Is Justice Finally Looming? The Weight of Waiting.

Greetings all.

It has been more than two years since I last updated this space, and silence was never my intention. Life has simply carried a weight I have struggled to put into words.

In October, the United States Supreme Court denied Karl Roberts his final appeal. The decision of guilt for capital murder and the penalty of death given rightly by a jury of his peers. With that decision, the case that has followed me for more than two decades reached the end of the judicial road — leaving the responsibility to set an execution date in the hands of the Governor of Arkansas. As of today, I have heard nothing from their office.

And so, once again, I wait. We wait. Andi's family, her friends, community, the entire state of Arkansas waits.

However, waiting is not new to me. I have been waiting for 25 years — waiting for justice for my 12-year-old daughter, Andi, who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a man who knew exactly what he was doing. Waiting does not get easier with time. It only deepens. I sometimes feel I will get a call that says they are just going to give him life without parole or worse life with the possibility of parole. But the worst fear is with the stroke of a gubernatorial pen, this monster is set free to rejoin society where he has admitted "he couldn't promise he wouldn't do it again." This should send any parent into panic and terror. Because what this man did is the worst of the worst.

Recently, I appeared on ABC’s 40/29 to speak about this case and the long road that has led us here. I spoke not as a woman seeking revenge, but as a mother seeking justice. There is an important difference, and I want to be very clear about that.

I am not driven by anger or hatred. I am driven by justice for my daughter. From 2015-2020 I served in the Arkansas House of Representatives where I was nicknamed the "Angel of Death," by an unnamed newspaper because I fought so hard to bring victim families dignity and the choice of whether they wished to even witness an execution and how they ought to be treated. The name of the law I sponsored was "Andi's Law", and it passed by the way. You can read the law with a simple internet search. Victims should have the right to either view an execution or not, before "Andi's Law," the previous statue was just downright cruel to victim families.

I digress, justice, at the end of this road, does not bring celebration. It does not bring relief in the way people imagine. It brings heartache and reminds me of everything that was taken and everything that will never be returned. For me it took me straight back to those 3 days my child was missing and the trauma of being told not only was she taken out of the security of her own living room but driven ten miles away down an old logging road, brutally raped and covered with scrub brush while her murderer then went to have a cup of coffee with his father. The thought of her being left alone, to die alone and scared is earth shattering. No capital murder charge, no execution, no legal finality restores what was stolen from my child or from our family.

A few things that still haunt me is knowing that she begged to be taken home. Knowing that she said she “wouldn’t tell her daddy.” Knowing that despite those pleas, a grown man chose himself over her life. That kind of knowledge never fades. It lives with you every day.

As a parent, the trauma is not confined to the past. It is carried forward, year after year, court date after court date, appeal after appeal. Each delay reopens wounds. Each pause forces you to relive the worst day of your life over and over again.

I am not looking forward to witnessing an execution. No mother ever looks forward to something like that. But I feel compelled to be present — not out of vengeance, but out of love. To stand for my daughter. To support her, the gentle apparition who has never left my heart or my mind for a single day.

This story is not theoretical. It is not political. It is my life.

When I ask you, as a reader, to walk in my shoes — even for a moment — I ask you to imagine what it means to wait decades for justice while knowing that the person responsible for your child’s death has continued to breathe, to wake up, to not stand accountable every single day. Meanwhile Andi is in a cold grave in Hatfield, Arkansas. Justice is not about punishment for punishment’s sake. It is about accountability. It is about protecting other children from the possibility of being harmed by the same predator.

This is not easy to write. It is not easy to live. But silence no longer feels like an option. This happened. This chapter of my life needs to be closed. Vengeance and justice are not the same thing.

Far from it.

Again, Roberts took his case clear up to the United States Supreme Court where it reads: October 06, 2025 Petition DENIED.

Emphasis on the word denied is theirs, not mine. If interested in reading the entire document, you can go to supremecourt.gov and search No. 24-6798

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I'm tired and think I will go take a nap.