mahaffey kept getting Ashleigh's phone number.  I had her number changed three separate times that month.  When Josh couldn't reach Ashleigh, he would call me and text me five to twenty times a day.  This went on even though I quit answering and responding to him.  Then he created bogus Facebook accounts, using fake names, and used Ashleigh's friends to try and find her.  Desperately, we reported all this information to the Sheriff Department.On July 4th, 2012 Josh sat outside Ashleigh's house, calling and threatening her and her roommates.  The Sheriff's Department was called and more charges were filed.  This occurred after Josh spoke to a deputy over the phone, for over an hour, in which he threatened to kill Ashleigh and himself.  The following day Josh called her work and threatened to kill everyone there if they wouldn't put Ashleigh on the phone.  Again more charges were added by the Deputies.  Her father and I were so desperate we spent that weekend searching for him.  We went to businesses showing his photo, begging people to call the police if they saw him.  Ashleigh was so stressed she became very ill on top of her morning sickness.  She had several days off work so I sent her to my mom's for a few days to recover.  On her way to her Grandma's she called me screaming and crying.  She insisted Josh was going to kill her and she would never get away from him.  She begged me to help hide her. I begged her to come home with us, but she wouldn't.  She was sure he would also kill her sister and me.  She wouldn't risk us.  That is when she informed me that his threats included raping us as well.  Wednesday, July 11 2012 Ashleigh went back to her friend's house and back to work.  Over the next two days, Ashleigh, her Crisis Advocate, her DA advocate, and I worked together and came up with a plan for her to enter a shelter an hour away.  Where no one would know where she was until Joshua Mahaffey was caught.  She wanted to finish her work week and go to the shelter that next Saturday.  Saturday didn't come soon enough.Friday, July 13, 2012 truly became the unluckiest day of my life.  About 1:45pm Ashleigh was saying good bye to her roommates fixing to leave for work, when Joshua Mahaffey broke through the front door.  His roommate Joshua Scott broke through the back door at the same time. Ashleigh had no where to run, so she locked herself in a bathroom.  Mahaffey kicked in the door knocking her to the floor, and then shot her in the shoulder.  She tried to block the second shot but couldn't. The second shot was to her head.  Immediately, he put the gun under his chin and killed himself.  Meanwhile, Joshua Scott tried to threaten Ashleigh's roommates.  One of them got away and called the police.  Ashleigh was still alive.  She was Care flighted to a hospital.  I will never forget my daughter's beautiful face, it was forever ruined.  Her face was distorted from the massive swelling, her eyes black and blue.  Speckles of blood spot like blisters all over her face.  Ashleigh's right hand was so burnt from trying to block the last shot that it was burned clear down to her elbow.  The nurses had to brown bag that hand for evidence.  At one point she went Code Blue, and I had to make the painful decision to have her revived.  Her Dad, Jim was with me in the room as they brought Ashleigh back.  I made that choice hoping our little Patience could survive.  We waited, and then the doctors came in and said, Ashleigh would never recover and there was nothing they could do to save her. We also waited for an OB/GYN Specialist hoping our precious Ashleigh could be kept on machines long enough to give our unborn granddaughter, Patience Lynn a chance at life.  The sonogram revealed her tiny baby heart was failing.  Once I knew Patience was truly gone, I was left alone with my daughter.Ashleigh's poor little body had been through enough.  I could see the scars on her arm, five or six of them from Joshua burning her with cigarettes.  I took her blood stained hand into mine and brushed what little of her hair that wasn't soaked in blood.  I bent down close and said-  "If you are holding on for the baby you don't have to any longer.  If this is too hard it's Okay for you to go.  It is all right.  Don't worry about your mommy I will be Okay." Within fifteen seconds she was gone.  I had the nurse get her dad and sister.  Ashleigh passed away in peace and quiet.  Later we were told Joshua Scott had been arrested.  He had also killed his mother's boyfriend, a man named Chad Page.  He stole Chad's car so he could pick up Joshua Mahaffey who was hiding hours away to drive him there to murder Ashleigh. They met Mahaffey's mother who gave them gas, money and beer, even though she was fully aware the police were looking for him.  Joshua Mahaffey, and Joshua Scott hunted down Ashleigh, broke into her home and killed our beautiful girl.  After her tragic death, many of Ashleigh's friends came forward about the domestic violence they were also enduring.  Several left their violent partners and a few needed help. Now Ashleigh's story is being passed on and is helping to save so many lives.  If you or someone you love is being abused, take it seriously.  Get help.  One in three women in their lifetime will experience Domestic Violence.  You are not alone.

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