“It’s all you think about, the what-ifs, the questions, could I have done this or that differently? I’ve cried every tear I can cry, and screamed and yelled. “It doesn’t get easier it gets harder,” KaSandra said. Or when they pass Serenity’s bedroom, still just as she left it, on the way to their own bedroom each night. Some moments are nearly unbearable, such as when their daughter Keeliea, 10, said her Christmas wish was only to have Serenity come back home. Overall, though, they have felt great support from neighbors, friends and community members in Sturgis and across the Black Hills, they said. Their children have been bullied at school.
They have both been attacked on social media by strangers who question their parenting, or worse. They barely hung on emotionally during the disappearance and initial search, and while they’ve tried to provide a sense of normalcy for their other children and keep working to provide for them, they have both suffered deep emotional wounds since Serenity ran away. The past year has been excruciating for both Chad, who is a mechanic in the National Guard and works for a local propane firm, and KaSandra, who works at the Fort Meade Veterans Affairs hospital in Sturgis. “She’s a very, very smart child, but she’s still just a kid, and how could many hundreds of adults and dog teams not find anything after she was in the woods only a few minutes ahead of them? How can they not find anything?” Yet they won’t be sure of anything until some evidence is found. The pair tend to think that Serenity got lost in the woods and remains there, not yet found by search teams and scent dogs.
The police in Sturgis got to know her and would bring her home, KaSandra said.ĭespite her unease, Serenity was a highly intelligent girl who loved animals, babies, watching movies, singing along to music, riding her bike and spending time with her grandmother. She ran away during the day and at night on foot and on her bike sometimes on a whim and sometimes with a packed bag and a plan to go somewhere specific. Serenity had run away numerous times, they said, because she would begin to feel uneasy in her stable environment, wondering if the love, support and good times could really last. The pair had worked for years to help Serenity deal with trauma she suffered after being given up for adoption and spending time in a dozen foster homes. Serenity felt good about being at the children’s home and receiving inpatient treatment for conditions including reactive detachment disorder, because she felt she was getting better, Chad and KaSandra said.
I love you, bye.’ And she ran back because they were showing ‘Maleficent’ and that was her favorite movie,” Chad recalled. “I said, ‘Well, Seren, we’ve got to go, we’ll see you next week,’” and he gave her a hug and a kiss goodbye. He remembers a fairly normal visit, with Serenity (a budding foodie) sharing detailed accounts of the meals she was served, and the children playing peacefully as a group for about 90 minutes. The pair live in Sturgis where, until Serenity went missing in February 2019, they were raising Serenity and three other children, now ages 15 months to 11 years old.Ĭhad and the children visited Serenity at the children’s home the day before Serenity ran away. Together, they served as Serenity’s primary caregivers beginning in mid-2015, when Chad divorced from Serenity’s adoptive mother and began a relationship with KaSandra. Chad Dennard is Serenity’s legal adoptive father and KaSandra is his wife.
0 kommentar(er)
