05/20/2026
Revenge would have been wanting him to suffer for my satisfaction. What I wanted was accountability for the death of my child. There is a difference, and any parent who has had to bury their six-year-old daughter would understand that immediately.
You ask how I know he wasn’t remorseful. Because remorse is shown through actions, not carefully timed words after two years of denial. The judge himself stated that when given many chances, he lied up to the very end. That mattered. Courts look at conduct and FACTS, not performance.
This was not a man who immediately accepted responsibility. This was a man who fought it, delayed it, minimized it, and only took a plea when the walls closed in. Saying “everyone waits for a plea deal” does not make that morally admirable. It means he protected himself first. My daughter never got that luxury.
You say “an apology is not law.” Correct. But accountability matters, truth matters, and character matters. Especially when someone’s decisions killed a child.
What is especially disturbing is pretending this is equally tragic “for all parties.” No. My daughter is dead. I had to plan a funeral for my child instead of planning her future. I had to walk into a hospital and leave without her. I live every day knowing she never gets another birthday, another Christmas, another bedtime story, another chance to grow up.
Meanwhile, he had freedom for nearly two years while we fought for justice and since you brought up remorse, truly remorseful people do not repeatedly commit fraud to evade responsibility. Truly remorseful people do not value money over the safety and wellbeing of their own children. Truly remorseful people do not spend years trying to protect assets and themselves while the family they destroyed is left trying to survive emotionally, financially, and spiritually.
Do not lecture me about anger when you have never stood over a tiny casket containing your child. I do not “hold hate in my heart.” I hold grief. I hold trauma. I hold the reality of what his choices destroyed and I will never apologize for refusing to pretend this was some mutual tragedy where everyone suffered equally.
The saddest part is not that he finally went to prison. The saddest part is that it took two years for the court to tell the truth he hid from.
What I look forward to now is healing. I look forward to finally exhaling after nearly two years of carrying the unbearable weight of fighting for accountability while grieving the loss of my daughter. As the dust begins to settle, what continues to shock me is the audacity of people who believe they have the right to dictate how I should have grieved, how angry I should or should not have been, what words I should have spoken, or what path I should have taken after burying my child. The people offering judgment were not the ones waking up every day to a nightmare they cannot escape. They were not the ones sitting in courtrooms, reliving the details, or walking through life carrying a grief so heavy it changes you at your core. Healing does not require me to silence my pain to make others comfortable and moving forward does not mean I owe anyone approval, forgiveness, or an edited version of my truth.
Tiffany Grovum
